Page 2 of The Swindler’s Daughter

My shawl slipped down one arm and I impatiently pulled it up to my shoulder again. “He was trying to strike a deal. He’s always striking deals.” That was what my father called it when he conned someone out of their money. “What does it matter?”

“I think this deal is going to go bad,” he said, his voice tight and his eyes flitting from one dark tree to the next like he was expecting trouble. “It sounded worse than the others. We can’t risk getting caught when he gets caught.” He started walking again, grabbing my hand and tugging me along behind him.

“Papa never gets caught,” I pointed out.

He made a noise of disgust in his throat. “Well, maybe he should.”

I thought about what he was suggesting, about how it would be different. It was scary to think of trying to live without Papa’s protection, without a home… “Does this mean we’ll get to keep everything we take?” I asked, trying to look on the bright side. “Will we get to decide what to spend our money on?”

Hunter heaved a sigh. “Yes, we’ll get to decide. But, Miri,” he said as he suddenly stopped and turned to me. “We’re not taking things anymore.”

My brow furrowed and I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I’m going to find work for us to do. We’ll find someone who will pay us a wage to do chores. I’m done being a festival rat. We’re going to earn our money now.”

One side of my face screwed up in confusion. “We were earning it before. We worked hard for the money we took.” That’s what life as a festival rat meant. We traveled from village to village with the other peddlers and performers. We sold our wares. Papa swindled any mark he could find while Hunter and I picked pockets.

Hunter groaned then turned and kept walking. “It’s not the same. I don’t want to be a thief anymore, Miri. We are not going to be thieves anymore.”

I stayed quiet, but my frown remained. I didn’t understand the difference. Papa had trained me to do a job, to earn money. And I’d been good at it. How could I help Hunter earn money if I couldn’t do what I was good at?

1

Seven Years Later

It irked me that I found Rowan attractive, but laws, I couldn’t help it. And those few moments here and there when it seemed like he was flirting with me didn’t help matters. He was overly confident, bordering on arrogant. So it was horribly distracting when he did things like this, stepping up behind me, speaking so close to my ear as he used his hands to adjust the grip I had on my bow or the direction my shoulders were facing.

Horribly distracting.

“Raise your arm just a bit,” he directed.

His words hit the back of my neck, and I instinctively rolled my shoulder away from him as a shudder ran down my spine.

“Everything all right?” he asked, and I could hear the smile in his voice. He was teasing me.

I threw my elbow back, catching him in the ribs.

He let out a short groan but turned it into a laugh as he stepped back.

I looked over my shoulder with a glare. “Do you enjoy riling me?”

He straightened, looking not nearly as hurt as I wished him to be, a wicked grin fixed in place. Then he gave a shrug and shook his blond waves out of his eyes. “A little.”

I rolled my eyes. Why could he never be serious? “Do I need to find someone else to teach me?” Not that I would. He may be arrogant, but there was something exciting about being around him.

“Do you know many chaps who have the skill and time to teach you how to use a bow and arrow?” he asked.

“I’m sure I could find another,” I said with a stubborn tilt of my head.

“One who lives close enough that you can walk over for your lessons?” Now he was grinning.

Curse him. My threat was empty, and he knew it just as well as I did. He knew there was no one else to teach me. I was a servant, for heaven’s sake, with little free time and limited interactions with anyone outside of Sutton Manor and its grounds. Rowan was the son of Sutton’s gamekeeper. He had the skills I needed in a teacher, and he lived here on the property.

When I’d first approached him several months ago, I’d been so nervous and excited—so preoccupied with the challenge of learning the bow and arrow—that I’d been able to ignore the attraction I felt—at least for a few weeks. But the more we’d interacted, and the more comfortable he became around me, the more difficult it was to ignore how my insides squirmed with every look, every smile. He was arrogant, yes, but he was also sweet and charming. I would even venture to say he was dangerously charming with his blue eyes and his easy grin. That charm was what kept me from flirting in return. I’d spent my younger years peddling my father’s wares at festivals among the other riffraff. I knew all too well how charm could be used to manipulate, so if that was his game, he’d get nowhere with me.

I heaved a sigh and rolled my eyes over to him. “While I do appreciate you being willing to take a bit of time each week to teach me, our time would probably be better spent focusing on my shooting instead of how you can distract me from it.”

“Right. Of course.” He cleared his throat as though deliberately falling out of the role of charmer and into the role of teacher. “Let’s see how you’re doing with your speed.”