When the barn door opened again, Bastien and Reyn quickly ushered Lane and me into one of the horse’s stalls to hide us. I was worried to meet another member of my family. I hadn’t done so well with Uncle Duke Henri, and hadn’t been able to coax more than a greeting from my cousin Gwen. Still, I couldn’t help but peek at the scene, nervous as I watched with too much trepidation.
A man around Reyn’s age came in, a cigar in his hand and his white shirt unbuttoned and untucked. He had the build of a tall soccer player – lean but muscular. His suspenders hung from his waist and swooshed at his sides as he walked with slightly bowed legs. He had messy black hair that looked like a comb might give up hope if it tried to tackle the artful mess. Abraham Lincoln tugged on my pant leg, whining to draw me further back into the stall, but I needed to know what was happening. I stroked the feathers of my bird, hoping the motion soothed at least one of us.
I felt Lane stumble back from her peeking place beside me, gasping at the man she knew. She pressed her back to the stall’s wall, tears sparkling in her eyes that she didn’t bother to dab away with the sleeve of her navy hoodie. Reyn didn’t speak, but reached out and held her hand, steadying her as something big hit her in the feels. Hamish wanted to know what was going on out there, but followed Reyn’s lead, and ran from Reyn’s pocket down his arm, and up Lane’s arm, so he could wrap his bushy tail around her neck like a hug.
The man wore a wide grin that split his angular features, looking on Damond like the boy was a breath of fresh air. “Damond! Brother, what’re you doing here? And with horses? What’d I do to earn these?” He wrapped Damond in a hug I could tell they both needed.
Damond gripped his older brother hard, wiping the smile off his face and letting down his brave front in a gust. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“What’s wrong? Is it Gwen? Has she decided to finally break Duke Henri’s wishes and speak to me?”
“No, she still says she has only the one brother. Gwen is still under Duke Henri’s thumb. I had to see you. I did something,” Damond admitted. “Something big, and I need your help hiding it, Draper.”
Draper looked at the two Wildmen and nodded to Remy. His eyes fell on Duke Lot with confusion. “I see. Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of it. What’s the problem? Money? Women?”
Damond shook his head. “I need a room for the night.”
Draper postured. “No. You’re not taking one of my girls for your first time. With my luck, I’ll send you home to the great Duke Henri with the groin’s disease and really disgrace the throne. No, you’ll go straight home if that’s what you’re after. You’re the good son. Duke Henri needs you to be the good one, and I’ll not wreck that for you. You’ve got the throne to think about when he passes his crown to you.”
That was news to me. I would’ve thought the older son would inherit the crown, or the daughter, if this was the matriarchal society I’d been told. Then I recalled that Gwen was adopted, and Morgan ruled that legal parentage didn’t count as much as birthright did.
“The room’s not for me. It’s for my friends. And we don’t need any of your whores.” Damond didn’t say the word like it was a slam, but merely a profession he was too familiar with. “We need a place to hide for a few days.”
Draper’s words came slow from his wide lips that matched his sibling’s. “That’s fine. I’ve got a room you can crash in. That’s it? That’s all you need? How bad are things with Duke Henri that you’re coming to me? What are you hiding?”
Lane flew out of the stall, causing Hamish to spook, and scurry off her shoulder. She lunged at Draper, smacking him on his tall shoulder over and over. “How could you do this?” she shouted, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. “You were supposed to be more! I wanted more for you! How dare you let your baby brother into a place like this! How dare you let me find you in a place like this!”
Draper ducked, guarding his head as he tried to make heads or tails of the woman who appeared out of nowhere just to smack the sense back into him. “Whoa! Who are you?”
Lane gasped, scandalized. She stepped back for a minute, tearing off her hood. Her hands covered her mouth as she got a good look at the man she knew well enough to be disappointed in. “Who am I? Who am I? You’ve forgotten the most important question, Draper. Who are you? Know who you are! This place isn’t you! It can’t be!”
Draper stumbled backwards, paling as if he’d seen a ghost. “Laney?” He’d looked tall and strong when he’d come into the stables, if not a bit disheveled. But cowering under the gaze of Lane, he looked impossibly smaller, his shoulders hunched inward to hide his shame. His arms raised to shield himself from her disapproval.
“I didn’t raise you like this! How could you do this? Do you work here? Are you a prostitute?”
“No, ma’am. I own the place.”
It was the wrong thing to say, and he flinched like he knew it the second the words escaped him. “That’s so much worse!” She resumed smacking him, taking out her hurt on him as tears poured down her face. “What would your mother say if she saw you here?”
“Laney, stop! Wait! Would you just… Let me look at you!”
Lane paused, her hand raised to strike him again. I’d never seen her so angry. She’d never hit me before. I’m guessing if I took out a loan and opened a brothel, I’d be in for the same treatment. I made a mental note to cross “Shady Madam” off my list of jobs to apply for after I graduated college.
