Always a Temptress by Eileen Dreyer

Author:Eileen Dreyer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA
Published: 2011-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

Kate hated lying in bed. She hated being passive. She hated hurting. Mostly, she hated wondering why. Not why she’d been helped down the steps. That was easy and understandable. She was a danger to someone, and they’d tried to stop her.

She hurt a little bit everywhere, and that shivery, nauseous feeling of shock plagued her. But those were old acquaintances. She’d suffered worse from Murther after a bad night at cards. But those injuries had never kept her in bed, no matter the cost. She had always refused to admit that Murther could hurt her so badly.

Today was different. Her injuries weren’t bad, as injuries went. Her emotions were much more problematic. Suddenly she was prey to the most unpardonable urge to cry, and over something that had happened all of ten years ago. Surely a killer in the house should trump that.

Evidently, it didn’t.

She supposed she should have felt surprised by what Harry had revealed about her father. Shocked. What shocked her was that she really wasn’t that surprised at all. She was just crushingly sad. Afraid. Ashamed.

Why had Papa said those things? What had she done that could be so bad, he would accuse her of whoring herself at only fifteen? And with George, for God’s sake. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t recall a transgression so great that it would turn her own father against her.

Surely she should have easily remembered such a moment, for it would have changed everything for her. But her life had never changed. From her earliest memories she’d lived the same way. Cook had petted her, and George had hugged her, but mostly it had seemed as if she didn’t exist. As if she were being shunned, but never told why.

She had tried so hard to break through that invisible wall, especially with Papa. She’d left painstakingly written letters for him, earnestly drawn pictures. Carefully collected sparrow’s nests. Wildflowers tied into limp little clumps, and a lopsided sampler that said HONOR THY FATHER AND MOTHER. He had never even acknowledged getting them.

Aunt Maude had told her that her father couldn’t look at her because she bore such a resemblance to her mother, whom she’d killed. But Kate had always known better. After all, how could he know she looked like her mother? He’d never known her mother when she was nine.

Kate had always suspected it was something more. A defect of some kind that was only discernible on closer acquaintance. It was the only reason she could think that a man so beloved by everyone couldn’t seem to love her. Was there something in her that repelled good men and turned mean ones into monsters? Was Murther all she deserved after all? She had never had the courage to ask.

No, that was wrong. She had screwed up her courage twice. The first had been when she was being called to account for calling her sister a bird-witted harridan. She’d been standing in front of Papa’s big oak

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