28 Chapter 28

"Steal it? I hardly need steal what was my father's, Lord Hawley. I only need prove it. Yes."

"What?"

Now that ... that, when it came to what he'd heard, every Aesop fable and Mother Goose tale rolled into one, that stole the cloak from Red Riding Hood, the boots from Puss, and left Cinderella without any shoe to speak of, never mind a glass one. Lord Armstrong her father? That was why she was here? Well, it wouldn't stop him.

She raised her chin. "What I say.You want to think I'm some common ten a penny thief, here for something I wish I'd never clapped eyes on, that's your affair.Me now, I'm here for the house I remember being in with my mother. Yeah. Of course it wasn't yesterday, I grant you that. But me and Matthew-"

"Matthew? You mean there's more of you?"

"My brother, Lord Hawley, as I think I told you."

She had. He'd thought Matthew was a fabrication. He still did. Owned this place? Was this the latest thing in stealing? Making off with houses now?