To Wed a Wild Lord Read Free

to the house if you don’t want your father catching you here.”
    Gabe’s panic returned. If Father learned he’d snuck out of the schoolroom again, he’d get his hide tanned. Father was strict about their studies.
    He ran for the house. When he reached the schoolroom, his tutor was still snoring. With a sigh of relief, Gabe settled into the chair and took up the boring book again.
    But he couldn’t think about the dead Cock Robin. He kept wondering about the unknown man. Should he have said something to Benny? What if there was a hue and cry about a stolen horse? What if he got into trouble ?
    He was still fretting over it after dinner in the nursery with Minerva. Celia, who’d been sick with a cough, was already asleep when a footman, Nurse, and Mr. Virgil came to fetch them. Grandmother Plumtree wanted to talk to him and Minerva downstairs, the footman said solemnly.
    Gabe’s pulse leaped into a gallop. The man in the stable must have stolen a horse, and somehow Gran had found out that Gabe had let him do it. But then, why bring Minerva into it?
    The footman brought them into the library, leaving Celia with Nurse and Mr. Virgil. When Gabe saw Oliver standing there with his hair wet and his eyes red, wearing different clothes than he’d worn earlier, he didn’t know what to think.
    Then Jarret appeared, summoned by another servant. “Where’s Mother and Father?”
    Oliver’s face hardened to granite, and his eyes turned scary looking.
    “I have something to tell you, children.” Gran spoke more softly than usual. “There’s been an accident.” Something caught in her voice, and she cleared her throat.
    Was she crying? Gran never cried. Father said she had a heart of steel.
    “Your parents . . .”
    She broke off and Oliver flinched, as if struck. “Mother and Father are dead,” he finished for her in a voice that didn’t even sound like his.
    The words didn’t register at first. Dead? Like Cock Robin? Gabe stared at them, waiting for someone to take it back.
    No one took it back.
    Gran wiped her eyes, then straightened her shoulders. “Your mother mistook your father for an intruder at the hunting lodge, and she shot him. When she realized her error, she . . . she shot herself, too.”
    Beside him, Minerva began to cry. Jarret kept shaking his head and saying, “No, no, it can’t be. How can that be?” Oliver went to stand by the window, his shoulders quivering.
    Gabe couldn’t stop thinking about that stupid poem:
Then all the Birds fell
To sighing and sobbing,
When they heard the bell toll
For poor Cock Robin.
    It was just like the poem, except without the bell. Gabe didn’t know what to do. Gran was saying that they weren’t to speak of it to anyone, because there would be scandal enough without that, but her words made no sense. Why would he want to speak of it? He couldn’t even believe it happened.
    Perhaps this was a nightmare. He would wake up, and Father would be here.
    “Are you sure it was them?” he asked in a wavering voice. “Perhaps it was somebody else who got shot.”
    Gran looked stricken. “I’m sure. Oliver and I saw the—” With a grimace, Gran stepped over to put her arms around him and Minerva. “I’m sorry, my darlings. Try to be strong. I know it’s hard.”
    Minerva just kept weeping. Gran held her close.
    Gabe thought of the last time he saw Father, riding out to the picnic, and Mother, hurrying to the stable. How could that have been the last time? Now he could never tell Father he was sorry for putting the spider in Minerva’s hair. Father had died thinking he was a bad boy who wouldn’t apologize.
    That’s when tears welled in his eyes. He couldn’t let Jarret and Oliver see—they would think him a stupid girl. So he darted from the room, ignoring Gran’s startled cry, and dashed toward the stable.
    It was quiet; the grooms were at their supper. As soon as he reached Jacky Boy’s stall, he collapsed on the floor and began to cry. It wasn’t right!