Dalton Irving looked at him with frightening insight, through all that baby-deer youth. Anthony tried not to flinch; Dalton saw more, paid more attention, than he’d guessed.
“But you wouldn’t be.” Dalton did not look away. “Would you?”
Anthony, bereft of words under the astonishment of being seen, could not answer.
A shout saved him. James. Calling his name. Summoning him to the knot of bodies around Nicholas. Who needed care.
He made excuses to Dalton Irving, and fled to someplace he could be of assistance.
* * * *
Anthony had gone out to solve the world, or at least to discover what all the outcry had involved. Robert, alone and rudderless, drifted to a bookshelf, a line of bound ledgers, the story of the Thorne family in numbers and mathematics, land improvements and investments.
