“I cannot as I don’t understand.” Embarrassment sent a shocking wave of pink to infuse her skin. She was so damned lovely spread out like this, but Gabriel ignored the temptation. He moved the cloth between her legs once more, taking note when she winced and gentling his actions.

“It’s very simple, my lady. Either you’ve slept with others in the past or you have not.” Gabriel’s tone became coolly impersonal. He effortlessly slipped into a role he knew quite well. That as an interrogator. Someone who knew ways of enticing even the most seasoned and hardened of criminals to spill all their secrets.

“Gabriel, please.” She was pleading with him, but for what, he did not know. Mercy? Understanding? Absolution?

Guilt rose to choke Gabriel, along with the dread of suspicion. Either he’d hurt her enough that she bled or she had lied in a desperate attempt to avoid marriage.

Marriage to him.

“I’m waiting for an explanation.”

Celia let out a sob of such anguish it nearly ripped Gabriel’s heart into pieces. But while she squirmed against his grip in a series of useless movements, he held her in place, his face an emotionless mask.

“I do not know. I don’t, I swear it!” she cried out in a soft wail. “It only happened once, but the pain was so unbearable. I begged him to stop, to let me go. But he did not. He held me down and kept going… and going… until he…”

Gabriel could not believe what he was hearing. Someone had attacked her? Someone forced themselves upon his sweet, fiery Celia? Someone stole from her the singular prized possession a young woman of society could offer a man?

Rage began slowly building inside him. A lust to maim and kill the man responsible for this atrocity against his wife beat like war drums inside his veins.

But the blood he’d cleaned from between her thighs reminded Gabriel he was certainly not innocent by any means. Thinking she was experienced meant he’d taken Celia as roughly as he would have fucked a courtesan in a brothel. He’d spanked her, toyed with her, and plunged inside her tight depths with a single-minded determination to feed his own obsession. Yes, she found her pleasure, but at what cost?

Releasing Celia’s hands, Gabriel slowly rose from the bed. Immediately, she yanked the coverlet over her body and up to her chin. She watched as he silently washed the cloth out in the basin and then discarded the water in a separate bucket behind a small bathing screen.

Picking up his discarded shirt, Gabriel thrust his arms through the sleeves, buttoning it with cold efficiency. He could not stem the anger bleeding through his actions, nor did he consider how it might appear to Celia.

His glare was truly not meant for her, but it was directed in her direction, regardless. She was a convenient vessel for his frustration.

“Who was it, Celia? And why did he not face the consequences for his actions? Many a man has been forced to the alter based on such behavior.”