Page 55 of Hunted By the Guardian
“Thank you,” Jonathan said quietly.
Violet’s stomach churned. She turned away again, and this time she ran out the door of the study and down the hall before she could weaken again.
CHAPTER 29
Jonathan waited until the following morning to begin the search.
His first stop was Gabriel’s house, and he was surprised and pleased to find that Nathaniel was already there. “What’s going on?” he asked as the three of them made their way to the library to talk.
“We were at the gentlemen’s club last night,” Gabriel explained. “We thought of summoning you as well, but we both rather thought that you’d like to spend the evening with Lady Violet.”
Jonathan simmered—this again?—but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to get sidetracked by an argument over whether he had unconfessed feelings for Violet or not, and he’d come to understand that his friends were never going to let the matter rest. Better to avoid the subject altogether.
“I’m here because I need your help,” he said. “Both of you, ideally. You have the connections that could aid me in solving a particular dilemma I’m grappling with.”
They looked at one another, and for a moment, Jonathan was sure they were going to try once more to make this moment about Violet. But they seemed to think better of it. Her name wasn’t brought up.
“What can we help with?” Gabriel asked, taking a seat and reaching for a cup of tea.
“I’m looking for someone,” Jonathan explained. “The parents of the boy I…” How to describe his relationship with Noah? “The boy who lives in the house I’m trying to acquire,” he decided.
“You’re trying to return him to his parents?” Gabriel asked.
“Perhaps. We’ve spoken about trying to reunite them.”
“Well, I know that would be a burden off your shoulders,” Nathaniel said encouragingly. “To be able to return the boy to his family and get back to focusing on your own affairs, I mean. I know that having him to think about has complicated things for you.”
Jonathan couldn’t answer. Nathaniel was trying to be kind—to be supportive—but what could he possibly say to that? He had called Noah a burden. He isn’t a burden, was what rose to Jonathan’s mind, but his friend hadn’t meant it in that way.
And besides, could he really make that claim? He was trying to pass Noah off to someone else, specifically because the boy’s presence and his expectations made it so difficult to navigate the complicated affairs he and Violet were trying to deal with. It would be difficult and painful to have Noah out of his life, but there would be some relief in knowing that he was safely with the people who were supposed to take care of him, and that they weren’t doing him any harm.
That’s if his parents turn out to be safe people at all. Not something I can count on. That dark, intrusive thought hovered at the edge of his mind, toxic and painful, threatening to overwhelm him. Was he doing the wrong thing by trying to find these people? He knew enough to realize that sometimes, some people were better off remaining lost.
Maybe he was making a mistake.
But he had promised Violet he would do this. She seemed so sure. And then there was the look that had crawled across Noah’s face after his slip, after he’d said the words, mum and dad. He did want parents in his life. He had never been able to have faith in anything like that. And what if Violet was right, and a mistake had been made? They’d been thinking of Noah’s parents as having mistreated and abandoned him, but Noah had been such a little boy when all that had happened. What if they had simply lost him?
What if they loved him and wanted him back?
“Berney is the name,” he told his friends. “Noah Berney. That’s the boy. He’s ten years old. He would have gone missing from his family a few years ago. But we should be discreet about this. I would prefer it if they didn’t know we had been looking for them until we find them and discover a few things about them. What kind of people they are, how they came to lose their son—things of that nature.”
“You don’t know what separated them?” Gabriel asked.
“Not for certain.”
“Do you know anything about them? Could the boy provide their names, or tell us where they lived or what they did for work?”
“He hasn’t been able to so far,” Jonathan said. “Any time the subject is raised, he simply stops talking, as though it’s deeply uncomfortable for him—which I believe it is. I think I would feel the same way in his shoes.”
His friends looked at one another again, and then back at him.
An unpleasant feeling crawled down Jonathan’s spine. “What?” he asked.
“You’re worried that the boy’s parents might be like your father?” Nathaniel asked quietly.
This was what they had both thought of at the same moment? Jonathan scowled. “I don’t know what they’re like,” he said. “That is what worries me. I highly doubt they have expectations that he will take over a dukedom and produce an heir, so how like my father could they possibly be?”
“But you understand what Nathaniel is getting at,” Gabriel pressed. “He means to say that there might be a selfishness in the boy’s parents. A heartlessness. That they might be interested in their own motives and gain more than in what they can offer to him—isn’t that the concern?”
