How had anyone borne such torture and lived?
Scalding tears stung her eyes, but she forced them back. A sob jammed behind her lips. She must be strong, just as Gideon had been strong.
Her horrified gaze clung to the pattern of cicatrices across his flesh. Every inch of his back carried the mark of violence. His captors must have beaten him again and again. They must have stabbed him and burned him. Her imagination failed as she sought to measure his torment.
With one trembling hand, she touched a thick puckered line that snaked around his ribs. He flinched again, although the wound had long since healed.
“Have you had enough?” he asked cuttingly.
“Oh, Gideon, what did they do to you?” she whispered.
“I warned you.”
She traced the scar, feeling where other scars intersected it. The raised flesh under her touch was unnaturally smooth. “I still think you’re beautiful,” she choked out.
His muscles tensed, then he jerked away from her tentative exploration.
“Do you indeed, sweet Charis?” he snarled, whirling to face her. “What about this?”
With savage swiftness, he ripped the gloves from his hands and flung them to the floor.
Nineteen
Charis’s heart crashed to a halt. At last she saw what Gideon had hidden all this time. She saw and yet could hardly believe it.
She thought viewing the scars on his back had tested the limits of her courage. But this, this went beyond anything she could conceive.
Her appalled gaze clung to the ruined hands he spread out before her as if he taunted her with their shattered elegance. “Oh, Gideon,” she whispered, the words lacerating her throat.
“Quite a sight, aren’t they? At least they work. After the torture, I wasn’t sure they would.” His tone stung. He lifted his right hand and held it so close in front of her face that the tangled network of scars blurred. “Do you want these touching your skin? Do you?”
She jerked back, mainly at the corrosive pain in his voice, then made herself stand still and look without flinching. He wanted her to recoil, she knew. He wanted her to confirm he was as repulsive as he believed.
“Don’t,” she begged. Shaking, she reached out to catch his hand, but he wrenched free to stand in front of the grate.
Apart from hectic streaks of color lining his prominent cheekbones, his face was drawn and gaunt. His mouth was a white gash of anger. His black eyes were brilliant with humiliation and self-loathing.
“Don’t touch you?” His bitter laugh made her cringe. “I wouldn’t dream of desecrating your body with these claws.”
“No…” He’d misunderstood her. Deliberately, she guessed. Her belly clenched in sick misery. She raised unsteady hands to her face and discovered it wet with tears.
He had so much pride. His pride was part of his extraordinary strength. But that also meant he’d hate her to cry over him. She should stop.
If only she could.
He sent her a blistering glare, then stalked toward the door, snatching up his coat on the way. “I’ve had enough of this. Find some other damned charity case.”
“Gideon, please don’t go,” she forced through a throat thick with churning emotion.
“I’ll see you in
the morning,” he grated out without looking at her. On the hand that clutched his coat, his broken knuckles shone white.
She couldn’t let him leave like this, believing she despised him for his injuries. Lunging forward, she grabbed his bare arm with both hands. “No!”
“Let me go, madam,” he said stiffly, although at least he curtailed his headlong retreat.
She expected him to shove her away and make his escape. But he stood facing the door, his back to her, quivering as he did in the grip of his affliction.