Read Online The Stolen Princess by Anne Gracíe - Free Book Online

narrow path, searching for signs of last night’s activities.
    â€œAh, this is where it happened,” he said at last. He lifted the boy down and tossed him the reins. “Tie Trojan to a bush, would you?” Nicky took the reins with an air of importance and led the big horse away.
    Gabe peered over the edge of the cliff at the path leading up from the pebbly beach. A difficult climb for a woman and a child with a bad leg, especially in the dark, never mind the portmanteau. Why the devil had she landed here, of all places?
    Nicky joined him and peered over. “It was very hard climbing up in the dark. We could not see and the path was very steep.” He added, “But it was not so muddy as it is now.”
    â€œYes, you are lucky you arrived before the rain came,” Gabe said. It was going to be a slippery expedition; the slope contained several small mudslides. Gabe was glad he hadn’t worn his good boots.
    â€œMama was very angry with the captain of the boat. She wanted him to take her to Lulworth Cove but he took no notice !”
    Gabe repressed a grin. “Good heavens!”
    â€œPapa would have had him flogged. Mama explained to me on the beach that they did not know who we—” He broke off with a guilty expression. “Oh.”
    â€œWhat was that?” Gabe said. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
    â€œNothing.” Nicky relaxed.
    Gabe was intrigued. Who was she, that her son should be so astounded that the captain of a boat—even a smuggling boat—would refuse to obey an order from his mother?
    â€œI can’t see the portmanteau, but I think that’s the trail it made when it fell—do you see?” He pointed to where some of the scrubby vegetation clinging to the rock had been recently broken and rocks disturbed. I’ll climb down and have a look. I hope it hasn’t been buried under mud.”
    â€œLook! That’s Mama’s slipper.” Nicky pointed excitedly.
    Sure enough there it was, a small scrap of blue, wedged against an outcrop of jagged rocks softened by a menacing froth of waves.
    â€œThat can stay there,” Gabe decided.
    â€œOh, but they were Mama’s favorite slippers.”
    â€œNo, it’s too dangerous. All that rain last night will have washed away some of the earth holding the rocks in place—that’s what those mudslides are.” Gabe enjoyed taking risks, but he didn’t see the point of making such a perilous climb for a slipper.
    He slipped over the edge and began the descent toward the portmanteau. A small avalanche of pebbles behind him made him look back. Nicky was coming, too. “No, you stay there,” Gabe ordered.
    â€œI want to come.”
    â€œYou can’t, it’s too dangerous.”
    â€œI can do it. And it’s my portmanteau.”
    â€œDon’t argue with me, boy! Stay there.” It was a miracle the child had made it up the dangerous path. Climbing down again with such a bad leg—and after a night of rain had softened the dirt—was asking for trouble.
    â€œI apologize. I just wanted to help,” Nicky said in a small, stiff voice.
    Oh God, he’d hurt the child’s feelings. Too late, Gabe remembered his half brother’s hatred of his weak leg, Harry’s refusal to have it allowed for, his determination to do whatever any other boy did.
    â€œYou can help. You can—” He tried to think of a task. “You can mind Trojan.”
    Nicky looked mulish. “Trojan is tied up. And last night he was free but when you whistled, he came.”
    Gabe was not used to people questioning his orders. But he couldn’t bark at a child of seven in the same way as he would a rebellious recruit. “Yes, but that was at night,” he said. “In daylight there are more people around. He’s a very valuable animal and I need you to guard him from, er, from horse thieves.”
    â€œHorse