Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time he struck you, it was with the back of his hand.

It had come without warning—just the sharp crack of skin on skin, followed by the sting that bloomed across your cheek like fire. Lord Richard Turpin didn’t even look at you after. He simply turned his head away from the armchair where he sat, ruined from the waist down, swathed in velvet and fury, and barked at the fire to burn hotter, as if the flames could hear him, as if the world owed him obedience.

You didn’t cry. Not then. Not even later. You couldn’t afford to.

You simply righted the silver tray that had toppled in the scuffle, picked up the broken teacup, and carried on with the rest of your duties like it hadn’t happened. Like the taste of blood on your tongue wasn’t real. Like the welt blooming beneath your left eye wouldn’t show the next morning. Because if you left, who would feed your brother?

No one else would take care of Richard Turpin. Not anymore.

He had once been formidable—an arrogant, imposing figure in heavy black robes, baritone voice booming through the courtrooms of London like a thunderclap. They had feared him then. Worshipped him, even. But the accident had changed all that. A horse, spooked in the rain, had thrown him from the saddle and left him broken. Not just his spine, but something deeper. Darker.

Now, he ruled over his house like a wounded lion, bedridden and furious. He lashed out at anyone who came near—servants, doctors, even Beadle Bamford, who had once been his most devoted lapdog. Most of the staff had quit by now. Others had been dismissed for the crime of speaking too loudly or breathing the wrong way.

But you stayed.

Not because you were brave. Not because you liked him. But because your younger brother needed new boots.

Because the wage Lord Turpin offered—double the usual rate—kept food on the table and coal in the fireplace. Because Edward’s schoolbooks cost more than a week’s worth of meat, and your parents had left you nothing but debts and a half-buried promise to keep him safe.

So you endured it.

The shouting. The insults. The way he called you “girl” even though you were nearly twenty-five. The sharp snap of his voice echoing down the marble halls of that opulent prison he called a home.

“You incompetent little thing,” he spat one morning, his hooked nose wrinkling as you adjusted the tray on his lap. “Were you raised in a sty? Or do you just enjoy being utterly useless?”

“No, my lord,” you murmured, adjusting the porcelain teacup again with steady hands. “Forgive me.”

“Forgive you? Forgive you?” He scoffed, hazel eyes narrowing like twin blades of flint. “I ought to have you flogged for spilling hot water on my good blanket. Do you have any comprehension of how much this silk cost?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Then act like it.”

There were worse days.

Days when the weather turned and the ache in his ruined spine left him snarling with pain and rage, sweat beading on his brow, temper fraying like a torn hem. Those days were the worst. On those days, he didn’t speak so much as growl, and his hands—strong despite the paralysis—would find whatever was nearest to throw. A decanter. A book. Once, a brass paperweight that struck your collarbone hard enough to bruise for a fortnight.

You never told anyone.

You couldn’t.

Because if you lost this job, you’d lose the house. Edward would be out on the streets. And winter was coming fast.

So you tightened your jaw. Stood taller. Learned to step to the left when you entered the room—Turpin’s aim was better with his right. You memorized his medicines, kept a log of his complaints, learned how to avoid the words that set him off.

You knew he hated the rain. That he despised being read to unless the book was scripture or Blackstone. That he refused to be seen without a fresh cravat, even though he no longer left his chambers.

You fed him. Bathed him. Shaved his face with trembling hands while he sneered at your technique. You emptied his chamber pot. You changed his linens. You rubbed the sores on his legs with oil so they wouldn’t fester.

And sometimes—on rare, strange mornings when the light came through the window just so, when the laudanum dulled his edges enough to make him civil—he would look at you with something different in his eyes.

Not kindness.

But something.

Something sharp and watchful. As though he saw you not as a servant or nuisance, but as a creature entirely of your own making. Someone who had not flinched when others fled. Someone who stood in the presence of his cruelty and stayed anyway.

One evening, after a particularly long day of silence, he said, “You are either very brave… or very stupid.”

You looked up from the desk where you were organizing his correspondence. “I believe, my lord, I’m simply very poor.”

He chuckled at that. A dry, hollow sound. “Then you’ll survive longer than most.”

You didn’t know what to make of that. You didn’t ask.

Because tomorrow, he might strike you again.

But tonight, your brother was sleeping soundly in the next room with a full belly and new shoes beside his bed.

And that was enough.

Turpin called for you from the drawing room.

Once. Twice. Then louder.

“Girl!”

The walls of the mansion quivered beneath his baritone, deep and rasping with indignation. He bellowed again, the syllables sharp and wet, fury mounting with each breath. “Are you deaf as well as incompetent? Where in God’s name—GIRL!”

Still, no answer. Only the ticking of the longcase clock in the corner and the steady hiss of the fire, a sickly orange glow licking at the carved mantelpiece.

And then—soft footsteps.

Not yours.

Smaller.

Quicker.

A child’s.

When the figure stepped into the doorway, Lord Richard Turpin’s mouth twisted—not in surprise, precisely, but in recognition. His hazel eyes narrowed beneath his heavy brow, fixating on the boy who stood at the threshold like a wren in a lion’s den.

Edward.

Ten years old, slender as a birch twig, wrapped in a too-thin wool jumper with patched elbows and a scab on one knee. His cheeks were red from running. He clutched a tattered leather-bound notebook to his chest with both hands. A charcoal pencil was tucked behind one ear.

Turpin said nothing at first. He simply looked.

The boy looked back.

“She’s not here,” Edward said, his voice high but clear. “She went to the pharmacy for your tincture. The one for your back.”

Still, Turpin didn’t speak. Only the fire crackled.

Edward’s brow furrowed. He took a hesitant step forward. “She said she’d be back before supper.”

Turpin’s nostrils flared. “I didn’t ask for you.”

“I know,” Edward said, eyes darting briefly to the hearth before returning to the judge’s face. “But you were yelling.”

Turpin’s jaw shifted, the muscles of his face twitching. “So you thought you’d answer in her stead?”

“No,” Edward replied earnestly. “I just thought you might scare the birds off the roof again if you kept shouting.”

A flicker—brief, barely visible—passed over Turpin’s face. Not a smile. Not truly. But the corner of his mouth twitched. Just once.

