Page 74 of The Wise Daughter
Aaron swallowed. “Very well, Mr. Gaines.”
“Aaron!”
Leaving now would look insufficient to Nora, especially since he would appear to be choosing to believe the man’s word over hers, but the man was dangerous. Aaron had to remove her to safety. He could return later with help to apprehend the man.
“I’ll have my steward apprise me of your business, Mr. Gaines, but I will be back should anything appear amiss.”
Mr. Gaines nodded, his anger dissipating somewhat, though Aaron could still feel his eyes studying his face.
“Aaron, the foal.”
His next words were very difficult to speak. “Leave the foal where it is.”
“Aaron!”
He closed his eyes for two aching heartbeats. Whatever happened next, he hoped never to give Nora another reason to speak his name with such wretched disappointment again.
“Nora, I believe we’ve intruded on Mr. Gaines long enough.”
Mr. Gaines held the little foal by its mane.
Aaron turned his horse, waiting for Nora to follow with hers. As she urged the mare to obey, both the foal and poor mother whinnied to one another in heartbreaking accents that pierced Aaron’s heart and made him want to shrug off the world to find his own mother. If leading the mare away from her baby was this difficult for him, he couldn’t imagine what Nora or the mare were feeling.
He kept his gaze straight ahead and urged his horse into a quick canter once he was sure Nora had control over hers. More than anything, he needed distance from Mr. Gaines and those mournful cries. After several minutes, he sensed Nora falling behind. She could have caught up, but he didn’t think she wanted to. He slowed enough to fall back with her.
“Poor thing,” she cried with a sniffle. “At least your baby looked well enough.” Aaron realized she was talking to her horse. “There was good grazing in that field and– I’m so sorry, my friend. I tried.”
Aaron didn’t dare meet her eye for nearly another mile, not until they were entirely beyond view of Mr. Gaines’s fields. Even after he thought he had cleared his head and was in control of himself, speaking was difficult.
“Nora, I know you are upset.”
“Oh Aaron. It is so much more than that. My heart is aching right now. That man is a thief. He might be one ofthethieves. He might have been involved in the fire. How could you leave like that, letting him go free when you’ve promised me we’ll catch them all? I can hardly believe you let him keep the foal. This poor mare! Listen to her cries! How is she to bear being separated from her son like that?”
Aaron’s teeth clenched. He had wondered that very question over the years about his own mother. How had she born it, leaving him like that? Though he was in no state to explain it all to Nora, he knew something of the pain that little foal felt, being abandoned without warning, having no idea why.
His voice came out cold and bitter. “Experience tells me a mother can be parted from her son all too easily.”
“Aaron, how can you say that? You should understand better than anyone since your own mother…” Her voice trailed off, leaving only the clopping of the horses’ hooves.
He needed several minutes before he could look at her again and face the worried sympathy etched in every line of her features.
“Aaron, I… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt or offend you.”
He swallowed back the bitterness that melted into a familiar sorrow. “I know you didn’t.”
“I should have realized… Your mother hurt you terribly when she left.”
It wasn’t a question, but he didn’t want to discuss it now.
“Nora, I know how my actions must look to you, but I beg you to trust me.” He breathed in and looked back just to be sure they weren’t being followed. “I didn’t want to leave the foal or walk away. I promise you, I know exactly who that man is.”
“You do?”
“I don’t know how you managed to find him, but he is the same man I followed out of the castle the night I met you, the same man who I chased to the edge of the woods until his friends came out and beat me.”
Nora covered her mouth and looked behind her at the path they had just trodden.
“We aren’t walking away forever, Nora, but I need to think. You and I weren’t prepared to apprehend him today. If you had come to me about this scheme of yours earlier, I could have prepared for this.”
