Read Folly's Reward for Free Online Page B

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    * * *
    Mrs. MacEwen’s maid met Prudence in the hall. Her face was filled with honest concern.
    “I didn’t like to say anything in front of that Hal fellow, ma’am,” she said. “And I’ve not told Mr. or Mrs. MacEwen, not wanting to worry the decent bodies, but you asked me to keep out a weather eye and I thought I should tell you. A man has been in the village, a stranger to these parts. He wore a patch over one eye, like an old soldier or a villain. He asked after newcomers to the area, asked if anyone had seen an unfamiliar gentleman, but when it was mentioned that you were the only stranger here, he seemed to know your description already: yellow hair, hazel eyes, less pretty than some—and he had a complete portrayal of the boy.”
    “Oh, dear heavens!”
    Her heart seemed to stop in her breast. Prudence sat down.
    Months earlier than anyone would have thought possible, they were run to earth.
    * * *
    Bobby did not want to go. He did not want to leave the silkie man that he had found on the beach. This was why! This was why she had begged Hal not to engage the child’s affections. Bobby cried piteously into Prudence’s shoulder as she rocked him in her arms in the dark nursery. She had already packed up their few bags and made up a little package of food from the kitchen. And of course she had the purse full of coin that Lady Dunraven had given her.
    Dear heavens, Bobby had lost everything in his short life: his mother when he was a baby; his father, wasting away from consumption only the previous winter; his home in London, then at Dunraven; and now he must lose the kindly company of Mr. and Mrs. MacEwen—and must be torn away from the unprincipled man he had befriended.
    The child had only herself, a hired governess, between him and desolation.
    She sang a snatch of the song about the silkie under her breath. “He’s taken out a purse of gold and laid it on the nurse’s knee / Give to me my bonny wee son and take ye up your nurse’s fee.” It was more of a croon than a song, but when she reached the next verse—“I will fetch my bonny wee son and teach him how to swim . . .”—Bobby objected.
    “Don’t sing it! Hal will teach me,” Bobby wailed. “Hal will take me far out to sea, beyond the foam and the waves. I want Hal. I found him on the beach. He came here for me.”
    His sobs wracked her heart.
    Eventually Bobby fell damply asleep. The rest of the household had gone to bed. Silently she slipped down to the stable yard and harnessed up the governess cart. A short note to Mr. and Mrs. MacEwen lay on the mantel. Prudence would not involve them further. It was a note they could show to Black Belham himself if he came here. It would absolve the MacEwens of blame, and prove that her destination was unknown to them. She would send a letter to Lady Dunraven from Glasgow. She was pursuing their second plan now.
    Another trip packed the cart with the bags and provisions. Then she carried the sleeping child down through the silent house and tucked him into the little bed of blankets she had made in the cart.
    As they passed Hal’s window, the horse’s hoofs echoed with a thunderous clangor in the stone yard. Prudence felt frantic with fear. She ought to have muffled the nag’s feet with sackcloth.
    Bobby stirred and whimpered, but did not wake up. She tried to lead the horse toward the closed gate. The animal stopped stubbornly, not wanting to leave its companions in the stable.
    And Hal? Had the sound of the hooves woken him yet?
    Prudence tiptoed to the little room at the end of the stable and peeked in the window. On a cot against the far wall Hal lay as abandoned as he had seemed on the beach. His hair spread jet black against the pillow. Deep shadows lay under his jaw and beneath the hollow of his neck where it met his collarbone. In sleep he looked younger, but every bit as dangerous.
    She noticed with the smallest shock that Hal did not seem to be wearing a nightshirt. The strong