The boy took another step closer, bold in his smallness, holding out the notebook as if it were a peace offering.

“Would you help me?” he asked. “With sums?”

Turpin’s gaze flicked to the notebook, then back to Edward’s face. He did not reach for it. “I’m not your tutor.”

“I know.” Edward clutched the book tighter. “But you were a judge. Judges know numbers. And letters. And laws.”

“That they do.”

“And you have… books.” The boy glanced around the room at the leather-bound tomes stacked on shelves, many dusty from disuse. “Lots of them.”

Turpin said nothing. His hazel eyes, rimmed in shadow, moved slowly over the boy’s face. The crooked nose gave him the aspect of a hawk—sharp, predatory. But still he did not speak.

Edward hesitated. Then: “She says I’m too clever for my own good.”

“Does she.”

“Mm-hm.” He looked down at the open page in his notebook, where uneven numbers marched across a grid of ink smudges. “I don’t understand division. The way it’s written. It’s like slicing a pie, but the pie keeps moving.”

For a long time, nothing passed between them but the pop of the logs and the low wheeze of the judge’s breath. His hands, pale and knotted, gripped the arms of the velvet chair with deliberate stillness.

Then, low and gruff: “Bring it here.”

Edward looked up.

Turpin’s face was stern as ever, unreadable but not unkind. Not yet.

“I won’t shout again, boy. Once is enough.”

Edward crossed the carpet in cautious steps, his boots scuffing faintly against the threads. He approached the armchair slowly, until he stood beside Turpin’s ruined legs—swathed in dark wool, unmoving beneath the heavy blanket.

He extended the notebook.

Turpin took it in one hand. His fingers were bony but sure. He looked at the page.

“Your figures are sloppy,” he said. “But the logic’s sound. You’ve understood grouping, but not how to carry a remainder. Who taught you fractions?”

“My sister.”

“Hm.” He reached for the inkwell on the side table and dipped the tip of the pencil. “This,” he said, underlining a section, “is where your mistake began. Division is not slicing. It’s sharing. Controlled. Precise. You divide not because the pie moves, but because the people waiting for it do.”

Edward watched, wide-eyed, as the judge made swift corrections in thick, elegant strokes.

“You must learn to think like a judge,” Turpin said, eyes fixed on the paper. “Not by feeling. By rule.”

Edward nodded solemnly. “Yes, my lord.”

“Don’t ‘my lord’ me,” Turpin muttered. “I’m not wearing a robe. Sit. There.”

He pointed to the ottoman.

Edward sat.

For the next several minutes, they worked in silence, Turpin’s voice low, clipped, rasping with age and old injury. Edward answered with quiet nods and murmured “yes sirs,” his face flushed with focus.

Eventually, Turpin handed back the notebook.

“You’re not hopeless,” he said.

“Thank you.”

There was another pause. Then Edward looked up.

“Do you hate her?” he asked.

Turpin’s gaze snapped to his.

“My sister,” Edward clarified.

The fire crackled.

Turpin leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers slowly. His hazel eyes, once so quick to cut, had gone still.

“I don’t hate her,” he said at last. “But I do not forgive those who walk into lions’ dens and expect not to bleed.”

Edward blinked.

“She’s not stupid,” the boy said quietly.

Turpin’s voice was colder now. “She stays. That makes her something.”

“She stays,” Edward echoed, “so I don’t go hungry.”

Turpin’s fingers twitched.

Edward stood, clutching the notebook to his chest. “You may not like her,” he said, “but she saved us.”

Then he turned, boots padding back toward the hall.

Just before he vanished from view, he paused.

“Thank you for helping me, sir.”

Turpin said nothing.

He watched the boy go, the firelight flickering against the parchment in his lap, the ache in his spine biting like a dull blade.

When the door shut quietly behind Edward, the room was silent once more.

But Turpin didn’t call for you again.

Not that night.

When you returned to the house, the sky was a deep navy outside the windows, streaked with the last ash-grey remnants of twilight. A bitter wind had picked up across Fleet Street, slapping your skirts against your ankles and stinging your cheeks as you hurried back from the apothecary, clutching the small parcel of laudanum tincture beneath your cloak. The lamps had not yet been lit in the foyer when you entered, and the whole house felt hollowed out, like something waiting to crack.

You did find Turpin where you'd left him.

He was still in the drawing room, seated precisely where he’d been—upright in his carved armchair near the fire, cloaked in velvet and silence. The shadows from the hearth flickered over his sharp features, throwing the hooked line of his nose into cruel relief and turning his hazel eyes to iron beneath the heavy shelf of his brow. He looked at you only once, briefly, and said nothing as you crossed the room with the covered tray.

You did not see Edward. You did not ask.

Silently, you uncovered the dish. Roasted beef and turnips, crusted bread, a sliver of pear soaked in port wine. You placed the tray on the table beside him with careful precision, poured a half-glass of claret, and folded the linen napkin on his lap.

Still, he said nothing.

No insults. No complaints. Not even a grunt of disapproval.

It was… disconcerting.

You bowed your head slightly. “Your supper, my lord.”

He gave a curt nod but did not meet your gaze. His hands—bony, pale, freckled with age—moved to the utensils with his usual slow deliberation, but his mouth remained firmly shut.

You hesitated, waiting for a comment about the temperature or the seasoning. It never came.

Then, as if the silence were contagious, you left him to his meal and stepped away, retreating into the servants’ corridor and down the narrow steps to the modest quarters below.

There you found Edward seated at the kitchen table, legs swinging beneath his chair as he traced patterns in the steam rising from his bowl of stew. He looked up when you entered, wide-eyed and flushed with warmth, his notebook tucked under his arm like a sleeping cat.

“Eat while it’s hot,” you told him softly, setting a slice of bread on a plate beside him. “And when you’re done, mind you wash the dish this time. Last night it sat till morning.”

He gave a solemn nod. “Yes, ma’am.”

You leaned down and smoothed a strand of hair from his forehead, your thumb brushing against a soot-smudge on his temple. “Did he shout while I was out?”

Edward hesitated. “Not much.”

That, at least, was partly true.

You nodded once and returned upstairs.

