My scream echoes down the hospital corridor as I watch, horrified, Lamar pull the two of them apart. I believe that if he hadn’t intervened, Rodrick would have killed Gilroy. The level of violence in him is terrifying.
When the head of the bodyguards finally drags my husband off his half-brother, Rodrick doesn’t even turn in my direction. He walks away down the corridor without looking at me.
I think about going after him, but Athol appears in the doorway of his room, wearing a hospital gown. From the pallor of his face, I know he heard everything.
“What happened?” he asks.
I’m shaking so badly that my legs can no longer support me. Before I can fall, another security guard steadies me.
“Take her to my room and call a doctor.”
The man helps me lean back into an armchair.
“I’m fine, Athol. Go back to bed.”
He obeys, but his eyes never leave me. “What happened?” he asks again.
“Gilroy . . .He told me that my husband and his stepmother were lovers, but I know that isn’t true. Rodrick was just a child.”
“We can’t talk about this without him present.”
“I’m tired of secrets, Athol. Today we had a fight, and in the end, we didn’t reach any conclusion, except for the fact thatI’m not leaving him because I’m in love with him. But how can I love someone who thinks he isn’t worthy of my love? Who pulls me close with one hand and pushes me away with the other?”
“He loves you too, Jazmina. I have no doubt about that.”
“Maybe he does, but not enough to share what poisons his soul. There will never be a relationship of true partnership like that.”
“Rodrick hates himself, my child, even though he has no reason to. I’ve taken care of that boy since before the former duke died. The man you see today is a survivor. I never thought he would manage to overcome what happened.”
“He didn’t. If he had, we would talk about it and leave the past behind.”
“Some memories cannot be erased, my child.”
“Please, tell me everything. I need to know.”
“I can only recount the period from when I began living with him, when he was eleven years old, just a few months before his father killed himself.”
A doctor tries to enter the room, but Athol dismisses him.
“We need privacy. I’m fine,” he says.
The man hesitates. “And the duchess?”
“It was just a dizzy spell,” I say, and at last he leaves.
“Go on, Athol.”
He runs a hand over his face, looking utterly exhausted. “When people talk about pedophilia, they usually think of older men with boys and girls. It’s hard to imagine a child being abused by a woman, especially when it’s a boy. Society tends to believe that even when a boy is prematurely stimulated to have sex with an adult woman, as in cases of teachers who become involved with students just entering puberty, it’s a choice.”
“Of course it isn’t! In my mind, it’s sexual violence all the same.”
“Yes, it is. I studied the subject extensively when I became Rodrick’s tutor because I wanted to help him, since the psychologists couldn’t. There’s no way of knowing at what age she began abusing him. Iona had been caring for Rodrick since he was three years old.”
Tears stream down my face as I imagine my husband—a beautiful, strong, honorable man—still a child, vulnerable in the hands of a monster who should have protected him.
“I can, however, tell you when he began to react. Rodrick told me that from the moment he realized the things his foster mother asked him to do were wrong, he no longer allowed her to touch him. He was around eight years old. According to what Donell told me, he became rebellious around that time. His father traveled a great deal and left him at the mercy of that woman, who, no longer able to abuse him sexually, beat him.”
“And the duke? Why didn’t he do anything?”