Page 25 of Gilded Locks

Grace shivered, suddenly very anxious to get out of this lifeless home.

But she couldn’t leave, not yet. She wasn’t the only rebel at risk. If the Rogue came here again, he could be caught.

What could she do?

Grace scanned the room, hoping for a solution, and saw the letters leaning against the wall. Offering a silent apology to Mayor Kavanah, Grace took the letters and skimmed the words written on them. She didn’t have a pen, so instead, she carefully tore off bits of the letter, placing them on the floor by the trinkets.

She hoped the sheriff would think them trash and walk right past. He wasn’t the sentimental sort.

But, if Grace had to guess, it was the Rogue who’d taken the time to place the leftovers of the home in a careful pile in the corner. He might see her message.

“not safe. le A ve”

Chapter 7

The sheriff didn’t order a search of the Kavanah home and the forest the next day or the day after. And he never came for Grace. So far today, there had been no sign of investigation either. Grace could hardly think for worrying.

She’d come to the town square for the picnic in a state of anxiety only made worse by the sweltering heat.

The square was actually more of a rectangle, largely cobbled, with a patch of grass in the middle, several manors along the rim, and the town hall at the head.

Since the buildings were built so close together, their plots of land extended and expanded out behind them like rays of a sun. Only Grace’s own manor and that of the Ferrers sat farther back than this ring of gentry homes, so as to be near their fields.

What should have been an open community area where citizens could enjoy happy interaction felt more like a walled-incage, with the mayor, from his third-story personal rooms in the town hall, looking down on them like a warden.

Even at events like the picnic, when Mayor Nautin descended from his tower, she couldn’t escape the sense of being watched.

Grace shifted on Lizzy’s picnic blanket and adjusted her straw hat, trying to catch a surreptitious glimpse of Sheriff and Garrick Clairmont from the corner of her eye. They stood, backs to her, talking to Mayor Nautin on a wooden platform between the grass and town hall. The mayor’s pedestal, she called it.

“Grace?”

“Hmm?” Her half-hearted reply to Lizzy barely registered in her own mind. A sense of foreboding had pulsed in Grace’s ears all day, drowning out Lizzy’s chatter.

What were the Clairmonts playing at?

Grace could explain away the empty forest. Her prayers had been answered and Garrick must not have seen the clasp well enough to recognize or describe.

But there had to be a reason they hadn’t ransacked the Kavanah home or questioned Grace?

Unless… did they know the Rogue had been there and they had intentionally delayed organizing patrol so they could watch the home for someone in a green cloak to show up?

Or did they think Grace had been retrieving the clasp because she’d dropped it herself?

But then, why hadn’t they demanded to search her house?

Maybe they hoped to make an example of her—arrest her in front of the whole town, at the picnic.

She turned a bit more, searching for any sign of a planned trap. The Clairmont men stood tall, calm, and confident. No fidgeting. No glances over their shoulders at her.

Grace didn’t think that the demeanor of men waiting to strike, but she couldn’t quite abandon the sense of danger that had been building since her meeting with Garrick two nights earlier.

Why weren’t they doing anything?

The only explanation was that Garrick hadn’t told his father.

But why wouldn’t he? There was no reason for him not to.

“Graa-aaace,” Lizzy half sang. “Hello.”

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