Back in the drawing room, the tray was half-finished—meat picked over, the wine untouched. Turpin was sitting rigidly, one hand curled around the arm of the chair, the other resting atop his thigh like a statue carved in granite. His expression was unreadable, and the fire cast long shadows behind his form, painting the far wall in rippling gold and black.

“You’ve finished, my lord?” you asked gently.

“Yes.”

You stepped forward and removed the tray, setting it aside on the sideboard for the scullery maid to handle. Then you turned back, folding your hands neatly before you.

“If it pleases you,” you said, “I’ll escort you to your chamber.”

He said nothing for a moment. Then: “Bring my cane.”

You fetched it from its place near the hearth, the polished handle cold in your hand. Turpin did not often walk, not unless necessity demanded it, but tonight he seemed determined. With slow effort, he pushed himself forward in the chair and took the cane from your grip, his fingers brushing yours only briefly.

You walked beside him down the hall, one hand beneath his elbow, careful not to rush him. His gait was stiff and halting, one leg dragging slightly, the other trembling beneath the weight of him. The accident had left him weakened but not entirely broken—though he’d sooner die than admit how much it truly pained him to move.

The upper hallway was dim, lit only by the flickering sconces. His chamber door loomed at the end, and you opened it quietly, stepping aside so he could enter first.

He moved toward the dressing screen with slow deliberation, then sat heavily in the armchair near the bed. The fire had already been lit there as well, casting soft warmth across the thick carpets and the dark mahogany furniture.

You fetched his nightclothes: a linen shirt, soft woolen trousers, and the dark velvet dressing gown that he favored even in sleep. You set them on the edge of the bed, then turned your back respectfully as he began to unbutton his waistcoat with slow, irritated fingers.

After a moment, his voice cut through the quiet: “Come here.”

You turned, crossing the room.

His fingers were trembling. Not with fear, never that—but pain, stiffness, frustration.

You said nothing, only knelt beside him and began to unbutton the remaining fastenings. You peeled the waistcoat from his arms, then the outer coat, folding both neatly before moving to the braces and shirt. He said nothing as you worked, not even when your hands brushed the scar that marred the base of his spine—pale and ridged like something carved by a knife.

Once dressed in his nightclothes, he allowed you to assist him into bed.

The sheets were already turned down. You adjusted the pillows beneath his back, then drew the heavy coverlet over him, smoothing it once, twice, in silence.

Turpin watched you, his hazel eyes darker than usual, hooded beneath the shadows of the firelight.

“You are quiet tonight,” he said at last.

You blinked, looking up at him. “As are you, my lord.”

His gaze lingered on you a moment longer. Then he turned his head toward the fire, lips drawn in a tight, unreadable line.

“Fetch the Bible,” he said. “The third chapter of Lamentations.”

You moved at once to the bookshelf, pulling the worn leather-bound volume from its shelf and opening to the requested passage.

Your voice was steady as you began to read.

Turpin’s eyes remained closed, his chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths.

You continued reading.

“He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light…”

The words trembled slightly on your tongue, your eyes narrowed in the low light, struggling to make sense of the archaic phrasing and flourished script. You could read—of course you could—but not well, not with the ease of someone educated in Latin and law. And the third chapter of Lamentations was a cruel thing to navigate, its syntax jagged and its imagery as sharp as any blade.

You tripped over a phrase.

“He hath builded against me, and compa—compa—”

“‘Compassed,’” Turpin snapped, voice a sharp bark from the pillows.

You flinched. “Yes, my lord.”

“Speak clearly. You sound like a half-drowned goose.”

You swallowed, straightened your spine, and continued, slower now, careful to enunciate.

But another word twisted in your throat. You stumbled again.

“He hath set me in dark—”

“‘Dark places,’” Turpin interrupted with a sneer. “God save us. Were you raised by stammering pigs? Can you not read without mangling scripture?”

“I—apologies, my lord—”

He shifted slightly, his hooked nose casting a sharp shadow across the high arch of his cheek. His hazel eyes opened, slitting toward you, glinting with disdain.

“Little wonder your brother struggles with arithmetic,” he drawled. “The boy must be clever indeed to manage sums with such a dull-witted sister for company.”

You froze.

The Bible lowered in your hands.

“…What?”

He said nothing.

Your voice dropped, lower now, and far colder. “You spoke to him.”

Turpin’s eyes drifted shut again. He didn’t answer.

Your heart beat faster—not with fear this time, but something else. Something hard and hot and rising fast.

“You spoke to Edward.”

Still, no answer.

You stood.

“You had no right,” you hissed.

Turpin’s brow twitched.

“You had no right!” Your voice sharpened as you stepped toward the bed, fists clenched around the leather-bound volume. “He is a child. My brother. You think I tolerate your cruelty because I’m weak? You think you can extend that cruelty to him now? No. No.”

Turpin’s head turned toward you slowly, the muscles in his jaw tightening. “You forget yourself.”

“No,” you snapped. “You forget me.”

You moved closer, leaning down over him, so your face hovered just above his, close enough to see the lines etched around his mouth, the uneven stubble along his jaw, the way the firelight caught the hollow shadow beneath his cheekbones. Close enough to smell the laudanum clinging to his skin.

And then you pressed your fingers—firm, deliberate—into the narrow spot just below his ribs, just above the ruined line of his spine.

Turpin gasped.

A strangled sound tore from his throat as his body jolted, his hand jerking toward the source of the pain, but you didn’t pull away. You knew that spot. You had rubbed it with oil during his spasms. Pressed against it gently during nights of fever and trembling. You had learned the map of his pain like one learns a battlefield—because survival demanded it.

But tonight, you used it as a weapon.

“If you ever touch a hair on his head,” you whispered, voice trembling with fury, “I will make your life worse than this. You may not walk, but you will learn to crawl. You will beg for the comfort of this bed. You will choke on your own spit before I let you hurt him.”

Turpin writhed in the blankets, his chest heaving, baritone rasping with each breath.

Then—quietly—he laughed.

Not loudly. Not mockingly.

But soft. A dry, wheezing sound from deep in his chest.

You blinked, caught off guard, your fingers pulling back slightly.

“…What?”

His voice—when it came—was cracked and raw with pain. But it was not angry.

“He’s lucky,” he said.

You stared.

Turpin’s eyes were open now, staring into the fire.

