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Derrick faced the lake. “Auntie Maureen, I spent four wonderful summers here when I was a boy, and do you know what I learned?”
“What?” Maureen asked and I could hear the wariness in her voice.
“That the greater the distance between me and my grandfather, the happier I could be.”
She lifted her chin. “Happiness doesn’t always factor into life.”
“Are you saying you’re not happy? Alpha of Leslie clan…”
“Montgomery is the Alpha.”
“But you’re the power and we all know it.”
She slanted a look at him, her mouth pursed into a tense line. “Do we?”
“And what a fine display of power you’ve given, having a warlock forcibly removed from her home to serve you.”
Maureen finally looked at me, though her expression was closed. “I did not order her abduction. Mark overstepped himself and has been duly reprimanded for it.”
“Reprimanded,” I scoffed, unable to stop myself.
I suppose that explained the power shift between Henry and Mark at least, but somehow that didn’t seem enough of a punishment. I might have said more, but Derrick shifted his weight so that our shoulders brushed, and Maureen was abruptly cut from my view.
“I think Miss Grayson is right, Auntie. Something a little more than a reprimand is necessary here. Where’d you even get that runestone?”
Maureen went very still. She glanced between us, shrewd gaze taking in new information before she said, very deliberately, “I’m afraid the details of how Miss Grayson was collected were not given to me.”
Well, that was interesting. If Mark and Henry weren’t relaying all the information to Miss Maureen, that meant someone else was pulling their strings. I frowned, thinking of the way Delilah apologized for how I was handled. She seemed to think her mother had overseen the whole affair as well, which left a mountain of questions. If not Maureen or Delilah, then who?
Montgomery Leslie was too crazy to be involved, wasn’t he?
Or maybe they were both lying.
A voice hollered Derrick’s name and we all turned.
“Your grandfather has been scouring the crowd for you all morning,” Maureen said, nodding to a cluster of people near one of the tents. Her composure was back and with an almost motherly gesture, she touched Derrick’s shoulder. “I want you to know it was not my intention for her to be brought here.”
Foreboding coiled in my gut, and I tightened my fingers on Derrick’s elbow, though I hardly knew why.
Lord Malcolm was waving one large hand in our direction. Or rather, Derrick’s direction. I doubted the man even saw me; he was so intent on his grandson. The crowd surrounding Lord Malcolm split and Derrick went rigid beside me.
Maureen breathed out a soft curse, but my attention caught on a small figure huddled in a chair beside Lord Malcolm. Light glinted off the copper wheels bound to the chair, and my stomach sank in realization. Even from a distance I could see how frail the woman was. Her thin legs were covered in a soft blue blanket, and her hands rested unmoving in her lap.
“Is that…” I asked.
Derrick growled low in his throat and cast a withering glare at Maureen. “My mother.”
Ms. Maureen was nothing if not quick on her feet. She huffed an exasperated sigh and shook her head. “I bluffed, Derrick. Surely you know I would never place such a creature in harm’s way.”
“No, Auntie Maureen, I don’t know that at all.”
Releasing my hand, he turned and stalked toward his grandfather, leaving me alone with Ms. Maureen Leslie. She seemed altogether wounded by his statement, her rose-tinted mouth falling open on a gasp, and she touched her chest with one gloved hand. For a conflicted moment I stared after him, noting the rigid line of his shoulders under the white of his shirt, and the way his forearms flexed as he bunched his fists. If I didn’t know any better, I would say he meant real violence against his grandfather.
Ms. Maureen turned to me, eyes narrowing into hazel-green slits. Her hair made a neat coif at the top of her head, crowned with a jet and pearl comb nestled into the blonde mix, and for a heartbeat she reminded me of a schoolmarm. Except for the pretty white dress and austere lift of her chin, she would have fit quite well into a teacher’s role.
“Miss Grayson,” she said, pronouncing my name with such disdain that my whole body locked up.
I tried to keep my voice steady. “Mrs. Leslie.”
