WHEN WIDOW DAVENTRY LEFT, I lay back down, and in the closeness of the hiding place, I held the cross of lead before my eyes. Though I could see nothing, I stared at it.
As I did, I began to see how my new knowledge made sense of the way my mother and I had lived for so many years.
Her words about my father. Few and bitter.
Father Quinel’s saying she could read and write, but never revealing it to me.
The way people in Stromford Village looked upon us as different.
Aycliffe treating us with such contempt.
Her calling me “Asta’s son,” since I was all she had, and that was all she could say. But all the same, christening me secretly with my father’s name.
No wonder she sometimes clung to me, and just as oft thrust me away. I was her life. She cared for me. Yet I was the cause of her destruction.
Thus we were foreigners to Stromford. Unwanted prisoners.
Then, the courier had arrived with his document, probably to announce the impending death of Lord Furnival. His protection—such as it was—was removed.
Only then did the words I heard in the forest make sense:
“And am I to act immediately?”
“It’s her precise command. Are you not her kin?
Do you not see the consequences if you don’t?”
“A great danger to us all.”
The her was Lady Furnival.
To say I had stolen money was merely Aycliffe’s excuse to declare me a wolf’s head. He sought to kill me because of who I was. No, not who I was, but who my father and mother were. For me—as Widow Daventry had said—they cared not so much as a rooster’s tooth.
Father Quinel must have known the truth. And he was killed. Again, Aycliffe’s hand.
And Bear came to know it but didn’t tell me. He was shielding me from the poison in my blood.
Now he had been taken, most likely to be killed. All because of me.
No, I had to remind myself. Not because of me, or anything I’d done, but because I was—Lord Furnival’s son. The only question was, now that I knew who I was, what should I do?
Because it was clear to me that they had taken Bear to get at me.