Gray had little compassion for those he knew and none for strangers. Spending almost six years in the military had done nothing to nurture such a wasteful emotion. “Better if you had considered all you’ve told mebeforeyou robbed what you needed from others who need it as well. The life of someone else’s father means little compared to yours?”
“To me, it does,” the young thief cried. “Forgive me for saying, my lord, but no one’s father means more to me than mine.”
Gray looked him over in his tattered breeches and a coat in even worse condition. Was the boy’s story true? He guessed there were many more similar stories out there. His father was still in control of laws and the punishment for breaking them, money collected from his vassals for land and agriculture, and more. The full bellies of his people had never been a priority to the duke of Devon. They wouldn’t be important to Timothy Cavendish either. That’s why Gray didn’t have the luxury of just leaving the way his mother had. What did he really care about rules and the selfish men who made them? But when his father died, Gray had to make certain Cavendish didn’t take his title.
“Please, my lord, if you would just check on my father occasionally. His name is Nate Somner.”
The first thief scoffed. “You think the marquess will do anything for you but deliver you to his father for the noose? You are a fool boy!”
The young thief closed his eyes to keep his tears from spilling over.
Gray cast the first thief a murderous glare. “What do you think you deserve for stealing from the mouths of children?”
“Forgive me,” the young thief cried without opening his eyes.
Gray stared at him for a moment, then turned and flicked his reins. Ghost trotted along at a slow pace, while the wounded thief and his unrepentant companion went back and forth from complaining to begging for their lives. Gray listened to some of it, but he was mostly immune to begging. He’d heard it often in battle.
A raven gave out a shrill cry above his head. Gray and the other three men looked up, for the bird was flying low.
It was big, the same one that had followed him the last time Gray had been out. He scowled at it. What did the creature want? He felt an elusive memory pass through his head of being young—perhaps five or six—and laughing while he ran through his mother’s garden with a raven pecking softly at his sides and back.
A large raven killing George Gable.
He put the memories out of his head. Miss Darling made it easier to do, since she constantly plagued his thoughts.
She had accused him of being nasty to the Gables and she even defended Will Gable. Part of him was the slightest bit bothered by it. It didn’t matter what she felt for Will. She was going to leave if she found the correct door. The thought of going with her to perhaps find his mother, crossed his mind. But he didn’t want to find her and he wasn’t about to let Cavendish have Dartmouth.
He simply had to guard himself extra hard against Miss Darling and all the things about her that tempted him to tear off his armor and compel her to stay. He didn’t find her half as irritating as everyone else he knew. She was dangerous—so dangerous, he thought, shaking his head at himself. He could almost feel himself falling to every useless emotion that had a name.
But she drew him the way music did. After checking and finding it gone, Gray was certain the key his grandmother had given him was the object that brought Miss Darling here—to the past. Miss Darling was a dance teacher and a dancer herself. It was as if she were handpicked and sent back to him all wrapped in a pretty bow. Yes, he believed it all. It made sense to his poor head that his mother had goneahead. That grandmother had gone next and had given the key to Miss Darling. The questions were why and how much did Miss Darling know? Was she in on the grand plan? Or was she too a victim of the Blagdens?
She’d been broken, like him, and it had cost her what she loved most.
He scowled at himself as a wave of warmth, like the deepest caress, flowed through him. Empathy. The first of the curses. Mother to sympathy and compassion, they wreaked havoc on the heart and if he wasn’t careful, he could find himself torn to bits, not by any forest animal, but by the people around him.
Not him. Not ever again.
He ignored the young thief’s quiet cries and handed the three men over to his guardsmen to be brought to the dungeon. But when his men turned for the stairs, Gray followed them. He reached the young thief’s coat and yanked him around to face him.
“We’re going to validate your story.” He didn’t give the boy the opportunity to reply but dragged him in the opposite direction.
He practically flung the thief into the saddle of one the three horses that had followed him home.
“Take me to your father,” Gray demanded, leaping onto Ghost’s back.
“Thank you, my lord. You have my loyalty above my own life.”
Gray shook his head. “Don’t die for a sentiment. Always do what you can to protect your life.”
They traveled north to Norton and reached the small hovel where the young thief, who was called Robin, claimed to live.
Nate Somner was blinded with age and extraordinarily thankful that the marquess of Dartmouth would deign to take such care of his son. “He is a good boy,” Mr. Somner said of his son.
Gray nodded. He hadn’t told the boy’s father the real reason he brought him home. “Yes. I believe he is.”
Gray warned Robin never to rob again and left him to care for his father. He returned to the castle alone. When he set foot beyond the castle doors, he sensed Harper in the shadows, watching to make certain he came home safely. He kept up his pace to his room, though twice he almost turned to order her out of the shadows.
He was glad no one else—like Miss Darling for instance—met him in the halls. He wondered, for the briefest of moments, where she was.