Page 46 of The Swindler’s Daughter

He reached out and pulled me into a hug. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into my hair. “I’m so sorry you had to know.”

I burrowed into his embrace, sobbing into his chest, completely overwhelmed but also grateful to have finally spoken those words to him, to finally share the burden. We cried together for several minutes before I collected myself enough to say, “Thank you for taking care of me all these years. I know it wasn’t easy.”

“I just want to keep you safe.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” he asked, those two small words filled with concern. “Because the time you’re spending with Rowan and the others—what if you find yourself mixed up with that?”

“Hunter,” I said gently, pulling away from him and wiping my face. “I want to help them.”

“No, Miri,” he insisted.

“I already have.” The admission was quiet.

He looked dumbstruck. “What do you mean you already have?”

I took a deep breath, preparing myself for this next admission. “A constable took a pocket watch from the watchmaker. It was beautiful, expensive, and he just picked it up and put it in his pocket. It made me so angry, so I just…” I deflated as I tried to shake off the shame.

“You what?”

I gave a little shrug. “I bumped into him. I pulled the watch from his pocket. We gave it back to the watchmaker.”

He took a step back, shaking his head.

“I was mortified at first. I was.” I sniffed. “I hated how easy it was for me. I felt awful because it felt like betraying you, but then I realized it’s not about you.” I nearly started crying again with those words, but I swallowed it down. “And it’s not about me. It’s about helping these people. They need help, Hunter, and I can help them.”

He thought for several long moments, his hand rubbing against one side of his jaw. “It’s a slippery slope, Miri. This seems like justice, so you decide you are above the law and you bend the rules for yourself. And then you bend another rule, break another law. Do you have any idea just how difficult it was for me to stop stealing when we left Father?”

My chin pulled back in surprise because no, I hadn’t known. “It was?”

“Of course it was,” he said with feeling. “I’d never made an honest living before, and suddenly I was in charge of feeding myself and my sister. It would have been so much easier to just take a few things. We were hungry—you were hungry. It was so hard and I slipped up sometimes,” he admitted quietly. “Sometimes it was too hard and I went back to what I knew. So I understand giving in to your instincts. But making the conscious choice not to do something you know is wrong…that’s what makes us who we are,” he said, thumping his middle finger over his heart.

I swallowed. We’d never talked about this before. He’d never suggested that it was difficult for him to quit stealing. From my ten-year-old perspective, it had looked easy.

“It might have been the right thing this time,” he conceded, “giving the watch back. But what happens when the next thing comes along? Do you justify hurting someone? Do you tell yourself you have the right to someone’s crops? Someone’s animals? Where does it stop?”

I gave a sad lift of my shoulders. “You’ll just have to trust that I know right from wrong.” And I would have to be sure that I didn’t fall into the trap of justifying more and more—taking because I could instead of taking because I was righting a wrong.

His shoulders sank. “I do trust you.”

“Then try to remember that, even if you disagree with me.”

I could tell he wanted to give me what I asked, but his rigid morality wouldn’t let him.

“Hunter?” Emeline said.

We both turned to where Emeline stood beside the door. “Are you really going to condemn your sister for trying to help people who need it?”

His shoulders sank. “You know I don’t object to helping people. Of course we should all help people, but when you’re going up against the law…”

“Bending rules, defying authority,” Emeline said gently. “Does that sound like anyone you know?”

Hunter let out a great sigh.

“You hid Miri away in your room when she was sick,” Emeline pointed out. “We both stole from the kitchens to feed her. Was that wrong?”

He didn’t have a response for that.