The Hidden Blade by Sherry Thomas Page A

be looking after him and keeping him safe.”
    Leighton’s heart thudded unpleasantly. “I see. Thank you.”
    “Haven’t made you afraid, have I?” asked the clerk.
    “I’m all right,” said Leighton.
    But he wasn’t. Not because he lived in a house with ex-convicts, but because they were broken ex-convicts. Sir Curtis held something over each of them, Leighton was sure, just as he’d held something over Father. Father, who’d had a wealthy mother and an income larger than Sir Curtis’s, had been able to escape to Starling Manor. But to the end of his days, there had been something damaged inside him, something fearful and anguished that even Herb’s love could not cure.
    How long would it be before the monster turned his gaze to Leighton?

    Sir Curtis married Miss Saithwaite at the end of September. Three weeks later they arrived together at Rose Priory, both looking supremely pleased with life and each other.
    Along with them came a Mr. Jonathan Colmes, Leighton’s new tutor, a slightly stooped man in his early forties. As Sir Curtis made the introductions, Leighton was almost startled to realize that despite Mr. Colmes’s somewhat nervous manner, he was not a shattered man barely held together by an animal instinct for self-preservation.
    “I have heard excellent things about Mr. Colmes—he was the result of a diligent search,” said Sir Curtis.
    The very timber of his voice made Leighton’s skin crawl. But there was something else too: a trace of malicious mischief. Leighton glanced warily toward Mr. Colmes, wondering whether the latter was going to be an instrument of Sir Curtis’s ill will. But in Mr. Colmes he could sense nothing worse than an awkward desire to please. He didn’t know what to make of it.
    Sir Curtis dismissed Mr. Colmes and sat down behind the desk of the study. Leighton felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise—he had never before been alone with the man.
    “And how are you, my dear nephew?” asked Sir Curtis softly.
    “Very well, sir. Thank you.”
    “Do you miss your mother?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “It must be difficult to be left behind. Does she write of her new life? Lady Atwood ran into her once in London and said she seemed to be enjoying herself enormously.”
    It was meant to hurt and it did. Leighton wanted Mother to get on well. He wanted her to be happy. But always there was the fear that she would forget him altogether—that he didn’t matter at all.
    Sir Curtis was a connoisseur of fear, a man who knew how to extract and refine it, how to forge it until he could wield it like a blade, every word leaving a gash upon the heart.
    “She writes that she is busy getting ready to leave,” answered Leighton.
    Sir Curtis tented his fingertips and cocked his head to one side. He reminded Leighton of a bird of prey, with coldly intelligent eyes. “You resemble my brother a great deal, young Master Leighton. But I see you are made of sterner stuff.”
    It occurred to Leighton that until this moment, Sir Curtis had not paid any particular mind to him: He had separated Leighton from his family to punish Mother—and as an exercise of his own power; what manner of boy his nephew was mattered not at all. But now he perceived something in Leighton, something he had not expected.
    A strength of will. More than that: a strength of will that could turn into cruelty. He saw a boy who was capable of turning on his mother.
    Leighton said nothing.
    Sir Curtis took a sip from the cup of tea sitting before him. “The day before my wedding, I received a letter from Mr. Herbert Gordon, asking for the album of stamps that had been bequeathed to him in your father’s will.”
    This was the first time Leighton had heard Herb’s name in months. He barely stopped himself from scooting forward in eagerness.
    “Quite an insolent demand,” continued Sir Curtis, “given that he was directly responsible for your father’s death. I sent him the pistol with which Nigel killed