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But the door opens, and e push inside, I’m surprised to find both Dory Maud and Elizabeth there, as well as a handsorave pillow that Martin Devlin found in his field last year when he was digging for potatoes

"-- really put the head on this at burial!" he says

Finn gives ner and in his thirties, maybe, but in the best possible way I think the word for it is dashing or dapper or so like that He holds a red flat cap in his hands

"Ah, Puck," says Dory Maud "Puck Connolly"

Finn and I exchange another look

"Pleased to er

"Oh, but you haven’t met," Dory Maud says "Mr Holly, this is Puck Connolly Puck, this is Mr George Holly"

"Now I’ Finn off here and --" Elizabeth sidles up to me and places her claws in my skin

"Just a moment! I need to steal her," Elizabeth chirps She whisks me into the back room and shoves closed the door behind us So it is just us and four chairs and a table bigger than the floor and an audience of boxes filled with Dory Maud’s love letters to sailors We are nose to nose and Elizabeth slish roses "Puck Connolly, you be your absolute level best to thatnice"

"No, you weren’t I saw your face I’e him That American is richer than the Queen and we think he means to take a piece of Thisby back with hi the fertility statue "What is it you’re trying to shove off on hiainst the door to ensure no one interrupts "Annie"

"Annie!"

"If you’re going to repeat everything I say, I’ll give your tongue to him as well"

"Does Annie know about this?"

"If only you had the brains toAs you can"

I scowl and follow her back into the main roo the stone burial pillow

"Done, ladies?" Dory Maud asks I can’t think of the last ti other than our chickens "Mr Holly was just expressing interest in you, Puck"

Perhaps my alarm is written upon my face, because Holly adds quickly, "Sean Kendrick’s spoken of you"

"You didn’tat , is if you took Mr Holly and found him some breakfast"

"Oh --" Holly and I protest at the salances at o watch the training" I decide that I like him It helps that he’s dapper, but the clever cinches it

"Then you should take hiet him one of the November cakes Of course Annie kno to make them as well, even better than Palsson’s," Dory Maud says "She was just saying that she’d like to make them for you, Mr Holly, but of course there’s been no tiet them at Palsson’s, you can carry your breakfasts with you"

Holly’s shts the room; Dory Maud and Elizabeth are both blown back fairly by the sheen of it

"Will you let s, Miss Connolly?" Holly asks "And your brother, too?"

I think I aze Elizabeth wields It is a gaze that says, I told you he was a rich Alare at her and Dory Maud "Certainly And Dory, if you give e, I’ll buy some extra … for Annie"

We momentarily battle with our eyes, and then Dory Maud relents and gives me a few coins And so it is two triue Holly from Fathom & Sons, Finn on one side and reat interest, and I watch hireater interest The way his eye travels along Dove -- hock to stifle placele -- tells me that he’s not just a casual tourist I wonder hoell he knows Sean

"You know," Finn says on the way back to Palsson’s, cheerful now that he’s getting food, "that Annie is blind, right?"

"Not entirely," Holly corrects him "Not entirely blind, I mean"