Gifford was running after her, and the driver looked uncertain whether to leave behind the carriage.
Jane reached the outcroppings of rocks and stretched to find footing on the first one. Below, the wolves had reached the cow on the far side of the field. The cow’s scream rang across the night. A man shouted, “This is what you get, if you mess with the likes of us!” Jane realized then that this man was not one of the farmers, but a better-dressed fellow who was running alongside the wolves. And there were three more men with him, armed with swords and bows.
Why were there people with the wolves? It made no sense.
Tears blurred Jane’s vision as her foot finally touched the first rock, and she crab-crawled downward. But before she made it very far, two strong hands plucked her up by her underarms, and lifted her away from her mission.
The villagers were still screaming, though the wolves had abandoned the child and the other farmers. The cow was dead. The four men with the wolves were dragging it away.
“It’s over, Jane.” Gifford didn’t release her; his hands were hot on her ribs.
She stared beyond him, where the peasants were regrouping, consoling one another. Their voices drifted up from the field. “Third cow this week,” someone said.
“The Pack will take everything unless we hunt them down,” a man replied. “The children will starve.”
A small meep came from Jane. The poor children.
“Is he going to be all right?” someone called, looking toward the people surrounding the child who’d been attacked. Jane held her breath. Even Gifford turned to listen.
“The bites aren’t deep. As long as they don’t fester . . .” Their conversation grew too quiet for Jane to hear.
Gifford stepped back, releasing his grip on her. “This way, my lady. Let’s go back to the carriage.”
“But we have to help them—”
“It’s over now. What would you do for them? They’ll take care of one another.” He gestured toward the carriage, where the driver shifted from foot to foot. “Don’t you have an ugly scarf to finish?”
How could he joke at a time like this? Clearly Gifford Dudley had no sense of responsibility or honor.
Jane hugged herself and gazed toward the farmers once more. Some were taking the injured child away, while others stayed to discuss ways to make the fields more secure. Gifford’s question had been fair: what would she do for them? The attack had happened. The wolves and strange men were slinking out of view, the cow carcass loaded onto a cart.
“Very well.”
“Thank you.” Gifford offered his arm as though he actually thought he was a gentleman. Jane jerked away and walked on her own, though her whole body trembled with adrenaline and panic at how close that child had come to dying, and how the peasants might go hungry now.
When she sat in the warm carriage, surrounded by her books and her pathetic knitting, the only thing she felt was cold.
Those people were in trouble. In need of help. And Gifford had done nothing.
NINE
Gifford
There was nothing he could’ve done. If he hadn’t stopped Jane, she would’ve been hurt. G was a strong man, at least he thought he was, but under no circumstances did he have the ability to dispatch an entire wolf pack.
And those had been no ordinary wolves. They were part of the E∂ian Pack, G was sure of it.
He would not have stood a chance against them. The Pack was well known all over England. For E∂ians, they represented a kind of Robin Hood figure—taking back what for so long had been denied to them. For the rest of the country, they were terrifying bandits. Ruthless. Cunning. And even if G had managed to stop the attack while remaining alive, saving one small village would’ve done nothing to abate the numbers of the desperate and starving.
He sighed and scratched at the gold-leaf windowsill of the carriage, and a few flecks of gold flaked off into his palm. What those peasants wouldn’t do for a handful of the shiny metal. But for G’s father and the other nobles like him, gold was a mere decoration. G had never known hunger, not really, but he had seen it. He’d been all over the countryside as a horse, and it seemed to him that the entire kingdom was going hungry. But what could one person do?
Nothing, he thought. One person could do nothing. So there was no point being noble about it.