He thought about that for a minute, then gave a minute shrug. “It was about that night.”

“What night?”

“The night my mother died. My other mother.”

Oh, lord. Had Nick been present when Elizabeth was killed? Gillian tried to remember what Noble had told her about the trauma that had sent Nick into self-imposed silence. He had said it had its roots in Elizabeth’s death, and she had assumed he was traumatized because his beloved stepmother had been taken away from him.

“You can tell me if you’d like, Nick,” she said, still stroking his head. He leaned into her and spoke in a soft, monotonous voice so devoid of emotion that it made her skin crawl. What he described made her sick. And furious.

“I was there again, in that room, her room, and she was there with him, and he was making me watch as he whipped her.”

Gillian felt the blood drain from her face. Dear God, had she been wrong all along about Noble? Was the damning truth to come from the mouth of his own child?

“She screamed and screamed and wouldn’t stop, and neither would the bleeding, and I thought I was going to be sick on the carpet when he started cutting her with a knife. I put my hands over my eyes, but I could still hear her screaming and begging him to stop, but he wouldn’t.”

Gillian clutched his head to her bosom and rocked him, squeezing her eyes closed over her tears. What sort of a monster was Noble? How could he commit such obscene acts, and in front of a child?

“She stopped screaming, so I thought it was all right to look, I thought he was done, but he wasn’t, he had just tied something across her mouth, and tied her arms to the bed. Then he looked at me, and he laughed and laughed and told me to take off my clothes, that he wanted to leave Papa something to remember him by.”

Gillian thought she was going to be sick for a moment, but then Nick’s words struck her. “Papa? Nick, who was the man who was doing…who was doing those bad things?”

Nick shook his head. “I don’t know his name, I just know him. He hurt her.”

Gillian laid her head on his, relief swelling over the fact that Noble was innocent of such heinous crimes. She tightened her arms around the boy. “Was that the end of the dream?”

He shook his head again. “The man made me take off my clothes, and then he started laughing again, and I…” He tried to burrow his head into Gillian. She rubbed his back, overwhelmed by the waves of agonizing torment rolling off him. How could a child survive such a hellish scene?

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t wish to, Nick.”

“I wet myself,” he said in a small voice. “Just like a baby, but I couldn’t help it. The man stood over me with the whip and he laughed harder and said how just it was that Papa’s son should be such a weakling.”