Page 35 of To Hunt the Hunter

“I wish you were my mother.”

Matilda gasped, the words darting into her heart with the precision of an arrow shaft. “Oh. Oh, Phoebe, love.”

“I dream of it sometimes,” she said, still clinging to Matilda. “I don’t remember my real mother, and I never knew my father at all. When I dream of having a mother and father they look like you and my uncle.”

Matilda tried to speak, but she could not. She took a deep breath and forced herself to answer, to blink back the tears. “That sounds like a lovely dream, Phoebe, but sometimes dreams are only that, pretty imaginings that disappear like smoke if we try to hold on to them. Real life isn’t as simple, and sometimes the things we want most are the things that are furthest from us.”

“But you ought to fight for them,” Phoebe said stubbornly. “Uncle says, if you know something is right, you must stand up and say so. He says dreadful things happen when people pretend not to see something bad or unjust because it’s easier to ignore it.”

Matilda nodded, hearing Lucian’s voice, and knowing now why he said such things, why the truth was so dreadfully important to him, and why he did not shield Phoebe from reality with pretty lies, but gently told her what she must expect of the world.

“Yes, that’s true, love, but sometimes the world is too big and too powerful, and you know you can’t win.”

The mutinous expression glinting in Phoebe’s eyes as she looked up was not encouraging.

“All the more reason to stand up to it,” she said, stubborn to the last. “I hate bullies. Great-Uncle Theodore is a bully, and I hate him too.”

Matilda admitted herself thankful when a soft knock at the door brought Denton to fetch Miss Barrington for her French lesson. The little girl went reluctantly, and Matilda returned to Lucian’s bedside.

A thick lock of pale blond hair had fallen over his forehead and Matilda brushed it back, relieved to discover the terrifying, burning heat was no longer blazing like a furnace lived beneath his skin. He stirred beneath her touch, turning his head towards her, and she could not resist the desire to stroke his face. The prickle of his beard was a secret delight, something she’d never imagined she’d experience. She smiled, entranced by the feel of it, sharp and soft all at once, and then her breath caught as his eyes flicked open.

They were lucid this time, clear if weary.

“Stubborn girl,” he murmured. “Ought to have gone.”

“You know very well I’ll never do something if you order me to do it,” she retorted, trying very hard not to throw herself upon his chest and weep with relief.

Somehow, her voice was reasonably calm, only the faintest tremor betraying her emotion.

He sighed, closing his eyes again.

“Thirsty.”

“Oh, of course. Here.”

She poured him a fresh glass of water and sat beside him, sliding her arm beneath his neck to help him raise his head. He drank, draining the glass.

“More,” he demanded, before adding, “Please.”

Matilda hid a smile. “I think you’d best wait a moment and see how that settles first. Your poor stomach is empty.”

As if on cue, his stomach made a vociferous sound of protest and Matilda laughed.

“How unbecoming,” he said with a sigh. “You are determined to leave me no dignity whatsoever, aren’t you?”

Matilda began to make some comment to placate him and soothe his wounded male pride, but instead a sob rose to her throat, and all the fear she’d been holding in check so furiously rose in a wave. She put a hand to her mouth, trying to hold it back, but it was no good and the dam burst.

“I was s-so a-afraid,” she said through her tears.

There had been so many times she’d wanted to weep, for her own terror, for the danger he was in, for the danger he had always been in and for all the wrongs that had been done him. So, she wept now, for him, for the past days of worry and the sleepless nights.

“Matilda!”

He reached for her with his good arm and she went to him, weeping into his chest.

“Don’t cry, my love. I beg of you. I can’t… I can’t bear it. Oh, Lord, has Phoebe taught you she can wrap me around her thumb if she cries, the dreadful creature?”

“N-No,” Matilda sobbed unsteadily. “B-But I can well believe it.”