She stood frozen. Staring down at her sleeping daughter.
“How can this be happening again?” Sam Sook asked brokenheartedly.
Yeo Wool heard her whisper. And glanced up sharply at her. “What?”
But she continued to stand silent, peering down at Se Ri. He reached for Sam Sook’s hand, but as his fingers closed around hers and he tugged, she drew her hand away from his.
“No!” she whispered fiercely. “I cannot leave her!”
Tonight, Sam Sook had tucked Se Yeon into bed with her big sister. That way she could watch over them both simultaneously. They were sharing Bo A’s bed. That faithful friend had also refused to leave Se Ri this evening.
All three girls were now soundly sleeping. Se Ri had been simply exhausted. She had fallen asleep even before her baby sister had. Bo A had been the last to slip off to dreamland.
Sam Sook had been keeping an eye on them all from a chair that she had pulled up close to the bed. Truthfully, had they been at home, she would have crawled into that bed and pulled both of her daughters up against her chest. Cradling them in the safety of her arms. But Se Ri had seemed content to lie down between her sister and her friend. While her mother kept watch from the chair. So Sam Sook had allowed them to sleep with Bo A.
The young mother never wanted to leave her daughters alone again.
“She’ll be fine, love,” Yeo Wool whispered in response to her vehemence. “The man is in the king’s custody now. And tomorrow he will be executed. He cannot hurt her again.”
“He never should have been able to hurt her in the first place! I was so careful,” she breathed despairingly.
He glanced at her sharply. “What are you talking about?”
Her eyes slid his way. “I told you. He made me uneasy. From the very first day. I never left the girls alone during the day. I was always with them.”
He instantly recalled her panic the day of his grandmother’s funeral when she’d realized that she’d sent her daughters home with her mother. Had she been afraid that she was exposing them to danger? But…why would she have believed that? Had one of them been hurt by a man before?
“Why did I think they’d be safe at night?” Despairing, she shook her head. “How did I not hear him? My room is right next door.”
And so many nights, she’d awoken from the nightmares to check on her girls. How had she never disturbed him…hurting her daughter?
A sob escaped her suddenly.
Yeo Wool watched in consternation as a tear slid down her cheek.
She continued brokenly, “I should have told my mother I wasn’t comfortable around him. She was just so pleased with his work for her. I didn’t think I had any ground to stand on.”
But hadn’t that been her life? Always on shifting sands. Even in Lord Jeong’s house, she had not been safe.
Why did these things keep happening to her? And now to her daughter too?
Her daughter also hadn’t been safe in her mother’s home. Or in husband’s house either. That was the worst part. The things that Se Ri had shared with her after Yeo Wool had left. Her own brothers!
Sam Sook burst into tears suddenly as all the events came coalescing into one perfect storm. “I should have been able to protect my own daughter from such abuse. I didn’t enter motherhood unaware of the dangers.”
The dangers?
Yeo Wool studied her countenance. Trying to piece together all the little bits of this conversation and several others that he’d had with her. Was Sam Sook intimating that her daughter wasn’t the only one who had suffered abuse at the hands of a man?
She stood, back rigid, ramrod straight, gazing down at those two beautiful, little girls. But tears were streaming down her face now. He stopped resisting the urge that was overwhelming him. He turned towards her.
“Sam Sook,” he breathed. Then he did the thing that he’d wanted to do since the moment when he’d first seen her again in the marketplace.
He reached for her.
Startled, she glanced up at him. Then reflexively she pivoted in his direction. And melted into his arms as they surrounded her. And all the stress of all those memories flowed out of her as she began to sob against that strong chest.
All her life, everyone around her had looked to her to be the strong one. She had never revealed her weaknesses to anyone. Not even to Se Ho. Yet here she was…wanting to pour those troubles into Yeo Wool’s soul.
She had always derived comfort from his presence. Even when they’d been children. Spending only a few weeks getting to know one another before she’d left for Lord Jeong’s. But those days had been precious to her. And she had long missed the boy with the beautiful voice.
She clung to him now and let him see the part of her that she had kept a secret from everyone else. Not even her mother knew about the pain that she had buried deep down. It all came up as Yeo Wool’s solacing arms surrounded her. She didn’t speak a word. She didn’t have to. It was apparent to him that something had broken her heart deeply.
And it wasn’t simply Se Ri’s secret.
“You were abused too, weren’t you?” he breathed into her hair after a long while. After her tears had subsided. And she’d ceased to quake.
She tensed. Her body becoming perfectly still.
Yeo Wool had done it. He’d ferreted out her secret. But, surprisingly, she found herself glad.
Glad that it was Yeo Wool, her oldest friend, who had discovered the horrid truth.
After tonight, she knew for certain that he was a man whom she could trust.
With her daughters.
With her past.
With her whole heart.
