Page 73 of Legacy of Glass
The mother gave a small squeak and threw her arms around Olivia. Julius looked up, ready to intervene, but although Olivia looked startled, she gave Julius a small smile over the woman’s shoulder, gently patting her on the back.
Julius had been hoping to avoid mentioning the other abductions, but he could understand what had compelled Olivia to speak. It would be cruel to do otherwise in the face of a mother’s distress.
“What’s this?” Larkin asked. “Other girls have been taken?”
Julius shrugged. “That is what the rumors say. But we need hard evidence to take it further.”
The man leaped to his feet, lunging forward and taking Julius’s wrist in an iron grasp. Julius was barely able to keep hold of the note as Larkin’s eyes speared into him.
Cade stepped forward, his posture menacing, but Julius waved him away.
“If that’s what you want the note for, you can’t have it,” the man said. “I won’t allow anything that puts my Elisabeth at risk.”
Julius spoke gently, putting as much sincerity into his voice as he could muster. “I understand. We also don’t want to see harm come to your daughter. But what about once she is safely recovered? Would you give testimony then?”
Larkin hesitated, glancing at his wife, who sniffed and nodded. He released Julius and stepped back.
“I suppose that would be another matter. Naturally I want to see the villains who would hurt an innocent girl brought to justice.” He cleared his throat. “And I hope Your Highness will excuse…” He trailed off and gestured at Julius’s arm. “A desperate father will dare anything to protect his child.”
Julius nodded, and Cade finally sat back down, nodding at the note in Julius’s hand. “The note is obviously a test—to see if you will obey their orders and keep quiet before they reveal further information. It says that if you obey them, they’ll contact you again in a few days with details of the ransom and how to safely recover your daughter. How long ago did you receive it?”
“Two days almost exactly.” A determined look had replaced Mistress Larkin’s tears. “When we heard your knock, we thought maybe…”
Julius sighed. “You’re right that there is very little information in this note to go on. Especially since we can’t take it for analysis. But there will be more clues in the next one, and you should hear from them soon.”
“Assuming they don’t hear these rumors and think we’ve disobeyed their command,” Larkin said in a worried voice. “If the rumor is freely circulating the market…”
“Not freely,” Olivia said quickly, giving Julius an apologetic look. “I don’t think it’s as bad as you fear.”
Larkin frowned, but Olivia didn’t say anything else, and he didn’t press her.
“I have only one request,” Julius said. “Please inform us when you hear from the abductors again.”
Larkin’s brows rose. “And how am I to do that, Your Highness? And without alerting the abductors to your involvement?”
Cade leaned forward. “Do you ever buy bread from the stall in the southwestern corner of the market?”
“Bread, my lord?” Mistress Larkin asked.
Cade nodded. “From that particular stall. Do you ever shop there?”
“All the locals use the market baker,” she said. “He’s even better than the baker with the shop on Hayder’s Way. I’ve told him many times that his bread is worthy of a bigger establishment than a market stall.”
Cade smiled. “That’s easy, then, and you needn’t worry about alerting anyone. Once you’ve received the note, attend the market yourself and buy a loaf of bread and four rolls from that stall.”
Julius nodded approval, easily grasping Cade’s plan. “We’ll have someone watching the stall. They’ll let us know when you make the purchase, and we’ll come as quickly after that as possible.”
With Markus located in the same corner of the market, they wouldn’t need to assign a watcher.
Having agreed on the arrangement, the only thing left was to hear the story of Elisabeth’s disappearance. Unfortunately, there were no clues to be found in that either. She had gone out to the market one day and never returned. When her parents quizzed the local stallholders, they all agreed that she had never arrived at the market. She must have been snatched from the street before she got there, but if anyone had witnessed it, they had not come forward.
Julius sighed as they exited the house.
“I had hoped to find out a little more than that,” Cade said, voicing Julius’s own thoughts.
“But the ransom demand will tell us more,” Olivia said, clearly determined to take an optimistic view of their first real clue in weeks. “And if we can tag along for the exchange, we’ll have a real chance of tracking the abductors back to wherever they’re holding Marigold.”
Julius’s brows drew together. “Wewon’t be tracking anyone. Once it gets to that stage, we’ll have to bring in my father and at least some of the guards.”
