Read The Fall of Lady Westwood for Free Online

draft animals did you Isaac?”
    Isaac chuckled, the epaulets on his broad shoulders gleaming in the morning light. “Alas, no. I’ve something to propose, actually.”
    “Go on.” Clayton had wondered why his friend had decided to slum with the yokels in the hinterland. Wyndhaven, with its intrigues and opportunities, was the proper place for a trader like Isaac Galt. Still, a part of Clayton was glad to see his old friend, if for no other reason than to distract him from his failure to protect his own flesh and blood.
    Isaac lowered his voice. “Before I do, I need your solemn word that this will remain between us and the wind.”
    Clayton sighed. “I should have known. This is farm country, Isaac. We don’t piss around out here about things. Let’s just hear it.”
    “What are you prepared to do about this? You know it cannot stand.”
    Clayton shot his friend a sharp look. “Dictating to me how to run my affairs now? What do you know of it?”
    “I’ve heard enough. It pays to be privy to information in my line of work.”
    “My options are bad and worse, Isaac. I’m at her mercy, and she knows it.”
    “So take Sophie back. I know you can. I’ve seen what you’re capable of doing.”
    Clayton tried to ignore the searing memories. The blood, the rush of the kill, the pain. His heart was suddenly racing, his pulse loud in his ears. His mind wanted to forget those memories; his body could not.
    Isaac sat forward in his saddle pointing at his friend. “You’ve got no choice, Clayton.”
    He shook his head. “Choice is the one thing I do have, Isaac. The problem is that I can’t bear to make it.”
    Isaac shook the reins of his steed, the white horse accelerating to a trot. “Be honest with yourself, you old fool. You must act, else you’ll never see her again.”
    Clayton, shaking his own horse’s reins to keep up, looked at his friend. “She has me, Isaac. I’ve nothing to fight her with. But I’ll be damned if I give in to her demands — noble right or not.”
    “So what then? Appeal to the Council?”
    Clayton cursed under his breath. “A waste of time. They only care about the damned Frontier. They’re shitting in their drawers from tales of bogeymen and the whispers of old women. They’d never move against a noble. It would be lip service only — then nothing. Meanwhile Sophie would suffer for it.”
    “She’s suffering already, Clayton.” Isaac’s voice was grave.
    “Aye, I know it — and it’s tearing me apart.”
    Isaac pulled his horse to a stop and looked at his friend. Galt’s gaze was hard. “We’ll help you.”
    “I know what you’re about.” Clayton turned his horse to face Isaac’s. “Your boy needs to stay away from my daughter.”
    “That’s not really the problem right now is it, Clayton? For God’s sake man, don’t let that witch do this to you! What would you rather have? Owen courting Sophie, or your daughter at the mercy of Miriam?”
    Clayton stared at his friend, shaking his head, hoping Isaac couldn’t sense his desperation, his hopelessness.
    Isaac looked down a moment, then cast a sidelong gaze at Clayton. “How is my boy?”
    Clayton was surprised that Isaac had refused to visit his son. Perhaps it was simply a father letting his progeny make his own way in the world, but he knew if it were he in Isaac’s shoes, ten thousand horses couldn’t have dragged him from his injured child’s side. “He was sore for a week after her soldiers got done with him. Rory’s wife patched him up as best she could, but he might scar. Only time will tell, but he’s a strong lad. It would’ve been even worse for him if the soldiers had taken him back to Westwood.”
    He saw a pinched look cross Isaac’s countenance for the briefest of moments, then the former military man clenched his jaw, his eyes narrowing. “That wasn’t your fault either, Clayton, so don’t go saddling yourself with it too.”
    “It’s not that simple.” Clayton ran a hand through