32. Grace and Freedom #3
Jack leaned his head back, looking for all the world like he could fall asleep and happily never wake up.
For long seconds, he stared at her, his thoughts clearly churning behind his eyes.
“You begged me first,” he told her quietly.
“You told me how badly you needed to be free. I couldn’t reason with you.
I thought the lantern would help.” He cast his gaze toward the lamp’s ruined silhouette, and his tone turned scathing.
“Then you broke it, and we’ve been sitting here for hours while you berated me and said the most awful things I’ve ever heard anyone say.
You were rather creative, and I still can’t decide if I’m insulted or impressed. ”
Oh God. God, no, the words, the accusations, the cruelty she’d tried so hard to keep inside—they’d made it out. An apology rose to her lips, but a question rushed before it.
“Why were you were apologizing to me?” If anything, she needed to grovel before him.
Jack scrubbed his hands over his face, wincing as his torn flesh pulled.
“Because restraining you is awful, but tying you down felt crueler.” A violent shiver rocked his frame, and his voice sharpened.
“You said such terrible things to me. You accused me, but I’m not those noblemen you killed.
I’m not those guards, and I wouldn’t let you go because I wanted to save your life—not because I think I own you or any of the absurd shit you said.
I told you we are equals and I meant it.
Even if I had all the money and power in the world, you would never be less than I am. ”
A stone sank to the pit of her stomach, turned, and traced an oily trail of guilt through her guts. She made herself hold his gaze. “I don’t think you’re like those men. You’re not like that at all.”
His tone thinned. “Do you remember what I said to you?”
The way he looked at her, almost pleadingly, suggested that whatever he’d said in the midst of her sickness had been important. But he was nervous too, and she hoped it would soothe him in some way when she shook her head.
“I remember nothing,” she said. “Not what you or I said, or doing this to you.” Her hand moved toward his arm, but he flinched away from her.
Her brows furrowed as her heart split. She’d been so horrible that Jack Copson, the ruthless heir of an infamous pirate king, was afraid of her.
In the back of her mind, Morgyn’s voice giggled, Monstrous bitch.
She didn’t mean to. She hadn’t meant to. He was hurt because of her, but she couldn’t have helped it, and it was her fault—
“Cecily,” he said, a plea and an apology wrapped into the tenderness of her name. Yet he didn’t try to reach for her. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
With shaking limbs, she pushed to her feet and teetered toward a low cabinet where Jack stored his liquor. Aware of his gaze and her own exhaustion, she grabbed a bottle, filled a bowl with water, found a clean cloth and a roll of bandages, then returned to his side.
She didn’t meet his gaze as she gently took his hand, extended his arm, and began to carefully dab away the blood.
These wounds were the only ones she knew how to fix right now. All she’d said and done to hurt him deeper would be addressed, but first, she needed to tend to him in a way that mere words couldn’t.
He gritted his teeth when she cleaned his wounds with the alcohol, but he let her do it.
Then she gently wrapped his arm, her movements slow and measured as though she might spook him.
Once she finished, she reached for his other arm and began to clean it too, and when her cloth had turned red and the water was dark, she tied off his final bandage and looked down at her nails.
The crescents at her fingertips were still red. She stared at them, wavering in her tiredness before she began scrubbing them too.
Jack reached for her arm. “You should sleep.”
Cecily kept scrubbing.
He rolled to his knees and gently tugged her elbow. “Cecily.”
Her gaze lifted tentatively, eyeing the scar on his cheek. Surrounded by the mess she’d caused, and embarrassed and appalled by the damage she’d wrought, she said weakly, “I hurt you again.”
He released a breath through his nose. “You didn’t mean to.” He pulled the cloth from her hands and set to cleaning her fingers for her.
“I’m so sorry for what I did and said. I wish I hadn’t.” She took a shaky breath. “I feel like a monster again.”
Maybe she always would be. Perhaps all this changing she’d done was only on the surface, and she was doomed to the same rotten soul beneath.
“You slay monsters,” he said gruffly, his blue eyes stern.
“And I like that you do. You got it wrong for one night. You were sick, but that doesn’t make you a monster.
” The bandage Hester had tied over the wound on her hand was soaked with his blood as well, and he changed it with deft fingers.
When he was done, he helped her to her feet and steered her toward the bed.
She collapsed onto the mattress, burdened by guilt Jack couldn’t assuage. After all she’d healed and grown, it frightened her to think it could all come crashing down in one night, and that she could so badly frighten the man she loved.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she mumbled into her pillow.
He slid in behind her and pulled the covers over her shoulder. He made no move to hold her, and as much as it hurt, she couldn’t blame him.
“I know,” he said. “Sleep, love.”
It wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear, but she let it be as she was dragged into oblivion.