Page 7 of Ties of Legacy

Chapter 3

Avery

The clanging pulled Avery out of a deep sleep. But even as a child, she had always woken quickly. It was a valuable skill on the road.

It still took her a moment to scramble out of her bedroll, though, and by the time she had, both the intruder and Nutmeg were gone. She glanced at the cart, noting the opened crate before she sprinted after her horse.

She hadn’t gone far when she raced between two trees and nearly collided with the mare. Nutmeg had managed to catch the thief much more quickly than she’d expected. She patted the horse’s neck approvingly as she moved forward to get a good look at the man on the ground.

She expected to find an angry, aggressive thief looking up at her, but instead the young man on the ground was staring at the three-branched candlestick in his hands, his expression shocked. Avery’s eyes narrowed as she tried to make sense of the situation. Who was he?

The man finally looked up, meeting her eyes, and she blinked in surprise. “It’s you.”

The disappointment spearing through her was irrational. She had no reason to be disappointed that the blue-eyed young manfrom Henton was nothing more than a common thief. He must have been scoping his next target and decided she was an easier mark than the smith. Surely it wasn’t disappointment in him but in her own failure to recognize his intent. She wasn’t usually so obtuse.

“You’re a thief,” she said, her words tinged with disgust. If there was one thing merchants disliked, it was thieves.

He stared up at her, apparently shocked into silence. She expected him to make another attempt to bolt, but he remained seated on the ground. As the moment drew out, her brows furrowed.

If he was a thief, he was a bad one. He’d only stolen a single item, and probably the least valuable one in the crate. Did he know something about the candelabra she didn’t?

Avery wanted to interrogate him, but his appearance stayed her tongue. If he’d looked like a recovering invalid the last time she’d seen him, he looked like an active one now. His face was dangerously pale in the moonlight, and she suddenly had the feeling he was still sitting because standing was too difficult a task.

She had to suppress an instinct to ask if he was all right and to offer help. Effective thief or not, he had still stolen from her. She had not been the one to make them enemies.

“Does that candlestick have some marvelous property of which I’m unaware?” she drawled, affecting nonchalance.

He looked down at the brass object and then back up at her, surprising her with a rueful laugh.

“Not to my knowledge, no. It appears to be a perfectly ordinary brass candlestick.”

She met his eyes, reminding herself that the piercing intensity of their color told her nothing about his character. Even when he smiled at her, heightening the effect of his eyes, she refused to be moved.

“I’m Elliot, by the way,” he added.

“Out of all the items in my cart, you made an interesting selection,” she said, ignoring his attempted introduction.

He sighed. “I’m in desperate need of a candelabra.”

Desperate. It was the word that had come to mind when she had first seen his expression. But the words made no sense. If it wasn’t the middle of the night, she would have suspected him of being sun-addled.

Elliot put a hand to his head, as if attempting to push back a splitting headache. Avery sighed. He might be a petty thief, but she didn’t have it in her to come down hard on someone who looked like he might collapse at any moment.

“If you need one so desperately, you can have it,” she said. “It didn’t cost me much, anyway.”

He shook his head, as if attempting to clear it. “Money isn’t an object. I can afford to pay…” His voice trailed off as his look of pain intensified.

Avery frowned down at him, her instinctive sympathy still battling with her indignation. “If money isn’t an issue, why did you steal it?”

“I…didn’t…steal…it,” he rasped out, his eyes tightly closed.

Avery’s eyes widened. He really must be addled. Maybe it was the pain. How could he sit there with her candelabra in his hand and claim he hadn’t stolen it?

But if he was addled with pain, there was no point arguing with him.

“All right, then,” she said. “You’ve got your candlestick now, and we can even say you didn’t steal it, if that makes you feel better. Just don’t come near me or my cart again.”

“I don’t…want it.” Elliot pushed the candelabra along the ground toward her, the words sounding forced out of him.

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