Page 48 of Ruthless, But for Her

Cassia didn't fill the silence. He noticed that, too.

“And the others?”

“Sorren wandered in on his own when he was seven years old, or near enough. No one could say, including him. He didn't know where he'd come from and he still doesn't know. Margot fed him and he never left.”

“And Ryker?”

“He was born at the Daisy, the son of one of Margot's women. She stayed long enough to see him fed and then she disappeared. Margot has never said where.”

“She knew her, then.”

“She knew her.”

“Is she living?”

“I've never asked. Neither has Ryker.”

“Three boys, raised together, by Margot,” she mused.

He was so accustomed to being mocked for his upbringing, that Ashton usually shut the conversation down quickly.

It hadn’t been easy. As they grew older, all three of them had started to lash out if Margot or any of her women were disparaged in any way. It had gotten them into more trouble than he cared to count. Whatever his birth, Margot, Sorren and Ryker were his family.

Ashton considered his next words.

“Margot was an unconventional mother, but she provided for three boys who would not have survived without her.”

He left it at that. Ryker or Sorren might have said more, praising her for building an empire that was now the Daisy.

But his brothers' questions were not his. Margot had never provided him the answers he wanted.

“I suppose you learned a great deal about women.”

She said it plainly, eyes ahead, and then looked as though she'd surprised herself.

He laughed. “More than most. For that, I'm thankful.”

He spurred his gelding to ride faster. At the pace they were going, it would be well past nightfall when they reached the inn.

But Cassia didn’t disappoint him. She didn't simply meet his pace.

She overtook him.

With a flat stretch of land and hard dry ground under them, he grinned and caught her.

The race was on.

She took the flat by four lengths.

Ashton pulled up where the road bent toward the trees and understood that somewhere in the last leg of their ride, he'd stopped trying to win.

Cassia had broken out in joyful laughter.

It was the first time he had heard her this happy.

Roland had been dead two days. She would remember that soon enough, and it would cost her something.

CHAPTER 29