“Have you seen Lucien before?” I ask Henderson.

Henderson pauses in undressing my vessel. “Yes, my lord. My apologies. It never occurred to me he would be so disrespectful as to not tell you.”

I stare speechlessly at the healer. There are too many thoughts spinning around my head. I can’t catch any and turn them into words.

He sighs. “He came to my office the other day. I examined him and found him to be frigid.”

Gods. I don’t even know where to start with this. I need more information.

“What led you to that conclusion?” I ask, and thank goodness I have regained the power of speech.

Henderson frowns and pushes his glasses back up his nose. He is clearly affronted at being challenged, but I don’t care.

“The physical exam showed that everything functions correctly, and since he reported not enjoying your attentions, the conclusion was obvious.”

The words bounce around in my mind for a moment. I’ve been up all night. I’m hungover. The healer is being coy. But finally I get there and the puzzle pieces all start to snap into place.

My ego wishes to fixate on Lucien not enjoying my attentions, but that issue needs to wait. I have a horrible suspicion there are far more pressing matters of concern here.

I need to concentrate on the other facts and see if I can untangle them.

If I’ve got this right, Lucien went to see the healer. The healer forced him to spill and then accused him of being frigid. What an awful and horrendous thing to do to the poor boy!

Then another thought hits me like a ton of bricks. After Lucien’s ordeal with the healer, he came home. And I accused him of having an affair.

But his magic wasn’t depleted from being in a lover’s arms, but from what the healer did to him.

Oh gods. My lungs have gone so tight I cannot breathe. Poor Lucien. This is devastating. A calamity. I’m horrified at what my vessel has been through and the part I played in it. He will surely never be able to forgive me for this. And deservedly so.

As for right now, I know Lucien is distraught. I understand the sedative smoke is affecting him. But he is clearly genuinely traumatized by what Henderson did to him. And there is one thing I can do to make that better. A small way I can try to make amends.

“I think you should leave,” I say quietly to Henderson.

The healer opens his mouth to object, then he looks at my expression, closes his mouth, and leaves without a word. I hear him collect his bag from the next room and then he is gone.

Lucien remains staring blankly at the canopy. I’m not sure he has even realized that Henderson has left.

I turn helplessly to Katy.

“Always thought he was a creep,” she says with a clear look of disgust in her eyes.

My mind is spinning. My world is tilting. Another memory is bubbling up to add to this disaster. Lucien begging me not to call the healer after his faint. And me taking that as evidence of further deception.

Oh gods. I’m going to be sick.

“Let’s get him cleaned up and check for any injuries,” says Katy as she dips a cloth into a bowl of water. She must have fetched supplies while I was talking to the healer.

I’m glad someone has their wits about them.

My hand takes a hold of a remaining strip of nightgown. Lucien shudders. His eyes suddenly look at me. Wide and fearful.

“I’m not ripe,” he rasps.

“I know,” I say as gently as I can. Gosh. I hate that he thinks my touch means only one thing.

On his other side, Katy dabs a warm, wet cloth on his soot covered bare shoulder. He flinches and turns his attention to her. A strange, anguished noise pours out of him and he rolls over on his side, away from me and towards her. His hands twist desperately into her tee shirt and pull her down

“Nanny!” he sobs.

Katy stares at me and bites her bottom lip. Gods, he is truly out of it if he thinks Katy is his childhood nurse.

“Please don’t make me! I’ll be good! Please don’t make me!”

Lucien looks over his shoulder at me, winces, and curls up closer to Katy.

“Please! Please! Please!”

My heart is thrumming. My hands are shaking. My throat is tight. I could tell myself Lucien is hysterical. If he thinks Katy is his nanny, then there is no saying who he thinks I am. This fear and dread is not for me. It is for someone else. But there is a frightening amount of recognition in his eyes.

I have to face the truth. My vessel is terrified of me. Of my attentions. Henderson said so, and while he is a creep, he has no reason to lie.

Besides, it makes horrifying sense. I don’t like Lucien. I was addled on our wedding night. My bitterness may well have been unleashed. I have no idea how I treated him for his first time. And then I was addled again when he was ripe.

Add in the fact that Lucien is very prim and proper. Extremely traditional. And these very things I find distasteful about him, could have made him far less experienced than I have assumed.

Oh gods. Heaven help us. This is far beyond a nightmare.

Because, even if by some miracle I’m mistaken, this terror pouring from Lucien, is for someone. If not me, someone else has hurt this boy very badly.

All in all, the truth is now plain for me to see. I’ve been so very, very wrong. Lucien isn’t a stuck up little twat. He is a broken, damaged and hurting young man.

One I have been nothing but awful to.

“I’ll…I’ll leave you to it,” I stutter like the coward I am.

Then I turn and flee.

Chapter eleven

Lucien

Rain is beating at the windows and turning the weak winter daylight as dark as night. Quite fitting for my mood. I think I will forever be too ashamed and embarrassed to leave my bed. What must Felford think of me? I had a complete breakdown. I was utterly hysterical. For hours. It would serve me right if he ships me off to an asylum.

The door opens, and my stomach rumbles in response. It must be lunchtime. Except, oh my gods, that’s not Katy or another member of staff, that’s Felford carrying a tray into my room. Why, oh why, is he here?

My shaky hands reach for the covers.

“No! No, don’t get up!” says Felford.