into a repeated threat which he might hold over her head. Margaret’s hands were shaking in the dirt. She felt on the verge of a fever. Still, she raised her chin and went back to her work—filling the pot with soil, patting it around the cutting, carefully continuing the work she had started.
Tonight, she had a new rose to plant. Payment could wait.
PAYMENT WAITED A SCANT fifteen minutes.
Margaret finished filling the pot with dirt and reached for the cutting. A thorn pricked her thumb as she pulled the slender branch from the water, but she had traveled beyond pain and into numbness now. She patted it into place and gently arranged the soil around the stem.
The door opened again. Soft footfalls again—his, no doubt. A little shiver went down her spine, but she straightened her back. So he wasn’t going to wait for morning to show her the ruthless side of his personality. No more benevolent, tolerant employer; no more sweet words whispered about her strength, her magnificence.
Margaret had few illusions about what would happen next. A man could put on any airs he wished when he had the desire to please. But strike a man in the middle of the chest after midnight, and all his cruelest impulses would come out. All she knew was that she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of weeping.
Now she would discover what sort of man Mr. Ash Turner really was. She could not bring herself to look up and meet his eyes. He crossed the room until he stood over her. In the night, he cast no shadows, but she could feel the darkness of him anyway, looming over her. She could feel the heat of his presence, as if he were a piece of solid iron recently removed from a blacksmith’s fire. She concentrated on the dirt in the pot, patting it unnecessarily into place. Her skin prickled under his gaze; the hint of some sweet thing tickled her nose.
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