This story follows Anne and Sid, she is Freya’s husband’s (Joshua) cousin, and she is a teacher at Mrs. Martin’s school, much like Frances from the previous story, she has a 9 year old son that was the result of rape, by Joshua’s late brother. Sid is a former soldier who was captured b y french soldiers and tortured, he is missing an eye, and an arm. Sid is also the Duke of Bewcastle’s steward, Bewcastle is Freya’s brother, that’s their connection.
Josue invites Anne to spend some time with them in Wales, where Syd works for the Duke, she agrees as her son has very few male friends or male influences in his life, as she gets there she runs into Syd, after having fled from him, shocked by his injuries, and apologizing. Sid and Anne grow fond of one another, they had a lot in common and since everyone else was paired, they naturally gravitated towards one another.
Their friendship ultimately lead to to trust, which lead them to share and spend an intimate afternoon, Anne becomes pregnant form it and reaches out to Syd who decides to marry her, they navigate several difficulties in their first few weeks of marriage, and the story ends with them finally admitting they love one another after a party full of Bedwyns.
Now, there’s several very interesting ideas that were explored in this story, and I would say that this was one of the books where sex was the most central. But in the form of passionate lovemaking, it was about touch, intimate touch.
Syd is a victim of torture who had to get his arm amputated and does not have one eye, even Anne during their first meeting flees in shock and horror at the sight of him, even though she eventually realizes her mistake and apologizes. He had to endure touch, the kind that destroys and hurts, the kind of touch the traumatizes one to dread any form of touch hence.
Syd feels repulsive and horrific, incomplete and inadequate, unworthy of love and incapable of making someone else happy, as such he longs and craves touch but is afraid of it and so he actively avoids it, specially intimate touch.
He says something rather interesting at some point, that I think describes trauma wonderfully, even if it’s not physical injury, it’s as if his body is stuck in the past to such a degree that it can’t deal with the present.
It made me think of all the symptoms that we experience that may be related to our body responding to older traumatic experiences, or older hurts or wounds. Our bodies register every form of event, and every touch that comes with it, the loving creative ones, the affectionate ones, but also the traumatic ones and these are the ones that are difficult to forget, and overcome.
He lost his right arm, which is the one he used to paint, he loved to paint, which was, interestingly, how he felt he could express his vision of the world. He saw the world in a certain manner, and then had the ability to physically express that through painting, his loss was so great, that even the smell of paint made him nauseous.
Now, interestingly, it’s not that he was a mess, he was actually quite funcional, but complacently incomplete, but not because he was physically incomplete, but because he kept himself so, but refusing to face his past. It wasn’t until he received Anne’s affectionate and accepting touch that he did not start his transformation, that he did not gather the strength to revisit his past and grab whatever he needed from there and leave there whatever he did not need any longer and re invent himself anew.
Anne, had been the victim of rape and she was obviously terrified of intimate touch, she could not bear the sensation, she could not bear feeling intimately touched and this created a lot of confusion for the two of us and it would feed Syd’s fear of being repulsive because of her reactions to him when they were in bed.
it was the touch that brought her right back into the moment when the most tender form of touch became the most destructive. She would freeze and he would blame himself and his own injuries.
Sometimes, fate put us in a specific situation where we find ourselves surrounded by the right kind of people, with the right kind of information to share with us, information that will speak to our inner fears, or traumatic experiences, information that has the potential to heal or make us whole again. But, if we’re not honestly open in these situations, if we’re not at least partially aware of how our own experiences can determine our behavior, we may validate both ours and their programs.
It struck me that we either make one another strong or weak unintentionally and unconsciously depending on our level of awareness. There are some of us for whom helping someone else is second nature, and I think responding to a request for help is key, but that should go along with a certain amount of internal work, and that is probably the other half of helping someone be strong.
The idea of attractiveness is also explored in this story, they actually both felt repulsive, for different reasons. Anne felt dirty and Syd knew he caused horror in others. But it’s not just being physically attractive to strangers, it’s being found worthy of attention and affection, worthy of touch, loving and creative touch.
Our skin is the first level of defense of our beings to the outside world, it’s the one organ that we will cover or reveal to show our trust, it’s the one organ that will visually display our wounds, sickness, habits and life in general. It’s in our wrinkles that people can tell whether we smile a lot or frown too much, etc.
It’s so crucial, yet so fragile and easy to break and cut, but also it’s so effective at transmitting a lot of unspoken words to the rest of our beings. Syd was tortured and as such he felt he had lost his way to give himself to the world, Anne was raped and as such, she felt unworthy of love and affection, and afraid of intimacy. But, it wasn’t until Anne touched Syd and told him he was beautiful, and after she opened up to him about what touch meant that they could not rewrite the information that their skin had imprinted in their lives.
I know it’s a long post already, and perhaps it may be better described this way. This book was the story of how intimate touch can be utterly destructive, and we have all been there in one way or another, but it is through the same avenue that we may regain our lives back by rewriting wha all those awful touches imprinted on our skins, digging to our very souls in some instances.
. Often, her characters take a bit of time to finally realize their feelings, but these two made me want to throttle them both! 
.That said - it was beautiful and I shed a few tears.
I can't describe it very well either. I think that might be what Laura meant when she said you have to be careful when you read these novels. I didn't think about it while reading and I didn't feel weird. Also, there was far too much curiosity about what there was to discover. It was kind of like a mini-depression....
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). I also feel more present, I can more and more see the predatory mind in me, I manage to simply BE with my emotions without being engulfed by them with more regularity. I feel like I am growing inside, and all I hope is that I will know what it is to BE human before I leave this life. 
