Gray sat upwith a start. How long had he been asleep? He reached up and rubbed his head as if that would stop its pounding.
“My lord, you didn’t sleep very long.”
He didn’t have to look toward the chair to know it was Sarah Gable who spoke.
“Where’s Miss Darling?”
A stifled sigh escaped Sarah’s lips. “She will return shortly, my lord. She asked me to watch over you in her stead. Is my company so terrible that you ask for someone else the moment you hear my voice?”
What was this? Was Sarah brooding? She sounded jealous for the first time. Then again, she’d never had anyone to be jealous of. Gray didn’t share his affections with anyone. If Sarah were anyone else, he would have pointed out that she didn’t answer his question. He still didn’t know where Miss Darling was. He would have been brutally honest with her that he couldn’t help but ask for his guest because she was the first person on his mind when he woke and the last and only person with him when he laid his head on his pillow at night.
“Forgive me, Sarah. Thank you for seeing to me.”
A smile crept over her mouth. “Of course, my lord. Who else would I sit with?”
The youngest of George Gable’s children had been a chambermaid and then a maid at Dartmouth Castle since he was a boy. He was seven when he first met her, just before his mother left. She used to come with Mrs. Gable but would end up following Gray around the castle. At three, he thought she was quite adorable and laughed at her antics often. They practically grew up together except that, after the incident, Mrs. Gable left the castle, and Sarah was strictly forbidden to speak to or play with him. The Gables stayed away for four years before returning, offering maid service once again. As she grew older though, Sarah defied her mother and tried to speak to him on several occasions. By then, Gray didn’t want any friends, nor did he want to be friendly to anyone.
He ignored her for a long time but just before he left for the army, he found her weeping in one of the turrets. She had admitted that she was weeping because she would miss him. He asked her not to miss him for too long if he never came back. That made her cry more.
He left that day thinking that someone would miss him. Perhaps it was what made him fight back. When he returned, he made sure to speak to her. He promoted her position to a maid and made sure she would be getting 16 guineas a year as her wage.
He was glad she was here. She’d known him the longest with exception to Harper. His sleep had been plagued by dreams and images of foxes, wolves, ravens, and more, all slain and slung over the village men’s shoulders and hanging from long sticks. The eyes that had always watched him when they were close, stared lifelessly at nothing. It didn’t matter that they had never spoken to him directly. He always heard them when he listened. They were his friends. Kit and Maple, just two of his fox friends, Davith and Ash, his wolf friends, and Matilda and Toric, his raven friends. Dead.You killed us, Grayson.He could hear them even in their deaths.This was your fault.
His fault. He had to know the truth.
“Sarah.”
She leaped from her seat and appeared at the side of the bed. “Yes, my lord?”
He would work at finding her a good husband. “Sarah, you were my friend before anyone else.” he said, pushing himself up to sit. He tilted his head to look up at her. It wasn’t what he wanted to ask her, but he found himself asking it, nevertheless. “What exactly was it about me that you would miss so much it had made you cry that day when I was leaving for the army? We barely shared five words between us.”
She blinked her wide, mortified eyes at him. “You are curious about that now?”
He nodded. “It helped me,” he told her and waited.
“I worried that you had nothing to fight for. You were always so moody and morose. You were alone all the time without a person or animal to call friend. I—”
“Animals?” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and motioned for her to pull the chair over and sit. When she did, he leaned in toward her. “Why do you mention them? You’ve known me even longer than Harper has. Did you believe I communicated with animals?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said without hesitation, as if she’d been waiting a lifetime to confess it. “Do you not remember us playing while my mother worked? There were many times when Henrietta, your mother’s cat would visit us and meow, and you would laugh and answer things only you could hear. You forbade her and any of her friends from harming the mice in the barns or fields. Even the castle mice used to come and sit around you, me and Henrietta while we played.”
His mother’s cat? That was before his mother disappeared, when his days were filled with playing and laughter. “I don’t remember that.”
“I do,” she countered. “I know you allowed the animals to kill my father because he killed the wolf.”
Gray held up his hand. He didn’t want to remember.
“You allowed them to hurt Harry because he killed Abigail. I saw him do it. He laughed while he shot her. He tried to lie about it but I knew the truth. And I know Abigail loved you. I used to watch her follow you after your mother left. I remember seeing her asleep in your lap under the great oak outside. I know she was dear to you.
How was it possible that he had forgotten so much about Abigail when just the thought of her burned his eyes with tears?
“If this is possible then I’m responsible for your father’s death and for the deaths of all the animals that were hunted because of what happened.”
“You were a passionate child, my lord.”
“No. It’s impossible to speak to them,” he defended. “I only pretended to communicate with them because I was lonely.”
“But, my lord, you do not remember any of it?”