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Page 340
tioned to you, he confirmed Thorn's frequent shirking of his duty back then. His womanizing. The way he treated my mother. That was all I needed to know."
"Sounds like he tried hard to convince you to forget about this duel." Mariah's sarcasm was lost on Thorn, whose confusion was evident in the narrowing of his eyes. "I suppose, too, that Ainsley tried to prevent you from perfecting your ability to shoot with dueling pistols."
"Not at all," Will said. "He was most helpful."
"Well," said Ainsley briskly, lifting a pistol from the box he still held. He handed the box to Thorn. "This interlude has been fascinating, but best that we get this over with."
"Best that we stop it right now," contradicted Mariah. "Don't you think so, Will? For now, at least. Maybe there's more to this story about your mother that Thorn can fill in instead of Ainsley. Thorn, if you weren't off 'courting,' what were you doing when you were supposed to be guarding the people picking blackberries?" Mariah recalled that René, too, had suggested that Thorn was off flirting, shirking his duty, when the boy had been kidnapped. But he'd also said that Thorn remained quiet about the entire affair.
René had learned what had happened from Ainsley.
Thorn hesitated. His back toward Mariah as he stooped, he placed the box on the ground, its lid closed, then stood again. A strange, troubled expression turned his brown eyes dark, and he tensed his jaw as he spoke. "I was indeed distracted by another woman," he said softly. "I have long admitted so, although I chose not to discuss the affair, for it made no difference why. Or so I thought."
"But" Mariah began.
"I believe I may have been wrong," Thorn interrupted, looking off into the distance. "The woman's name, I recall, was Sally. She was weeping on my shoulder that afternoon, for she had a broken heart. She said she had been seduced by a soldier, and then mere minutes earlier, discarded. She said she had been told to seek me out, that perhaps I could help. I realized I was to be elsewhere, but there were other, subordinate soldiers I relied upon to tend the settlers. What happened was, of course, ultimately my responsibility. Yet I

 
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