Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #6) Read Online Free PDF

Tuftwhistle!” Stoneblossom snapped and snatched at his ear, though he eluded her hand. A look from the baron stilled them both. Then he turned to his captain.
    “Have you any corroboration?”
    “Indeed, my lord, we were able to follow a clear trail left by the lady all the way to the very place the boy indicated.” The captain snapped his fingers, and his men entered, each bearing some token: a pair of lace gloves, a coronet, a necklace in pieces, a jeweled belt, an outer corset, and the ruins of a heavy overskirt in shimmery silver and silk. The remains of Daylily’s wedding gown. Foxbrush paled at the sight, then blushed at the shocking mental image of Daylily in her underdress, however sumptuous it might be. That would be at least as bad as a gentleman appearing publicly in his shirt-sleeves!
    Then a final guard stepped forward, and all other thoughts fell from Foxbrush’s head as he gazed upon what this man held.
    “We found this by the tree stump.”
    The baron stepped forward to take it. “Yes. The catalyst of this mystery,” he said. With careful fingers, he unfolded the letter, which had been crumpled into a tiny wad.
    Foxbrush earnestly hoped to die and be swallowed up by the Realm Unseen.
    The baron scanned the letter. “Ah,” he said and nothing more for several moments. “Perhaps this explains a little,” he said then. “It appears to be a love letter, unsigned, poorly spelled. Perhaps my wayward daughter had a rendezvous in mind when she made her flight.” He ground his teeth, the first sign of anger he had displayed since the whole business began. “A rendezvous with whom, though?”
    No one spoke. But the same thought passed through almost every head: Lionheart, the disinherited prince who had vanished a year ago, after his deposition. Everyone knew that he had been intended to marry Lady Daylily. Everyone knew how she had loved him.
    “It all comes together now,” the baron said.
    Only it didn’t.
    “Um,” said Foxbrush.
    Every gaze, which had mercifully overlooked him for the entirety of the exchange thus far, turned suddenly and fixed upon the prince. His stomach chose that moment to roar its ire, and he leapt to his feet, trying to hide the noise with another. “Um, I, uh. I feel I must . . . well . . .”
    “Have you something to contribute, crown prince?” The baron could order executions in that voice.
    Foxbrush tried to meet the baron’s gaze and, failing that, tried to meet Stoneblossom’s. Failing that as well, he fixed his eyes upon a mark in the wall over the head of young Tuftwhistle.
    “That’s mine,” he said.
    The baron looked from the prince to the letter and back again. “This? Addressed to my daughter?”
    “Um. Yes.”
    “You misspelled ‘devotion.’”
    “It was, um, an early draft. I, uh, I didn’t mean to send it.”
    “No,” said the baron, and his fist clenched, recrumpling the letter. “No, I’m sure you did not.”
    With that, he tossed the sorry little ball of paper at Foxbrush’s feet.
    Every eye in the room fixed upon the crown prince as he bent to retrieve it; everyone in the room knew now why Daylily had fled. Foxbrush sank back into his seat, hanging his head, and felt he would never have the strength to rise again.
    The baron, however, chose once more to dismiss the prince’s existence, addressing himself instead to his captain. “She cannot, as this boy says, have descended to the Wilderlands—”
    “Oi!” Tuftwhistle protested, but Stoneblossom silenced him with a smack and a “Hush up, you!”
    “—so it remains that she must have crossed Swan Bridge and is even now making her way across Evenwell. Put together a company and ride out. Take some of Evenwell’s men with you; they know those roads.”
    The captain saluted and, summoning three of his men, marched fromthe room. The other guards, at the baron’s indication, shuffled the groundskeepers out. Foxbrush watched them depart as a man watches the last of his allies