slightly wary inn
keeper hurried to serve him.
“ You are scaring the locals,” Edward announced dryly as he
glanced around the tap room at the assorted regulars who all looked
terrified.
“ I don’t care,” Harper grumbled and placed his tankard far too
carefully back onto the bar. He nodded to the inn keeper to draw
him another one but made no attempt to offer his kidnappers a brew.
They had bloody well brought him here, they were lucky that they
weren’t out cold in the inn yard. He itched to land each one of
them a solid punch in payment for his sore head, but he needed food
more. His stomach rumbled loudly in full agreement but he ignored
it. Instead he listened with only half an ear while the eldest
Cavendish, Dominic, arranged for a private room and as much food as
the inn keeper could provide.
“ Come on, let’s go and get something to eat.”
Harper
sighed and briefly contemplated telling him where to put it, but
his stomach rumbled again. He followed Edward and the inn keeper
across the tap room toward the private parlour and, once inside,
sat at the table and watched Dominic pour the wine. Nobody spoke
while they tucked into the vast array of food on offer, but it was
a thoughtful silence rather than an uncomfortable one.
Harper
popped the last of his pie into his mouth, sighed and sat back in
his chair to savour his wine and wait for the others to finish. He
felt only marginally more malleable now that his thirst was
quenched and his stomach full, but he had to admit that his
curiosity was piqued. When Dominic put his fork back onto his
place, Harper leaned forward in his seat, braced both elbows on the
table and looked at each man in turn.
“ I think that you had better tell me what you want with me and
be quick about it. I have family that I want to go and see before I
go back to London,” Harper declared flatly. He glanced around the
room with a frown. “Where the hell are we?”
“ Shepperton Newton,” Dominic sighed. “It is about fifty miles
south of Leicestershire.”
Harper
mentally calculated the distance to Yorkshire. Now that he was
half-way there, or nearly half-way there, he may as well complete
the journey and pay a long awaited visit to see his family. He
carefully tucked that thought aside and watched the men seated
around the table study each other as though they were deciding
which one of them would speak.
Tension
hovered over everyone. It appeared so suddenly that Harper’s gut
instinct warned him that he wouldn’t like what they were going to
say. He sat perfectly still and waited.
“ What do you know about your family?”
“ They are my business,” Harper replied defensively. He had no
intention of discussing the personal details of his family with
these strangers no matter who the hell they had as
friends.
“ I take it that you are from Yorkshire?”
“ Yes, Hambley Wood near Skipton, why?”
“ Are your brothers still there?”
“ Look, what is this? I don’t know you and, as far as I know,
you have no business enquiring about my family. You had better get
to the point before I leave.” The hardness in his voice warned them
all that if they didn’t cut to the heart of the matter, he was
going to stalk out of the door and there would be one hell of a
fight if they tried to make him stay.
Edward
sighed and knew that Harper wasn’t a man of patience right now. “We
learned recently that you are our half-brother.”
Harper
studied Edward hard. While his face remained impassive, his mind
worked overtime in an attempt to absorb Edward’s
announcement.
“ My parents were from Yorkshire. Born and bred there as a
matter of fact. Although they are no longer with us, I was born in
Yorkshire and had lived there all of my life, with my brothers,
until I joined the army. You have a case of mistaken
identity.”
“ I am afraid that we don’t,” Sebastian replied steadily. The
calm certainty in his voice made Harper glare at him but Sebastian
refused to