Read Come the Night (The Dangerous Delameres - Book 1) for Free Online Page B

hole, he couldn’t be a very thorough man. Maybe he was just blustering. Maybe he would be careless about this, the way he was about mending his boots. Maybe he’d forget everything.
    She caught back a sob. It was a vain hope. They had come here for a purpose and they weren’t going to settle for less.
    But why?
    Her head pounded. The purple fields began to pitch and sway around her.
    Abruptly lavender and roses bled away into streams of muddy black.
    ~ ~ ~
     
    “Syl, wake up!”
    Hands. Shaking her. Hard.
    Cold ground and a stone digging into her rib.
    “Syl, what’s wrong ?”
    Silver’s eyes opened slowly. She tasted blood on her lip and her head felt as if a barrel of bricks had rolled over it.
    Seven days, Miss St. Clair. Just ye remember that.
    Her whole body felt cold. “Bram, is that you? Are you all right?” Silver reached out desperately, searching the boy’s face for injuries.
    There were none, but he was clearly afraid. “Of course I’m all right. But someone’s burned half this lavender and kicked two rosebushes flat!” As Silver came awkwardly to a sitting position, Bram knelt beside her, his eyes wide. “Dash it, Syl, what have you done to your head?” The tremor in his voice told her that she looked terrible.
    Which was just about right, since she felt terrible.
    Her body ached. She hugged her chest, fighting her fear.
    Next time all the flowers go.
    Bram touched her aching cheek. “Who did this, Syl?” His voice shook, the sound of a boy trying to grow up overnight and become a man.
    When she didn’t answer, his hands tightened. “I was sketching some specimens up by Waldon Hall when I saw the smoke. That’s what made me come looking for you.”
    “You shouldn’t go up there, Bram. You know that’s not our land anymore. I’ve told you that things are different now. We can’t wander anywhere we like.” Silver’s voice was mechanical. “Even if the owner never seems to be in residence, that doesn’t mean—”
    Bram stared at her as if she had just sprouted green spots and begun speaking Russian. “What happened here, Syl? Don’t chatter on about Waldon Hall or its secretive owner!”
    Silver hesitated. She would have to be careful how much she told him. “It — it was nothing.” She pushed slowly to her feet. “A mistake, that’s all.”
    “A mistake?” The boy’s fingers hardened to dusty fists. “Don’t lie to me, Syl!”
    Silver managed the hint of a smile. “It’s true, Bram. I just wanted some of those new cuttings burned. The sick ones, you remember? I asked some men from the village to come up and help me.” Her eyes hardened for a moment. “It seems they burned the wrong plants.”
    “And they just happened to knock you down and bloody your forehead while they were at it? Of course, how completely logical.” Bram’s hands tightened, the knuckles gone white. “So logical, I can’t imagine why I didn’t think of it.”
    “Bram, please. You don’t—”
    He shot upright, five feet of white-hot, offended boyhood perched just on the edge of tumultuous adolescence. “You’re right, I don’t understand! I don’t know what in heaven really happened here. And I certainly don’t know why you’re standing there lying to me!”
    Silver looked at him, his thin arms akimbo and brown hair awry. He was pale. He was thin, yes. But there was fire in his eyes and a St. Clair’s courage in the angry set to his jaw.
    She realized then that she’d have to tell him. He had a right to know, after all. Lavender Close Farm belonged more to her brother than it did to her. She was merely safeguarding it until he reached his majority.
    She sighed, her hands dropping to her sides. “There were four of them. I — I don’t know if they were the same men who followed me last night on the heath when I returned from Kingsdon Cross.”
    Bram frowned. “I knew something had happened, but you didn’t tell me then either.”
    “I didn’t want to upset you. I never thought