The Lost Son Returns as the Duke novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Forged Mark
"Proof," I said. "Show it."
Osgar drew a folded paper from his coat with fingers that were almost steady.
"A bill of sale," he said. "Signed in the church porch eighteen years ago, in my presence."
"It sells a boy of six, Wulfric Cobb, to a trader for twenty silver pennies."
"The mark is Edith Cobb's."
The lane made a sound.
He walked to the captain and held it out.
The captain took it, read it, and passed it to me without a word.
The vellum was yellow, the ink brown, and the whole thing was written in one tidy clerk's hand.
At the bottom, beside Osgar's own name as witness, stood a plain black cross.
"He died of fever the next winter," Osgar said, to the lane, with a catch in his voice. "The trader told me himself."
"I kept it quiet to spare her."
"The boy you've knelt to is an actor in blue, and somebody has paid him well."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Lost Son Returns as the Duke are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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