The Hidden Blade by Sherry Thomas Page B

haven’t committed any kind of crime that would make the law chase you over international borders.”
    Herb exhaled. “Where would I go?”
    “Anywhere. As long as you will be safe.”
    “Then come with me. We’ll run away together. We’ll travel all the way to China and search for the monks’ treasure.”
    And what a wonderful adventure that would have been, under different circumstances. Leighton felt a hot prickle in his eyes. “How much do you think a Buddha statue made of pure gold would weigh?”
    “Anything bigger than the size of a bust and the two of us might not be able to lift it.”
    “We’ll have to get stronger fast,” said Leighton.
    They laughed, a sound Leighton hadn’t heard in ages.
    Tears fell down Herb’s face. All at once he looked crumpled, a man with everything taken out of him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. It
was
largely my fault—I couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to have everything. How can I live with myself, knowing the calamity I had caused?”
    Leighton could not stop his own tears. “It
wasn’t
your fault, and please don’t ever think so again. If you believed that, Father would never be able to rest in peace.”
    Herb gripped Leighton’s arms. “Come with me. Your father would have wanted me to look after you.”
    Leighton wanted that more than anything else. “That
would
set Sir Curtis and the law after you, for the abduction of a minor.”
    Herb laughed bitterly. “There is that, isn’t there? I can’t seem to do anything right these days.”
    “Just look after yourself for me. I need to know that you are safe—and well. Can you do that for me, please?”
    More tears fell down Herb’s face. “I will, my dear boy. I will do anything you ask.”

    Mother was in the solarium, standing before the window, a handkerchief crumpled between her fingers. She turned around at the sound of Leighton’s entrance. Her face was pale against the black crape of her mourning gown, the rim of her eyes red.
    “Leighton, my dear,” she said softly.
    They used to walk together in the gardens, Mother and Father. In the evenings they took turns reading books aloud to each other. And from time to time Leighton would catch Mother looking at Father wistfully, as if remembering him—or herself—from a different time.
    Father had loved her too, a gentle, respectful love tinged with traces of regret.
    And Leighton would take care of her—by removing her and Marland from Sir Curtis’s sphere of influence. Except he didn’t quite know how to go about it. From time to time Mother could be stubborn. If she was determined to stay and protect Leighton…
    “I heard what Sir Curtis said to you after the reading of the will,” he told her. “I heard him tell you to take Marland and go.”
    She squared her shoulders. “I will not. I will not leave you alone with that monster.”
    His hand closed around the door handle. He could try to reason with her about how the monster would terrorize Marland, but he didn’t think she would hear him.
    “So you do not dispute anything that was said?” he said, making his voice cold.
    She swallowed. “No, I do not dispute it. Please understand, Leighton, that—”
    “So that’s what you had been doing all these years—neglecting Father, neglecting me, and neglecting everything else to sin with your illicit lover.”
    She flinched as if he had slapped her.
    He forced himself to continue, speaking as if he were Sir Curtis himself. “And no wonder Marland has such anemic looks. He isn’t even an Atwood. How do you live with yourself? The forty thousand pounds Father settled on him should have been mine. That is money you—and he—stole directly from me.”
    “That has never been my intention in the slightest!”
    “And yet you plan to continue living in my home, on my income, and to go on saddling me with the expenses of raising a parasite.”
    Her hand came up to her throat. Her fingers shook. “I thought you loved