Silas grinned at the excitement he could see working its way into her veins and tugged her closer to his side, eager to show her around.
“We’ll look around in a bit. First, we should –”
“Your Grace! Your Grace!” Simon called from a few feet away, running towards them.
Silas frowned, holding his hand out to steady the boy as he tripped in his haste to approach his master.
“Simon, what –”
“There’s – it’s bad, Your Grace,” Simon panted, short of breath.
“Calm down and breathe, Simon.” Agnes urged softly. “Whatever it is, we will deal with it.”
Simon shook his head, trying with all his might to get the words out.
“It’s Scar! Your Grace, he – he’s sick.”
A chill ran down Silas’ spine, and his face became blank.
“Show me,” he ordered.
Simon nodded and turned around, leading them to a small tent that had been set up to prepare Scar for the competition before it began. Silas pushed away the flap that covered the entrance, his heart falling at the sight of his horse on the floor, huffing and snorting in discomfort. He went down on his knees and reached out to stroke Scar’s neck, going still as he felt a shudder run through the creature’s body.
He had seen this enough times when his grandfather had been teaching him to ride and care for horses enough to recognize the signs.
Scar had been poisoned.
“Did you hear anyone else make any reports of their horse being sick?” he asked Simon quietly.
The boy shook his head. “No, Your Grace. But we’ve only just arrived –”
It didn’t matter. If this was a bid to weed out the competition, the perpetrator would have sought to take out as many horses as possible. In fact, even if Silas was his only true adversary, he would have still made an effort to conceal his tracks by poisoning other horses, so the main focus of the attack would be lost.
So, not only was this a targeted attack, but an imbecile was also responsible. And there was only one person that came to Silas’ mind who that could be.
“Fucking Lewis,” he growled under his breath as he rose. “I should have unearthed him from whichever hole he crawled into and killed him while I had the chance.”
He had begun to leave but then caught sight of a piece of paper pinned to one of the wooden posts within the tent. Quickly, he ripped it off and read the messy scrawl on it, feeling his blood begin to boil with every word.
How does it feel to lose everything? If you want the antidote, meet me in grandfather’s old stable house.
Silas crumbled up the note in his hand and stormed out of the tent. Agnes gave a sorrowful, concerned glance to Scar before following Silas, doing her best to catch up to him but ultimately unable to because of his hurried, angry pace.
“S-Silas…” she called out for him, unhappy when he did not stop or turn to look at her. “Silas, please, wait!”
He still kept moving, swiftly avoiding colliding into people coming from the other direction and with a frustrated groan, Agnes willed her legs to move faster, grabbing onto his arm as soon as she was within reach to do so.
“Silas, stop,” she said, pulling him to a standstill. “It’s… I know you’re worried, and you’re scared. But charging away like this is not going to solve anything, and it won’t help Scar get better. So… please, just – calm down.”
She slipped her hands from his arm down to his hand, holding it up to her chest. “You are not alone. You don’t have to solve this all on your own. We – we can think of something together, hatch some sort of plan to fix this, you and me. We will get through this… because we love each other, and that’s what love does. It fights and perseveres, and if we just –”
“We do not love each other,” Silas stated coldly as he ripped his hand away from hers. “I will never be able to love you. Do not delude yourself into thinking so just because we might have grown somewhat close in the last few weeks. That will never happen.”
Agnes’ eyes widened, and she took a slight step backwards.
“Silas… surely you do not mean that –”
“This,” he gestured between them, “This proposed marriage of ours was a mere necessity I was forced to undertake because my grandfather had included an additional stupid rule in his will that would have kept me from the rest of my inheritance if I did not marry. That is why you are here – why I need a wife. I told you from the start that I sought nothing more, and if you think that just because there have been some… moments between us, you are mistaken. We are nothing more than business partners, and we will never be more than that. Now, just… stay out of myway and let me fix this mess – one that I would not have had to deal with if you had not insisted on having your way, if you hadn’t forced me to involve Scar in this.”