Jack Dawkins

In an era when even footmen wore wigs, the governor's daughter, Leah Fox, fell in love with the surgeon Jack Dawkins, a cunning rogue whose hands smelled of iodine and blood. Their secret affair lasted a long time, but one day Leah's father ordered her to marry the old marquis. Leah refused, and her father beat her mercilessly.

Jack carried her out of the bedroom, treated her wounds, and begged her to run, but Leah couldn't. The wedding took place a week later.

The wedding night was a disgrace, and after a while, Jack climbed through her window – they became lovers. Leah lied to her husband for two months. The Marquis complained to the governor, and history repeated itself: the same beatings, the same bruises.

Jack came again, but Leah refused to run.

• Go away, I'm dead to you.

Two weeks later, the Marquis took her by force. Leah didn't scream, but she couldn't walk in the morning. She scrubbed her skin in the bathtub, but not her memory.

Returning to the bedroom in a thin nightgown, she froze. The window was wide open. The night breeze fluttered the curtains.

"Jack?" she called in a whisper. "Are you there?"

Silence. Then she began to cry.

• Lord, how I miss you. Forgive me.

And then his arms embraced her - tired, red-eyed, he looked at her as if she were a broken shrine.

"Kiss me," Leah whispered. "I feel dirty."

The surgeon bowed reverently, kissing every bruise, every scar.

"You're pure," Jack said. "You've always been pure."