Sarah didn’t speak. He was very grateful for that.

“I never saw anything,” Hugh said. “If he marked her, he was always careful to do it where it would not show. She never limped, she never bruised. But”—he looked up at Sarah; he finally looked up at Sarah—“I could see it in her eyes.”

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said again, but there was something wary in her expression, and after a moment she looked away.

Hugh watched as she tucked her chin against her shoulder, shadows flickering across her throat as she swallowed. He’d never seen her so uncomfortable, so ill-at-ease.

“Sarah,” he began, and then he cursed himself for an idiot, because she looked up, expecting more, and he had no idea what he ought to say. His mouth hung wordlessly slack, and she let her eyes fall back down to her lap, where her hands were nervously picking at her bedsheets.

“Sarah, I would—” he blurted out. And what? What? Why couldn’t he finish a bloody sentence?

She looked up, again waiting for him to continue.

“I would never . . . do that.” The words choked forth from his throat, but he had to say it. He had to make sure she understood. He was not his father. He would never be that man.

She shook her head, the motion so tiny he nearly missed it.

“Hurt you,” he said. “I would never hurt you. I could never—”

“I know,” she said, blessedly cutting off his awkward avowals. “You would never . . . You don’t even need to say it.”

He nodded, turning sharply away when he heard himself draw a short, tortured breath. It was the sort of sound one made right before losing oneself completely, and he couldn’t—after everything that had happened that day—

He could not go there. Not now. So he shrugged, as if an insouciant motion could flick it all away. But all it seemed to do was intensify the silence. And Hugh found himself in the same position he’d been in before she had asked about his mother, frozen near the door, not knowing what to do with himself.

“Did you sleep?” Sarah finally asked.

He nodded and found the momentum to move forward and settle into the chair Honoria had vacated. He hooked his cane over the arm and turned to look at her. “And you?”

“I did. I was overset. No, I was overcome.” She tried to smile, and he could see that she was embarrassed.

“It’s all right,” he started to say.

“No,” she blurted out, “it’s not, really. I mean, it will be, but—” She blinked like a cornered rabbit, then said, “I was so tired. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired.”

“It’s understandable.”

She stared for a long moment, then said, “I don’t know what came over me.”

“I don’t either,” he admitted, “but I’m glad it did.”