Why Mermaids Sing Read Online Free Page B

but…that was it.”
    Burlington spoke up suddenly. “You’re trying to figure out who did it, aren’t you?” The boy’s face was pale and puffy. When Sebastian looked into his soft gray eyes, Burlington glanced quickly away.
    “Do you have any ideas about what happened to him?”
    All three boys shook their heads, their eyes wide.
    “Where did you gentlemen go after yesterday’s fight?”
    “To the White Monk,” said McDermott. “Outside Merton Abbey.”
    “Until when?”
    “Just before midnight. But Dominic left long before that. His mother wanted him home for some dinner party she was giving.”
    “So he left alone?”
    Again, the three exchanged glances. It was Burlington who swallowed and licked his lips before answering. “He asked me to go with him. Said he didn’t want to ride back to London by himself. But I just laughed at him. Made fun of him. Told him he was acting like a shrieking little housemaid.” The boy’s voice cracked and he looked away again, blinking rapidly.
    “What time did he leave?”
    “About half past five, I’d say?” McDermott looked around the table for confirmation. The other two nodded their heads. “Yes. Half past five.”
    “Driving himself in his curricle?”
    “No. We all rode. Dominic has—had,” he corrected himself quickly, “a sweet-going little mare named Roxanne. Last I heard, she was missing, too.”
    “What does she look like?”
    “A dapple gray. With four white socks and a white blaze.”
    Sebastian pushed back his chair, then hesitated. “You said Mr. Stanton was nervous. Was he often so?”
    “Dominic? No. At least, not until lately.”
    “When you say lately, what exactly do you mean?”
    Again there was that brief consensus taking. “The last month?” said Jefferies. “Maybe more.”
    “Do you know what was making him nervous?”
    The question was met with a heavy silence. After a moment Burlington cleared his throat and said, “He thought someone was following him. Watching him.”
    “Did he ever see anyone?”
    “No. No one. It was just a feeling he had. He was spooked. It’s why we all laughed at him. God help us. We laughed at him.”

Chapter 8
     
    R iding his neat little black Arab, Sebastian took the road south from London toward Merton Abbey, following in reverse the route Dominic Stanton would have taken the night before.
    The afternoon was hot, the sun a golden blaze of late-summer glory. By now the traces of last night’s rain had been reduced to an occasional patch of mud drying quickly in the heat. Insects whined; the ripe, uncut fields of wheat and rye stood motionless, unstirred by any breeze. When a stand of oaks and chestnuts near the base of a hill closed around him, Sebastian welcomed the shade.
    The road had proved to be little traveled. Sebastian suspected that even with yesterday’s mill, by the time Dominic Stanton left the White Monk on the outskirts of Merton Abbey, the surge of spectators returning to London would have already passed. Sebastian might welcome the coolness of this shady wood, but for a young man riding at dusk, alone and frightened by an unseen menace, the shadowy copse must have seemed anything but pleasant.
    Sebastian slowed his horse to a walk.
    The ground here fell away to the east, deep into a rocky gulley where the trees grew close and tangled with vines. As Sebastian scanned the sides of the track, he noticed his mare’s ears flick forward and back. Tossing her head, she whinnied softly. Sebastian reined in and listened. From the depths of the gully came a soft answering nicker.
    He found the gray deep in the gully, her trailing reins caught fast in a thicket. Dismounting, he approached her with softly crooned words. “Easy there, girl. Easy.”
    She quivered a moment, her eyes wide, then hung her head. He stroked her neck and let her nuzzle his chest. Slowly, looking for traces of blood, he ran his hand over the saddle leather. His hand came away clean.
    “What happened, girl?