Draper’s chest heaved, and I saw tears dotting his black lashes. In the next second, Lane was scooped in his arms, clutched tight to his chest as he wept openly into her hair. “I thought you were dead! I thought there was no way you’d leave us for that long. You had to have died, and that’s why you didn’t come back. Why didn’t you come back?”
“You know why,” she worked out through her sobs. “I told you why. I had to take care of the baby. Morgan was abusing her. You know I took her to Common so I could raise her apart from all this.”
Abusing me? I didn’t know about that part, and made a mental note to ask about it later. Bastien stiffened, his hand coiling around my arm in the privacy of our stall, as if readying to jerk me away from the mere mention of Morgan.
“Why didn’t you take me with you?” he demanded in a shout, not caring that Rousseau, Reyn, Remy, Bayard, Lot and his brother were watching with wide eyes. “I would’ve come! I was good with the baby! I helped you with Rosalie every day!”
“I know, sweetheart. I know. But I couldn’t take you away from your home.”
“You were my home! It’s only in the last two years that Damond’s been able to sneak away to see me.” He motioned to the building that held the strippers and drunken men. “This is what I have without you!”
Lane clung to his rumpled shirt, crying into it and wiping her eyes on the white material that was dotted with a few stains. “As much as I wished you were my son, you weren’t. Not legally, anyway. I couldn’t steal a child, Draper. Urien gave me Rosie.”
“I had you and Rosie, and you left with her! You took my family and ran!”
“I had no choice!”
I drank in every word like it was a key to understanding who I was. Learning that I had another cousin who had known me as a baby blew my mind. I tried not to blink, lest I miss out on a millisecond of this new dimension of a past I didn’t remember.
“Duke Henri sent me to live with you because I was a disappointment to him. Did you really think that would change? Just because I wasn’t officially banished back then didn’t mean he would suddenly take me back in once you were gone.” He gripped her tight, shaking her with his passion that poured tears down the sharp edges of his cheeks. “How could you do that to me?” he roared. “When Damond was born, Duke Henri had a new chance to start over with a son who’d never disappoint him!”
Damond looked down at his boots, taking no joy in the fact that his father loved him more than his older brother. I could tell he looked up to Draper, trusted him, even idolized him to some degree.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry. I was wrong. I should’ve found a way to take you with me. I didn’t think it would end up like this for you.”
Draper dropped down to his knees, hugging Lane around the middle like a child holding onto his mother’s apron. He cried into her dirty jeans, holding her legs tight as he could. He had no shame in the open emotion – he only saw Lane. “You’re here? You’re really back for me?”
Lane brushed her fingers through his haphazard black hair that matched Damond’s in color and in cut, though Draper’s didn’t need product, and stayed spiked and pleasantly messy. “Of course I came back. The old team, together again. You feel like getting into trouble? I’m sure we could find some around here.”
He laughed through his tears into her thighs. “I thought I’d never hear you say that again. You have no idea what it’s been like without you, how hard it’s been. You shouldn’t have left me.”
“No, I shouldn’t have. I should’ve taken you with me when I ran out with Rosie. Maybe I should’ve stolen you away. It would’ve been hard, but… Oh, Draper! How’d you end up here? How’d it all get so broken?”
Draper stiffened, standing up with fear that pulled at his blue eyes, pushing his eyebrows together in worry. “But if you’re here, what happened to the baby? Is my Rosie still alive?”
Lane turned in my direction, motioning me forward. I darted backward into the stall like a child, wanting to see everything, but scared to be part of it. I wanted to go to her, to meet my new cousin, but hiding seemed like a good option, too. I wasn’t ready to face the man who would no doubt hate me for taking his mother figure away from him. I’d been in a creek, in the mud, on a horse and without sleep, a proper meal or a shower for far too long. On my best day, I wouldn’t be ready for this, and I was certainly not having my best day. His dad hated me. Like, actual hate. If Draper took one look at me and decided the same? A girl can only take so much.
Bastien studied me with a look of confusion that told me I was being a baby. “Let’s go on out.”
I shook my head with fear plain in my eyes. “What if he hates me, like Uncle Duke Henri?”
Bastien held my gaze, and didn’t blow off my concern. His arm moved slowly as he extended it to me, silently beckoning me to face my life, even the scary parts. He didn’t take my hand, but waited for me to give it to him. When I finally moved forward, Bastien held my hand to his stomach, leading me forward slowly with the top of my head buried in his back as I clutched Seven to my chest under my cloak. “Come on, Daisy. It’s alright.”
Draper gasped when we rounded the corner, pointing at Bastien with dread. “The Untouchable! Lane, you have to know the Queen’s Army is looking for him and the judge’s son. They came through here not too long ago. You shouldn’t be traveling with them. It’s like painting a target on your back!”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Lane began. She motioned toward Bastien and me. “We’re in a bit of a jam.”