“He has you. And he knows it.”

He turned his head slightly. His hazel gaze met yours—not mocking, not cold, but something else. Something closer to… memory.

“Perhaps,” he murmured, “I would have been like that too.”

You frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Turpin didn’t answer. His fingers tightened slightly on the blanket. “My brother was younger. Frailer. Took ill in the spring of ’09. I was twelve. I held him while he coughed up blood.”

A pause.

“I prayed. Cried. Promised I’d give him my lungs if God would take mine instead.” His voice dipped lower. “God didn’t listen.”

You didn’t speak.

“I was not kind after that,” he said. “Not to the world. Not to anyone. I wanted it to hurt as I did. I still do.”

His jaw clenched, his mouth twisting into its usual bitter sneer.

“So do not mistake my cruelty for ignorance. I know exactly what it means to love a brother.” He turned his eyes back to the fire. “And what it costs to lose one.”

The silence stretched.

You watched him for a long moment, the fury still burning in your veins—but quieter now. Dimmed.

Then you straightened, adjusting the edge of the blanket with a rough flick of your hand.

“If you do understand,” you said, voice tight, “then leave him be.”

Turpin’s eyes closed.

He did not answer.

But when you left the room that night, the Bible still clutched in your hands and your heart pounding in your throat, he did not call you back.

And when you checked on Edward, asleep in his narrow bed, the notebook resting open on his chest, you saw the neat slashes of unfamiliar handwriting correcting his sums. Ink darker than yours. Surer.

You stood there for a long time.

Watching.

Thinking.

Not forgiving.

But not fearing, either.

The next morning came grey and sullen.

Rain tapped against the upper windows of the Turpin estate, the sky sagging low with fog as a fine chill crept in through the casements. In the servants’ corridor, your breath misted as you lit the hearths and prepared the linens for the day’s wash. Your joints ached from the cold. From the tension. From the lingering sting of your own words the night before.

You hadn’t meant to speak to him that way.

Not really.

But you’d meant every word.

And now, like some nagging guilt stitched behind your ribs, the thought of what you’d done hung heavy as you poured steaming water into the copper tub and arranged the towels beside it with methodical care.

By the time you entered his chamber with the bath prepared and laudanum ready on the tray, Lord Richard Turpin was already awake.

He sat rigidly in bed, the covers drawn to his waist, his mouth set in a grim line. The fire at the far wall had long since burned down to smoldering coals, casting an uneven orange glow across the contours of his gaunt face—hooked nose, hollowed cheeks, lips drawn thin with wear. His hazel eyes tracked you as you entered, sharp as flint.

You did not meet them.

“My lord,” you said quietly. “Your bath is ready.”

He said nothing.

Instead, he shifted beneath the blankets with a tight breath, jaw clenching as he pushed himself upright and extended one hand for the laudanum. You brought it to him without question. No eye contact. No conversation. Just the silent exchange of glass to fingers—his knotted, liver-spotted, ringless hand curling tightly around the vessel as he drank.

The silence stretched between you like string pulled taut.

It was only when you approached the edge of the bed and began to unbutton the front of his nightshirt that you spoke again.

“I apologize,” you murmured, barely above a whisper. “For last night. For… overstepping my place.”

He did not answer.

Your hands moved steadily—first the collar, then the buttons, down to the hem. You peeled the shirt back from his shoulders, careful not to let the fabric catch against the sensitive, healing skin along his spine. He hissed once, low and sharp, but made no complaint. You folded the shirt neatly and set it aside.

Still no answer.

You helped him into the wheeled bath chair, supporting his torso with practiced strength, your arms locked gently around his ribs. He allowed it, wordlessly, and you wheeled him to the bathing alcove.

The tub steamed.

The scent of pine soap and lavender oil curled in the air.

You turned your back as he gripped the side of the chair and pulled himself, slowly, awkwardly, into the bath. You’d seen him do it a dozen times before, but this morning he grunted louder than usual—whether from pain or pride, you couldn’t tell. You waited until he was settled before returning to kneel beside the tub, your apron folded up neatly to protect your skirts.

You dipped the sponge into the water.

You began with his shoulders—slow, gentle strokes, working downward in circles, the way you’d been taught by the apothecary’s assistant months ago. His skin was warm and pale, marred by long-healed bruises, old surgical scars, and faint reddish blotches from months of bedrest. You avoided the most sensitive spots. You knew them all by now.

He still said nothing.

But something was… different.

He did not flinch under your touch today. He did not curse when you poured warm water down his back. And when your fingers brushed the base of his neck, just below the hairline, he did not stiffen. Instead, he went still.

Very still.

You exhaled slowly, reaching again for the soap, and lathered it into a fresh cloth. When you leaned forward to scrub lower, your breath ghosted against his bare skin—warm, steady, soft.

That was when he noticed it.

Your breath.

He blinked.

Why was he noticing your breath?

He frowned slightly, not enough for you to see. Not enough to be called expression. Just the barest twitch of thought forming behind the sharp line of his hooked nose. And then he noticed your hands.

He had always considered them clumsy. Too eager. A servant’s hands.

But now… they were gentle. They did not fumble. They did not hesitate. They cupped warm water with care and pressed soap to skin with a kind of grace that made him wonder—absurdly—if you’d been taught by someone gentler than him. Or if you’d learned this softness all on your own.

He scolded himself, silently.

Fool.

She is your attendant. A servant. A girl who reads scripture like a milkmaid and threatens nobles in their own bedchambers. What madness possesses you now?

But the thought would not go.

Not now.

Not since last night.

He’d replayed your words more times than he cared to admit. Not the threats. Not the fury.

But the way you’d hovered over him.

The way your eyes had burned with something bright and furious and alive—not fear, but conviction.

He’d seen it before. Long ago.

In courtrooms.

In confessions.

In men who stood on the gallows and dared to look God in the eye.

But never in a woman.

Not like this.

He let his eyes drift to your face now, quietly, without turning his head. You were focused on his arm, rubbing small circles just above the elbow with a damp cloth, brow furrowed in concentration.

You had a small scar above your lip—he’d never noticed that before.

A faint, nearly invisible thread of silver skin, no bigger than a coin scratch. Perhaps from childhood. Or a fall. Or—

Why the devil was he noticing your mouth?

