George said, “Do you know where he might have gone? His friends, for instance? Would he know Phillip?”
Glover gave her a sour look. “He’d better not. Danny’sgot no friends. This is a working farm—he has work to do. There’s no time for gadding about with friends, especially not with the sons of the gentry. Now is that all? I got more work than ever now that he’s run off.” He rose.
“Run off?” Hart said. “Where would he go?”
Glover lifted an indifferent shoulder. “No idea, lazy little bastard.”
“Is Danny’s natural father alive?” George asked. It was a good question, Hart thought. With a stepfather like this, an unhappy boy might look for a better alternative.
Glover’s answer was a contemptuous snort.
Hart said, “Does Danny know who his natural father is? Do you?”
It was an impertinent question. Glover gave him a long, hard look. Hart met his gaze squarely, making it clear he was not moving until he had the answers he needed. Glover’s lip curled. “She were a housemaid got with child by one of the gentry, over east.” He waved a hand in that direction. “He offered this farm to any man willing to marry her. So I married her to give her bastard a name.”
“Surely it was to get yourself a farm,” George pointed out sweetly.
He scowled at her. “And then the stupid cow up and died and left me with her whelp to raise.” He hitched up his breeches and added belligerently, “I got me a proper wife now, and children of my own, so if that young cur has run off and gotten hisself into trouble, he’s no get of mine and I wash my hands of him.”
“You realize he’s the second young boy who’s disappeared in the last week,” Hart said.
The man shrugged. George’s hands bunched into fists. Hart reached out and took one of her fists in his hand. If anyone was going to punch this swine, it would be him, not George. Though he understood and shared her anger.
George ignored him. “Danny might be dead. Murdered. Don’t you care?”
“No business of mine if he is. Not my blood, not my son.” And without even saying good-bye, he walked out.
George jumped to her feet. “Horrible, horrible,horribleman! I’m going to talk to his wife. She might know something that could help us.”
But when George found the wife, she just gave them a scared look, glanced out at where her husband had gone and shook her head. Three well-scrubbed small children clustered shyly around her, hiding behind her skirts.
Hart and George left, disgusted. “Why, why, why do perfectly decent women marry ghastly men like that!” George said in a low, furious voice. “He obviously had no respect for his first wife—he just wanted the farm—and look how he’s treated Danny, who was his means togetthe wretched property! And now he’s terrorizing a second woman. Men like that shouldn’t be allowed to marry. I hope he chokes on his stinking farm!”
Hart was a little taken aback by her vehemence.
She continued, “Men should never be allowed have children if all they do is palm them off on someone else and ignore them. Poor little unwanted boy.”
Which boy was she talking about? Danny or Phillip? But she wasn’t just talking about the boys. There was personal history in that rant. Her own father had abandoned her before birth, he recalled.
They rode for a time in silence.
“I wonder who Danny’s real father is,” she said after a while. “Does he know how his son has been neglected? Would he care?”
“That farm was a substantial dowry,” Hart said. “On that alone, we could assume he thought he was making good provision for the girl and his child.”
She glanced at the duke. “Do you have any—”
“No. And if I did, they’d be well cared for. But I haven’t.”
“If we do find Danny alive, we should try to find out who his father is,” she said. “Would that be possible, do you think?”
“First we have to find Phillip,” he said heavily.
“I know.” She rode closer and reached out for his hand,and they rode on like that, hand in hand. It was strangely comforting. He hadn’t realized how much he’d pinned his hopes on Danny being a key to finding Phillip. He’d been convinced he’d find the two boys together, up to their ears in mischief and afraid to come home.
But learning of Danny’s home situation had changed all that. Danny had good reason to run away. Phillip had not.
The specter of a man preying on small boys loomed larger in his mind.
