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Strider’s hands on her shoulders shook her. “Where?”
Her eyes flew open, wide and panicked, suddenly positive that what she’d always thought was a dream, wasn’t. “In our house—Belize—that man—your cousin—he ran into me—stopped and looked at me and then kept running. Him. He was there.”
Strider’s eyebrows hardened to severe lines. “My cousin?”
She reached up and grabbed his forearms. “Your cousin—he was in our house that night of the fire. I went back to bed I was so tired and then the next thing I knew Mama June was waking me up, dragging me out of bed and the smoke and the heat was all around us and we were running from the house.”
His fingers dug into her shoulders even as the whole of his body went still. Coldly still. “But it was him—my cousin?”
Her eyes closed. “Him—it was him. He grabbed me—looked at me. And his hands, his hands were bloody. And there was a pistol in his hand.”
“My father?”
She nodded, gripping onto his arms, gripping so hard she thought she could erase the memory from her mind with the strain of her knuckles.
His voice dipped to an icy calm. “You are positive of this?”
She nodded, her voice numb, her hands shaking. “I am. I always thought it was a dream.”
Strider wrapped her under his arm, holding her to his side as he moved through the crowd to a smattering of chairs along the far end of the racetrack past the finish line.
He nudged her into one of the open seats and dropped to balance on his heels in front of her. His hand reached up, gently tracing the wisps of hair along her brow. “Sit here. Catch your breath. I’m going to get you something fresh to drink. Don’t move from here. Watch the races. I will be back directly.”
She nodded, the whole of her body still shaking.
Strider stood and disappeared into the crowd.
It took a full minute for her to realize how light and calm his voice had been. Too calm for what she had just told him.
The crowd erupted around her, yells and shouting piercing the air as the first race started.
It wasn’t right. His calm.
Twisting on the chair, she scoured the crowd around her.
He was gone.
She flew to her feet, pushing through people, searching for Strider, searching for his cousin.
The purple curricle—she had to find that.
Weaving through the crowd that was pressing against her toward the racetrack, she finally broke through the bodies and found the purple curricle.
No one stood by it.
Her look frantic, she scanned the long line of coaches, the field, the trees that lined a river at the far bend.
Dark coats moving amongst the trees.
Picking up her skirts, she sprinted along the corridor between the crowd and the carriages. Into the woods, she skidded to a stop where the line of trees ended twenty yards away from the steep bank of the river.
At the edge of the bank, Strider stood over Frederick, his fists straining and already bloody from the face of his cousin now splayed out flat on his back.
Frederick had both hands outstretched above him in defense, his voice squealing. “Your mother was innocent—innocent—and he ruined her and took her away from me.” Even with his high-pitched squeal, Pen had to strain her ears forward to hear him over the crowd behind her.
“My mother?” Strider’s roar shook the air. “He didn’t take her away from you—she was never yours. She was ten bloody years older than you.”
Frederick’s hands slammed onto the ground and he pushed his chest upward, screaming at Strider. “She was my blasted governess—mine—and your bastard of a father took her away from me. She was mine. She was mine until he turned her into a bloody whore, just like the rest of them.”