Turpin gritted his teeth.

He shifted suddenly in the water. Not enough to splash, but enough to break your rhythm.

You paused, lifting your head.

“My lord?”

“Enough,” he said curtly.

You blinked. “But I haven’t finished—”

“I said enough.”

The sharpness was back. The mask sliding down. The baritone snap of command returning like a gavel against oak.

You sat back, spine straight.

“Yes, my lord.”

The cloth fell still in your hands. You dipped it once more into the water and wrung it out neatly, then rose to fetch the towel.

When you returned, he didn’t look at you.

You wrapped the towel around his shoulders and helped him from the bath, drying his arms and back with practiced care, eyes fixed on the task, voice silent.

He didn’t speak again—not when you helped him into his robe, not when you wheeled him back into the room, not even when you knelt to adjust the slippers on his feet.

But when you rose—ready to leave—his voice stopped you.

“Are you married?”

You froze.

The question had come without warning. Not as a conversational curiosity, not softened by casual tone or warmth—but sharp, deliberate, interrogative.

You blinked, slowly lifting your gaze toward him. “My lord?”

“I asked,” he said again, more slowly this time, turning his head to face you fully, “if you are married.”

His hazel eyes were heavy-lidded but sharp, flicking over your face with an unreadable expression. You opened your mouth, then closed it again, caught off guard by the oddness of the inquiry.

“No,” you said at last. “I am not.”

A beat of silence passed.

Turpin’s brow lifted slightly. Just one white eyebrow, arching like a question mark carved in stone. “Truly?”

You frowned. “Yes, my lord. Truly.”

He leaned back slightly in the chair, the velvet shifting against his thin frame. “How old are you now?”

You hesitated. “…Twenty-five.”

That seemed to genuinely surprise him.

His expression shifted—not to warmth, not to interest, but to something eerily close to pity. His lips pressed into a pale, thoughtful line, and he looked at you with the kind of gaze one might give a dying tree in winter.

“Twenty-five,” he repeated, the words rolling off his tongue like a death sentence.

You bristled.

“Yes,” you replied, firmer now. “And I’m hardly ancient.”

That earned you a scoff.

“Hardly?” he echoed, his baritone dry as dust. “At twenty-five? And unwed? You’ve already passed the bloom of maidenhood. What prospects remain now—schoolmasters? Widowers with gout?”

You flushed. “Better a schoolmaster than some decrepit earl with a wandering hand and liver spots.”

His eyes narrowed at that, the hooked ridge of his nose twitching faintly in disapproval.

“Your wit won’t marry you either,” he said coldly. “Nor will it fill your belly with children.”

You turned your gaze to the side, jaw clenched. “That’s none of your concern, my lord.”

“Is it not?” he asked, voice sharpening. “You live in my house. You serve in my rooms. You’ve thrown away your youth tending to my infirmities. If I die tomorrow, what becomes of you then? An aging maid with no dowry, no land, no husband—and no children to keep her name remembered.”

His words struck deeper than you expected. Not because they were cruel, though they were. But because they echoed thoughts that had long festered in the back of your mind during sleepless nights beside the fire. He saw it in the way your mouth tightened. The way your shoulders drew in, subtly, like shutters against a storm.

But still, you lifted your chin, fire simmering low in your voice. “At least I have Edward. He’ll remember me.”

Turpin’s expression hardened.

You didn’t stop.

“He’ll have a name of his own someday—a trade, a wife, a family. He’ll make something better of himself. He’ll carry me with him, even when I’m gone.”

You said it not for Turpin, but for yourself. To give the ache in your chest a shape. To remind yourself that all of this—everything you endured—was for something.

But when your eyes flicked back to him, you saw it. The change.

His jaw clenched, lips drawn tight, the corded tendons in his neck twitching like they might snap. His hazel eyes darkened, sharp and cutting, but behind the fury, something else flashed. Something raw. Wounded.

You saw it.

And you pressed.

“…But you, my lord—who will remember you? You’ve no children. No nephews I’ve ever seen. No heirs. No one.”

His nostrils flared.

You kept going.

“No visitors. No legacy. You hoard your silver and bark at the walls, but what of it? What good is judgment and title if you die and no one mourns? If you rot in that bed and not a soul notices?”

“Silence,” he growled, the word landing heavy in the air.

But you didn’t.

“Even Beadle doesn’t come anymore,” you whispered. “You pushed him away like all the rest. You’ll die alone, Richard Turpin, and you know it.”

That name—spoken aloud—was a match to dry tinder.

He lurched forward, rising from his chair with more fury than coordination, his voice bursting from his chest in a harsh, cracked baritone.

“You insolent little bitch—!”

His hand came up. Swift. Sharp. The familiar arc of violence you’d come to anticipate. His left leg buckled. And his weight shifted too far, too fast—

He fell. And so did you.

Your hands had reached instinctively to steady him, but his frame struck yours in a tangle of limbs and velvet and breath, and the two of you crumpled to the floor in a graceless heap—his robe half open, your apron catching beneath your knee.

You landed hard, the breath knocked from your lungs—but not before feeling the heat of his body pressed along yours.

His face hovered mere inches from yours. His hands had braced against the floor on either side of your shoulders, and your own had instinctively caught the edge of his waist to break the fall. The scent of laudanum and pine soap still clung to him, mingled now with the sweat of strain and rage.

His hooked nose cast a long shadow across your cheek. His breath was hot against your lips.

And then his eyes flicked downward.

To your mouth.

He didn’t move.

Neither did you.

The world held still for a breathless moment, the only sound the faint hiss of the fire and the shallow rasp of his baritone against your ear.

Then—he blinked. And recoiled as if stung.

He scrambled backward, pushing off you with a sudden, clumsy strength that startled you—but the sharp twist of his spine gave a sickening crack.

Turpin cried out.

Not a roar of fury.

A sound of pain.

He collapsed beside the hearth, one arm clutching at his lower back, his teeth bared in a grimace so raw it startled you more than the fall. The breath hissed out of him in a strangled groan, and for the first time in all your months beneath this roof, you saw something like helplessness seize the face of the man who’d ruled this house like a beast on a leash.

