She pressed her face against arms that were folded over her drawn-up knees and rocked in silent misery. She tried to form the words, tried to put into coherent phrases how the nightmare had returned to haunt her, all the memories of those long-ago days as a soldadera returning so sharply, the degradation like a knife in her soul.

Panting, heartsick, Ginny lifted her head at last, her frustration thick in her throat. “You have no idea what it is to be a woman, to be a thing paraded on a man’s arm, to be forced to do things you never dreamed existed and be unable to escape…no, you’re a man used to taking what you want, doing what you want, and you have no idea what it is to be so helpless, to be so frightened of what will be done to you next that all you can do is obey like a trained dog whenever fingers are snapped. You will never, never understand because no one has ever done that to you! You’ve no idea what it is to be touched when and how you don’t want to be touched, or the shame of having your body exposed to the eyes of a man you hate. God, it makes me sick to think of it!”

Breathless, sobbing now, she was barely aware that he had sat back on his heels and was staring at her, his eyes a pale gleam in the shadows. The night was filled with the sound of falling water and the thunder of her own heartbeat.

“Maybe I understand more than you think, Ginny.”

It was said so quietly she almost didn’t hear it, but the words lingered somehow, an offering and a confession.

He laughed, a hollow sound. “I never told you—never told anyone—but in the prison where Devereaux sent me, there was a doctor…He’s dead now. I wish I had been the one to kill him, but someone else he tormented had that particular pleasure. He made me feel the way you just described…as if I were a thing to be used for his own gratification. He used to taunt me, bring me into his office where he sat behind a white linen tablecloth spread with hot food and wine, knowing that if I’d had anything at all to eat, it was not enough, just scraps of moldy bread or dirty water. He tried to break me down in other ways, as well. I know what it is to feel powerless, to be touched when and how I don’t want to be touched. To be afraid.”