Читать книгу A Treacherous Proposition - Patricia Frances Rowell - Страница 9

Yorkshire, England, April 1796

“But, Papa! Timothy is my friend!” The little boy’s lips quivered in spite of his determination to forbid them.

His father glared at the older boy standing beside him. “Your friend, do you think? Now what would a great boy of thirteen years want with a lad not quite eight? What have you given him?”

The younger boy’s gaze dropped, then slid sideways toward his friend, guilt in every muscle of his small body as he stared at the straw on the stable floor.

“Ah!” His father folded his arms.

The boy lifted his chin. “I only gave him my soldiers, Papa. Tim doesn’t have any.”

His father’s eyes narrowed as he studied the ragged Timothy. “And a boy your age likes to play with toy soldiers?” Suddenly he barked, “Let me see what is in your pockets.”

The older boy made a break for it, sprinting for the stable door, only to be captured by an under groom and hauled back before he had made good his escape.

The boy’s father grasped him by the collar and shook him. “Your pockets.”

Reluctantly, Timothy turned his pockets outward and two gold coins fell into the straw. The man stooped and retrieved them, his icy stare never leaving Timothy’s angry face. “So you steal from your friends?”

Timothy lifted his chin defiantly. “He’s not my friend!” He kicked straw at the younger boy. “You aren’t my friend. You’re just a baby.”

He turned and ran for the door again, and the boy’s father let him go. After the boy had disappeared from sight, the man knelt beside his son and looked into his tear-filled eyes. “I’m sorry, Vincent, but there is a hard lesson you must learn. When one has the power and wealth that will someday be yours, one must always be on guard. Always. The world is filled with people who will let you think they like you, but who, in fact, only want what you have. Do you understand?”

The boy nodded, his mouth firming into a hard line.

“Yes, Papa. I understand.”