“My lord—!” You were beside him in an instant, your hands hovering, unsure where to touch. “Did it seize? Your spine—should I fetch the brace—?”

He waved a trembling hand, dismissing your voice, his face twisted in agony. “Don’t… touch me.”

But the moment he tried to move, the pain returned with punishing clarity. His mouth opened in a wordless groan, and his head fell forward against his chest, teeth clenched, his whole frame shaking with the effort not to scream.

You ignored his protests.

Your hands moved on instinct, one slipping beneath his robe to support the curve of his back, the other bracing beneath his ribs. You felt the violent tremor that passed through him, and without thinking, you pressed your palm against that scarred hollow beneath his spine—the same pressure you’d used a dozen times before to help him breathe through the spasms.

Only this time, he didn’t fight it.

He let you hold him.

His face was turned into the side of your neck, breath ragged against your collar. His fists curled in the folds of your skirt, not to restrain—but to anchor. His whole weight leaned into you now, uneven and heavy, and you bore it without question.

You felt his voice before you heard it.

“…Damn you,” he whispered.

But there was no venom in it.

Not this time.

You lifted him slowly.

One arm looped under his ribs, the other braced across his shoulders as you rose from the hearth, cradling the bulk of him against your side. Turpin whimpered—not loudly, not with the shattering pride of a man defeated, but the muffled, trembling groan of someone trying desperately not to be heard. The sound shook you to your core.

“Go slowly,” he rasped, his baritone thin and uneven. “It… hurts.”

You nodded without speaking, your throat too tight.

“Yes, my lord,” you whispered.

And you did. Step by agonizing step. You guided him back across the rug with infinite care, his cane left behind in the wreckage of the fall, his robe dragging across the floor like a wounded flag. He clung to you, shoulders hunched, head bowed against your collarbone. You could feel the ragged hitch of each breath, the trembling of his legs, the awful stiffness that seized through his spine with every movement.

You said nothing. Just held him.

And when at last you reached the bed, you helped him lower himself, easing him down into the mattress with slow, precise motions.

Turpin gave a soft, pained cry the moment his back met the sheets. His eyes squeezed shut, one hand clenching the coverlet in a white-knuckled grip. For the first time in months, he looked small. Not in size—he was still broad, his frame still commanding—but in expression. In presence. There was no mask now. No sneer. No bark of command.

Just a man in pain.

You bent beside him, adjusting the pillows with gentle fingers, brushing sweat-damp strands of white hair back from his furrowed brow. His breathing came in harsh, broken gusts, and you saw the glimmer of something wet at the corners of his hazel eyes.

“My lord,” you said softly, kneeling beside the bed. “Shall I bring more laudanum?”

Turpin didn’t answer.

He stared at the ceiling. Unblinking.

Then, hoarsely—almost inaudibly: “You were right.”

You froze.

He turned his head, the movement slow, deliberate, as though each vertebra screamed against the effort. His eyes met yours.

“I have no one,” he said.

The words fell like stones.

You reached for his hand without thinking. It was cold. Trembling. You curled your fingers around it.

His hazel eyes flicked to the contact—but he didn’t pull away.

You swallowed hard.

“You have me,” you said.

He blinked.

“I will take care of you, Richard.” The name slipped from your lips without ceremony. Not out of disrespect—but out of something else. Something older. Truer. “Until the day you get tired of me and send me away with a stick.”

That almost earned a laugh. A huff of air, broken by pain.

He closed his eyes.

“I won’t,” he muttered.

You leaned in closer, brushing his hair back again, your voice gentler now.

“You will. Someday. When your legs are strong again and your pride is louder than your pain.”

“No.”

The word came low. Tight.

And then his hand clutched yours harder.

“I don’t want… anyone else.”

You went still.

The fire crackled in the hearth, casting shadows across his sharp features—the hooked nose, the clenched jaw, the tear that had slipped unnoticed down the side of his temple.

“I’ve been cruel,” he whispered. “I’ve pushed every soul away. Beadle. The staff. The world. But you stayed.”

You didn’t speak. You couldn’t.

“And now I am a broken old man with no heirs, no future… and yet you kneel beside my bed like I’m still worth saving.”

He opened his eyes.

“And you are.”

The words escaped before you could stop them.

His brow twitched.

“I don’t forgive you,” you added, voice tight. “Not for the slap. Or the paperweight. Or the years you spent rotting in your own hatred.”

“I wouldn’t want your forgiveness,” he said.

“Good.”

A beat.

“But I will stay.”

Turpin turned his head, eyes searching yours.

“And if you try to send me away,” you said, lifting his hand to your lips and pressing it there, steady and sure, “you will find I am just as stubborn as you.”

He let out a slow, ragged breath. It rattled in his chest. But he didn’t look away.

His voice, when it came again, was quieter now. Not a judge’s bark. Not a nobleman’s command.

Just a man. Older. Tired. Fractured.

“…Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t.”

Another pause. Another tremor through his hand.

And then, barely above a whisper:

“Stay until I can stand again.”

You leaned your forehead against the back of his hand, your voice low.

“I’ll stay even after.”

After that day, something changed.

Not just in the house, which grew quieter, less oppressive. Not just in the rhythm of the halls or the way the servants moved—no longer flinching, no longer rushing to escape his line of sight. But in him. In Turpin. The man who had once ruled over every corridor like a cruel god now sat in silence most mornings, his baritone voice softened to a murmur, his sharp hazel gaze no longer honed like a blade.

He never raised his hand to you again.

Nor did he raise his voice.

He still barked orders—of course he did, he was Turpin—but gone was the venom, the heat, the need to wound. Now his words landed with weight, but not cruelty. With command, but not contempt.

And slowly, like the thaw after a long winter, something warmer crept in between the cracks.

You found it in the way he let you linger after supper, his eyes following your movements not with judgment, but attention. In the way he allowed Edward to enter the drawing room when he was in good spirits—no longer shooing him away, no longer curling his lip at the sound of a child’s steps. Edward would sit on the ottoman near the hearth with his notebook and a nervous sort of determination, while Turpin corrected his numbers in thick, practiced strokes, muttering observations under his breath.

“Your figures are still miserable,” he grumbled one evening, tapping the paper. “But the boy learns faster than most.”

“He has a good teacher,” you said, without looking up.

