Geraint nodded. “He is gathering support.”
Gabe gave each of his brothers a look. Their king did not elicit great feelings of love among his subjects, but he was their king, and that alone protected him.
“Be safe and take extra care, Lord Raine. We have no wish to see you harmed.”
“He won’t be,” Nathan snarled.
They would seek Geraint again when they had information, or if any other members of Alexius uncovered anything, he would send word.
“Anyone feel the need for physical exertion?” Nathan asked when they left the building.
“I feel the need for food, alcohol, and then sleep,” Zach said.
“Should you wish it, I will take you apart when we return home,” Gabe said. They had a room set up for exercise. It was there they went regularly to stay in top physical condition and pummel each other.
“Excellent, and those watching can drink,” Michael added. “It will help us sleep for the limited number of hours we have left to do so.”
As they rode through the streets of London, Gabe should have been tired; after all, it had been a long and trying day. What he was, however, was wide awake.
He wondered if Dimity slept, or had she tried to leave. He smiled into the darkness at the thought of seeing her again in the morning.
“What could you possibly have to smile about?” Michael asked.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, that was definitely something.”
“Thinking of brandy makes me smile.”
“Are you sure it’s not that a certain piano teacher is in residence?”
He didn’t say anything, just rode in silence home with that small smile playing around his lips.
Chapter Seven
Dimity woke in the big bed without any feeling at all in her legs. Looking down her body, she found the dog.
“Walter, you great idiot, get off at once.”
He made a rumbling sound in his throat, then crawled up beside her. A big tongue lolled out to lick her cheek.
“I can’t blame you.” She rolled over and hugged him close. “It’s a comfortable bed and unlike anything either of us have slept in before.”
She lay there hugging Walter and thinking about her next move. Dimity had no wish for Gabe to find her a position. Last night she’d been weak from fatigue, hunger, and worry and let him do as he wished. Plus, there had been that letter. She’d read it again, and it was clear to her that she was the child that her father had brought to live with him.
Why hadn’t he told her?
She would never think of him as anything but her father, but it hurt he’d never told her. Her brother, however, now him she was pleased to not share blood with.
“But who am I, Walter?” The dog whined softly. It was a strange feeling to wake today a different person from the one who woke yesterday, and not just because of where she was.
If she wasn’t her father’s child, then whose child was she? Were her parents still alive? Was she an orphan? How would she find these answers? Her father’s sister had long passed, so she could not provide them.
She would think more on this later; for now she must get up, dress, and leave this house. Dimity nudged Walter off the bed and followed. Going to the curtains, she drew them open and was astonished to see people milling about on the streets below. She never slept late, but it seemed she had today.
“We must hurry, Walter. There is not a moment to lose.”
Walter went through his morning stretching routine while she washed and dressed. Wrestling her hair into a bun without dragging a brush through it, she was ready in a matter of minutes. Retrieving her bag from the floor, she began to repack everything, stopping when her fingers encountered the letter.Who was she?
