WolfeBlade: de Wolfe Pack Generations by Kathryn Veque (reading an ebook txt) 📕

for it to have an effect. The child is at a place called Edenside. Have you heard of it?”

Nicholas hadn’t. He looked at his father, who was sitting on the bed, scratching his head. “Edenside,” John muttered thoughtfully. He looked at Giddy. “And he said no more?”

Giddy shook her head. “Why should he say more?” she said. “He has revealed where the child is. Now you must go and get it!”

Nicholas frowned as he stumbled to his father’s bed, eyeing the man. “What is Edenside?”

John was thinking seriously on that very thing. “The name sounds familiar,” he said, pausing for a moment before continuing. “I seem to remember attending a gathering at Roxburgh Castle a few years ago and they were speaking of… something. A great scandal had happened involving Kelso Abbey. Something about their foundling home selling children. I swear to you that they mentioned Edenside.”

Nicholas’ eyebrows lifted. “Edenside is a foundling home that sells children?” he said, aghast. “If de Leia sent the child there, then mayhap they’ve sold my child.”

John held up a hand to his angry son. “They did it illegally and were punished, as I recall,” he said. “This was a few years ago, as I said. Damnation… I wish I had paid more attention to that conversation. But I am fairly certain that Edenside is part of Kelso Abbey.”

Nicholas was electrified by the news. “Then we have a location,” he hissed, smacking his hand on the post of his father’s bed in triumph. “God’s Bones, we have a location! We must leave immediately!”

“The snow is falling,” Giddy said. “It may be difficult to start such a journey tonight.”

“But you made it here from Falstone,” John said. “How did you find your way?”

She shrugged. “I was born here,” she said. “I know the land and the roads. The road that passes Falstone Castle intersects with a road that leads to Hell’s Guardhouse. I simply had to make sure to stay on the road. The clouds must not be thick because there was a glow to them, as if the moon was right behind them. You know what I mean, when they seem silver and the land is the color of steel. It is still dark, but one can see.”

“Even through the snow?”

“The snow was light enough when I left Falstone,” she said. “Now that you know where the child is, you may as well wait until morning. I am sure the child will still be there tomorrow.”

She had a point. No one was doing any traveling on this night, except for Giddy, and she had a reason. It probably hadn’t been wise of her but, to John, it was indicative of the fact that she finally had the information he wanted and she was anxious for her payoff.

But he wasn’t finished with her yet.

“You did well, Giddy,” he said. “I am pleased.”

Giddy flushed. “It was an honor, my lord.”

“What do you know of children?”

She shrugged. “I’ve had two myself,” she said. “They live with my mother in Carlisle.”

“Then you know how to tend them.”

“My mother knows better.”

John looked at his son. “Then we retrieve the child and send it with Giddy to Carlisle,” he said. “That would be the perfect solution so that we are not responsible for the child, but it is still within our control. She can bring it back to us when… when the time comes.”

Nicholas shrugged. “We do not need the child until the summer solstice,” he said. “Pay her well and send the child with her.”

Giddy was listening to the conversation, a volley going back and forth between father and son. “I do not wish to tend this child,” she told John. “I do not even tend my own.”

John shook his head. “You can take it to your mother’s house,” he said. “We will send coin along so your mother will be compensated. Surely she would take care of the child until we retrieve it in the summer.”

Giddy’s eyebrows lifted. “My mother would tend the devil himself for the right price,” she said. “I’ll take the child there. But I want what you promised me for spending those months in de Leia’s bed.”

John nodded. “Do not fret,” he said. “You shall have your due, I swear it. Nicholas, send word to the servants. They are to have our mounts prepared at dawn.”

Nicholas left the chamber without another word, leaving Giddy with John. She was watching the old man run his hands over his face wearily. Something he said had her curious.

“Why do you want the infant returned by the summer solstice, my lord?” she asked.

John’s hands came away from his face and he looked at her. “Do you want to be paid?”

“Of course, my lord.”

“The do not ask questions. If I wanted you to know, I would have told you.”

That shut her up swiftly. She liked living at Hell’s Guardhouse and doing what she did best, and she was quite happy to be away from Falstone and that lord who smelled of compost, so she didn’t want to stir up any trouble.

She backed away, towards the door.

“Is there anything else you require from me, my lord?”

John lay back down, pulling the covers up over him. “Not tonight,” he said. “But be prepared to ride with us on the morrow.”

“Me?” She stopped at the door. “Why should I ride with you to Edenside?”

John turned his head in her direction, glaring. “You do not think Nicholas or I will tend an infant, do you? You are coming along to do just that.”

She almost reminded him that she didn’t even tend her own children, again, but thought better of it. She didn’t think he would take it well.

She had seen what the man was capable of when he didn’t take things well.

At dawn the next morning, Giddy was ready for travel.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Falstone Castle

“My lord, we must have a word with you.”

Lukas and Andreas were standing in the open door of Merek’s bedchamber as the man stood over