“I was referring to myself.”

You had to bite back a smile.

Some nights, when the pain in his legs was especially cruel, he would call you not to serve, but simply to sit. Beside the fire. With a book. He’d never say the words stay with me, but you felt them every time he glared at the clock when you stood to leave.

It was on one such night, as you lifted him from the bath and helped him settle against the pillows, that he said it.

“I want to name Edward as my heir.”

You froze.

He saw it immediately. “Yes,” he said. “That was the intended reaction.”

You blinked once, twice, then slowly placed the folded towel on the sideboard. “You… want what?”

“I have no son,” Turpin said matter-of-factly. “No brother left. No heir of sound blood. When I die, what remains of this house—its silver, its accounts, its name—will fall to a cousin in Kent who cannot even sign his letters without a blot. And with him, the name Turpin dies.” He met your gaze then, steady, sharp. “I want Edward to carry it.”

“No.”

Your answer came out before you’d fully thought it.

His brows lifted. “No?”

“No,” you repeated, stepping back. “You can’t just decide that. He’s not your son.”

Turpin’s face remained impassive. “He is young. Bright. He has potential. I would see it honed.”

“You’d see him shaped, you mean,” you snapped. “Bent into something you can point at and say, ‘Look, I did not die without legacy.’”

“And what would you have me do?” His voice was cold now, baritone rising. “Let the estate fall to dust? Let the boy rot in obscurity while you scrub chamber pots until your fingers bleed?”

“He doesn’t need your name,” you said fiercely. “And he doesn’t need your money.”

“You certainly do.”

Your mouth twisted. “That’s what this is about? Buying us?”

“I would provide him every opportunity—education, property, position—things you could never give.”

“Because you took them from me.”

Turpin went still.

You stepped forward, fury simmering beneath your voice. “You think you’re doing some great mercy? Lifting him up? But all you’re doing is taking him from me. Giving him your name so mine can die quietly in the servant’s register. So I become nothing but the maid who warmed your bath and raised your bastard heir.”

He flinched—just slightly—but it was there. A twitch in his jaw. A crease at the corner of his mouth.

You moved closer, seething now, your voice barely more than a whisper. “He is not yours to name. He is mine. I raised him. I fed him. I bled for him. If anyone gives him a future—it will be me.”

Turpin stared at you.

You stood inches apart now, your hands still trembling from where they’d caught his shoulder to ease him into bed. He smelled of soap and smoke and laudanum. The fire cast flickering shadows across his face, catching in the lines beside his eyes, the hooked edge of his nose, the thin press of his lips.

And then—

He reached.

His hand curled around your wrist, firm and warm, and before you could step away—

He pulled you in.

And kissed you.

It was not gentle.

It was not hesitant.

It was a theft. A claim. Mouth hard and hungry against yours, breath caught between clenched teeth, the taste of wine and old fury on his tongue. One hand tangled in your hair, the other gripped your waist like he’d been waiting years to do it—like some part of him had planned this the moment you first lifted a cup of tea to his lips and didn’t flinch when he sneered.

You gasped against him—shocked, breathless, furious—and still he kissed you.

And you let him.

Because you didn’t flinch now either.

When he pulled back, his chest rose and fell in short, uneven bursts. His hazel eyes were burning.

“You dare speak to me like that,” he rasped, “and wonder why I want to leave everything I have to you?”

You stared at him, mouth parted, heart thundering.

He leaned closer.

“I may be old. I may be cruel. But don’t you ever doubt what I see when I look at you.”

Your hand trembled at your side.

“You don’t know what I’ve sacrificed,” you whispered.

Turpin’s eyes narrowed. “Then tell me.”

You opened your mouth—then closed it.

Instead, you kissed him back.

Not gently. Not cautiously.

You surged forward and seized his mouth with your own, fingers curling into the velvet lapels of his robe as your weight pressed against him, your lips parting to devour him—bitter, breathless, furious. You tasted laudanum, claret, the lingering salt of sweat—and still you kissed him harder. Desperation met desperation, teeth catching lips, breath mingling in ragged gasps as he groaned beneath you, surprised, but not resisting. Never resisting.

Turpin’s hands found your waist.

And then your hips.

And then, without thought or pause, you straddled him—lifting your skirts and settling into his lap with a tremble that neither of you acknowledged. His breath hitched. The heat of your body pressed against the stiffness rising beneath the thin wool of his trousers. He was hard. Already. Groaning.

“You wicked little—” he rasped, baritone fraying at the edges as you ground against him, the wet heat of your core slicking through fabric, leaving no room for dignity.

You kissed him again. Deeper this time. One hand fisted in his white hair, the other bracing against the carved headboard as you rocked against his cock with maddening rhythm, your lips parting only to moan into his open mouth. He grabbed your hips, hard, guiding you in rough, deliberate circles.

“Christ,” he hissed. “You’ll kill me.”

You pulled back just enough to breathe, your lips hovering over his. “Then I’ll have to ride you slowly, won’t I?”

And you did.

Still clothed, still half-laced, you rocked against him with a practiced rhythm born of months of hunger and silence. He hissed again, his hazel eyes fluttering shut, sweat beading at his temple as he gripped your thighs with bruising fingers. You were soaked—he could feel it through the thin linen layers that separated you. And still, you didn’t stop.

Your own dress slipped off your shoulder with each thrust. Turpin noticed. He leaned forward—or tried to—but winced, a sharp cry of pain rattling in his throat. His back. The ruined spine. He could not bend, could not reach you.

“Damn it,” he snarled.

You paused, panting. “What?”

“I want—” he reached for the neckline of your bodice, fist curling around the fabric. “I want to see you.”

You didn’t hesitate. You pulled it down for him.

The bodice fell open, and your breasts spilled free, flushed and heaving with exertion. His eyes darkened—completely. No courtroom, no robe, no title could restrain the hunger in his stare as he drank in the sight of you.

“Oh,” he breathed. And then he reached up.

Rough hands, aged and callused and once so cruel, cupped your breasts with a reverence you didn’t expect—fingers kneading, thumbs grazing your nipples until you arched with a whimper. He squeezed one, then the other, his lips parting in open desire.

“I want—” he rasped, eyes locked on your chest, voice breaking. “I want to take it in my mouth—”

But he couldn’t lean forward.

