Page 76

“I can.”

No two words had sounded so beautiful. Grace gazed up at Garrick Clairmont in grateful hope.

“You can?”

He smiled sadly, then looked to the range where Jesse Stanton stood, aiming at the target. “I’m not a master, but I’m goodenough. I think my performance in the other three events should be sufficient.”

Grace nodded. It might work. “Yes. You’re a Clairmont.” The mayor wouldn’t do anything to Garrick, would he, with his father being the sheriff? His anger was directed at her family.

Garrick winced but nodded. Grace knew she should say something more. Thank you? I’m sorry? Something to indicate she acknowledged what he was offering. Nothing she thought of communicated what she was feeling.

The dust devil of interest, the awareness of his presence, all of that had coalesced into a storm within her. Was he really going to help her?

Garrick patted Grace’s hand, extracted his arm from her grasp, and approached the range. As he moved, the faint tones of nutmeg drifted on the air near her—James was near. But she couldn’t drag her eyes from Garrick.

Picking up the bow, he considered the instrument, pulling on the string before nocking an arrow. Once the arrow was in place, he took his time lining up the shot. Then with a calm breath, released. The arrow hit. Grace breathed in sharply. Garrick’s arrow fell just closer than Russell’s. Using this same pattern, Garrick shot at the second target. His arrow hit nearly dead on.

Russell cried out in frustration. Grace’s heart soared.

Garrick stared at the targets for a moment, examining his success. His lips pursed, and he set the bow down before returning to Grace. She slid her hand into his.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

The mayor towered above the crowd, no longer grinning, but glaring with fire in his eyes, directly at Garrick and Grace. She stuck her nose in the air, and the mayor growled. He tore his gaze away, pulling angrily at the cloth about his neck, and scratched at red skin around some kind of iron jewelry.

Grace grinned triumphantly.

Watching the handful of Fidarans still trying to win the gold aim and loose arrows that never bested Garrick’s, Grace floated in a state of giddy relief.

The guilt and concern of earlier still poked at her, but it couldn’t pierce the euphoria. She’d outwitted the mayor and kept her family safe. No, it was better. She’d had help, had a—dare she think it?—a friend willing to fight beside her without a cloak and a mask.

But she ought to have known it couldn’t last.

She hadn’t noticed, in her panic, that Cyrus Stanton had not taken a turn with the bow and arrow at the same time his brother and Russell did. As the crowd stood silent and it seemed no one else intended to compete, Cyrus marched out.

Grace didn’t see the problem yet. She was caught up in the illusion of success. The boy pulled back the arrow and released.

It hit, dead center.

Still, the implications didn’t occur to her; Cyrus wasn’t a Robbins. But she felt the lean muscles in Garrick’s arm go taut.

With a cocky strut, Cyrus moved to the next target, nocked and released. The snap of an arrow shaft splintering, barely audible in reality, cracked thunder in Grace’s ears. Cyrus’s second arrow had nicked Garrick’s, embedding just beside the bullseye.

Gasps and oohs rippled through the crowd. The pristine skill in one so young broke through the melancholy.

But Grace’s ears trained on Garrick’s whispered “No.”

She looked at him. He stood like a statue, staring at the range.

“What’s wrong?”

“He beat me.”

Grace shook her head, confused. Was it about the reward? Garrick himself acknowledged that had been a false promise. “It still means Russell won’t win.”

The disapproval in Garrick’s eyes made Grace squirm. “You’re okay with Cyrus facing the noose?”

“What?” With a crash from the heights of elation, Grace stared in horror at Garrick. “What do you mean? The mayor has no ire for the Stantons.”