Shadows and Light

strong.
    Liam stepped out of the club where he’d had dinner, turned up his collar against the drizzle that had begun falling, then looked around for a hackney cab that he could take back to the town house.
    Baron Hirstun’s bitter statement had done nothing but convince Liam that opposing whatever the eastern barons were trying to do was right. As soon as Hirstun uttered those words, Liam had recalled with painful clarity the scold’s bridles his father had acquired for his mother and sister. Yes, his father would have enjoyed having a way to silence any opinion but his own—and he would have enjoyed even more being able to take control of Elinore’s inheritance to spend as he pleased. There was no doubt in Liam’s mind that his father would have voted for the changes the eastern barons were proposing. It must have been an ugly surprise to those men to discover that the son was a different kind of man from the father.
    Liam sighed. Not a hackney cab in sight.
    The sigh turned into a grimace as his belly clenched and a queer shiver went through him. Had the beef he
    ’d eaten for dinner been a bit off? The sauce that had been poured over the beef hadn’t been to his liking, and after the first two bites he’d scraped off as much of it as he could. Not that he’d had much appetite anyway. It had taken hours for the sick, shaky feeling to go away this time. He wouldn’t have gone out at all if he hadn’t felt the need to listen to whatever comments might be dropped by the other barons in a last effort to convince their colleagues to support their side of the vote— whichever side it might be.
    There was nothing more he could do tonight, and nothing he wanted more than to return to the town house to relax for a little while before getting a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow would be a difficult day, no matter how the vote turned out.
    No point standing around getting wet, Liam thought as he started walking back to his town house.

    There was a noticeable lack of traffic on the streets at an hour that, a year ago, would have been considered the prime of the evening. From what he’d gathered from the men who had been in Durham for a few weeks, there was also a noticeable lack of social activities. The women who were usually the premier hostesses who planned the balls and parties and musical evenings when the barons and other gentry gathered in Durham had made no effort this year. Even the ones who had planned such evenings at their husbands’ command had done so with so little enthusiasm that the affairs felt more like a gathering of mourners than a party.
    Liam spotted a hackney cab heading in the opposite direction, but it was past him before he could raise his hand to hail it.
    He grimaced as his belly clenched again and kept walking. Sweat suddenly broke out on his forehead.
    His legs and arms felt oddly heavy, as if he were trying to walk through deep water.
    He passed a narrow alley between two shops that were closed for the night. A few moments later, he heard two pairs of footsteps behind him.
    He tried to walk faster but couldn’t seem to get his legs to respond.
    The footsteps got closer. His heart beat harder.
    A little farther behind him, he heard the clip clop of a horse’s hooves and the rattle of wheels on the cobblestone street.
    Maybe he should turn and face whoever was now following him. Maybe he should dash into the street and hope whoever was driving the vehicle saw him in time to stop the horse. Maybe—
    “Boy!” a voice full of annoyance shouted.
    Liam turned, staggered back a step as a wave of dizziness washed through him.
    Two large, rough-looking men stared at him for a moment before taking another step toward him.
    “Boy!” the voice shouted again.
    A hackney cab pulled up. The door swung open. Padrick, the Baron of Breton, got out of the cab and strode toward Liam, his expression harsh enough to make the two rough-looking men hesitate.
    “Mother’s tits!” Padrick exploded, brushing past the men. He clamped a hand around Liam’s arm in a grip hard enough to bruise. “When I told your father I’d keep an eye on you while you were in town, I had no idea he’d saddled me with a snot-nosed drunken wastrel! Well, your evening on the town has come to an end, laddy-boy, and I’ll not listen to a word otherwise.”
    Stunned, Liam started to raise one hand toward his nose to see if he needed to use his handkerchief, but Padrick hauled him toward the cab with a force that almost