Pain gripped him too tightly.

His fingers dug into your hips, frustration etched into every muscle of his face. You watched him writhe beneath you—not from your touch this time, but from the trap of his own body. And yet, he didn’t beg. Didn’t whimper.

Instead, his voice turned to command again.

“Ride me.”

You nodded.

Your hands gripped the headboard behind him and you began to move, hips rolling with raw purpose, breasts bouncing in his palms as you took him inch by thick inch, feeling the stretch, the sting, the satisfaction of him inside you. He groaned—loudly this time—his eyes burning up at you.

You rode him hard, driven by months of silent war, the tension now broken, unleashed. Your hips slapped against his lap with wet sounds, your head thrown back as his cock filled you over and over, rubbing deep against the spot that made you tremble.

“Faster,” he grunted, his voice almost gone. “Don’t stop. Let me feel you come.”

You whimpered, your thighs burning, your body trembling.

He reached up and slapped your ass—not cruelly, not like before, but sharply, commandingly—and the sound echoed through the chamber like an oath.

“Now,” he rasped, voice wrecked. “Come now.”

And you did—moaning his name as your body clenched hard around him, your whole frame shaking as you fell against his chest, sobbing into his collar.

He followed moments later—jerking beneath you, eyes wide, mouth open in a silent cry as he spilled inside you, his cock twitching, hands fisting the sheets.

Silence followed.

Only the fire crackled.

Only your breath remained.

And then—Turpin’s hand came to rest against your back, trembling, but sure.

You didn’t move.

Neither did he.

Because something old and cruel had broken between you.

And something else—something darker, deeper, and entirely new—had begun.

You tried to rise.

Your thighs trembled as you shifted atop him, the torn remnants of your underthings still caught beneath your knees, your skirts bunched around your waist, and his spend still hot and thick inside you. You pressed a palm to his chest and braced your weight, easing back with care. “My lord, I should—”

But his hands snapped to your hips.

“Don’t,” Turpin rasped, voice low and rough with exertion. “Stay.”

You hesitated. “But your back—your column—”

He looked up at you then, sharply, and the words died on your tongue. His hazel eyes had darkened again, but not with pain. There was calculation there now. A depth you couldn’t read.

His grip tightened. “Tell me something.”

Your spine straightened. You tried to ease off him again, but he held you down with surprising strength, cock still half-hard inside you, body slick with sweat, breath warming your chest.

His brow twitched. “Which man,” he said slowly, “took your maidenhead?”

The question came like a slap.

You stilled.

Turpin’s gaze did not falter. “Tell me his name.”

You said nothing.

He watched your face, his baritone low and deliberate now, coaxing, even as it threatened. “You speak so proudly of your stubbornness. Your fire. But you’ve danced around that question, haven’t you?”

Your jaw clenched. You looked away.

“No dowry. No husband. But not untouched.” His thumb brushed the inside of your thigh, not tender—never tender—but possessive. “I felt it. The way you moved. The way you knew how to ride a man. How many came before me, girl?”

You exhaled—long, slow.

Still not looking at him.

“Just one,” you said at last.

Your voice was thin. Distant.

Turpin’s eyes narrowed. “One.”

You gave a sharp nod. “Before I came to your house. Before I had work. Before I had anything at all.”

The silence between you thickened.

Your fingers fisted the edge of his robe where it was crushed beneath your thighs. “My parents had just died. Consumption. The rentmaster gave us a week to clear out. I was eighteen. Edward was three.”

You swallowed hard, breath catching.

“We had no food. We lived in a cellar for a fortnight. I tried to beg, but no one would give to a girl who looked too old and a boy who cried all night. So I stole.”

You glanced at him then—just once.

Turpin said nothing.

“I was caught,” you whispered. “Trying to take bread from a market cart. Two loaves, and a rind of cheese. A constable grabbed my arm before I could run.”

You paused, eyes flicking toward the fire.

“He pulled me into an alley. I thought he’d strike me. Drag me to the gallows. I begged—God help me, I begged. I told him I had a child to feed. That it wasn’t for me. I told him I’d do anything.”

Still, Turpin did not speak. His grip on your hips had gone slack.

You didn’t stop.

“He said he’d let me go,” you said softly. “If I opened my legs for him.”

Your voice cracked.

“I did.”

A long silence followed.

The fire spat in the grate. Somewhere beyond the window, rain tapped against the glass.

Turpin's face had gone unreadable. Like stone again. But not the familiar mask of disdain. This one was stranger. Tighter.

You spoke again, slower now. “He took what he wanted. In the dark. Up against the stones. It was quick. Cold. He didn’t even ask my name. Just grunted and tucked himself back into his uniform. Said I was lucky, and left.”

You looked down at your hands.

“I went back to the cellar. Fed Edward. And never told a soul.”

When your eyes rose to meet Turpin’s again, they were dry.

But your voice trembled.

“So now you know,” you said.

Turpin’s chest rose and fell beneath you. His mouth opened—then closed.

You thought, for a moment, that he would tell you it didn’t matter. That it was over. That it was past. You would have spat in his face if he did.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he reached up—slowly, carefully—and cupped your face in his hand.

His thumb brushed your cheekbone, then slid down to your jaw.

You stilled. Not flinching. Just waiting.

His voice, when it came, was lower than you’d ever heard it.

“And when you cried,” he asked, “did he stop?”

You blinked.

“…No.”

Turpin’s thumb paused at the hollow of your throat.

“And when he finished, did he hold you? Speak to you?”

You gave a bitter laugh. “He left me bleeding.”

A flicker passed behind his eyes.

He said nothing for a long moment.

Then his hand slid to the back of your head, fingers weaving into your hair.

He pulled you down—not roughly, but not gently either—and pressed your forehead to his.

“I should find him,” he whispered. “Drag him into court. Sentence him myself.”

You exhaled, your breath catching. “It’s too late for that.”

“Not for me,” Turpin growled.

You closed your eyes.

His voice remained just above a breath. “You deserved better.”

You didn’t answer.

Because you weren’t sure that you did.

But his next words silenced even that doubt.

“I will give you better,” he said. “I swear it.”

You opened your eyes.

And saw—just for a moment—that he meant it.