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With a calm smile, she placed the book on a side table "Very useful indeed"

"They’ll never knohat hit them" With his boot heel, Colin ta to hit the they needed was shrapnel zinging about The charges he prepared were mere blanks--black porapped in paper, for a bit of noise and a spray of dirt

"You’re certain the horses won’t bolt?" Colin asked, unspooling a length of slow-burning fuse

"These are cavalry-trained beasts Impervious to explosions The sheep, on the other hand"

"Will scatter like flies" Colin flashed a reckless grin

"I suppose"

Bra the sheep was reckless, impulsive, and inherently rather stupid, like all his cousin’s boyhood ideas Surely there were better, more efficient solutions to a sheep barricade that didn’t involve black powder

But ti on, in o, a lead ball had ripped through his right knee and torn his life apart He’d spentand groaning his way down corridors like a ghost dragging chains So his convalescence, Bram had felt certain he would explode

And noas so close--just a mile or so--from Suaining his coluttonous sheep, whose guts were likely to burst if they weren’t scared off that corn

A good, clean blast was just what they all needed right about now

"That’ll do," Thorne called, ee at the top of the rise As he pushed his way back through the sheep, he added, "All’s clear down the lane I could see a fair distance"

"There is a village nearby, isn’t there?" Colin asked "God, tell e," Bra away the unused powder "Saw it on the map Somesuch Bay, or Whatsit HarborCan’t exactly recall"

"I don’t care what it’s called," Colin said "So long as there’s a tavern and a bit of society God, I hate the country"

Thorne said, "I saw the village Just over that rise"

"It didn’t look char, did it?" Colin raised a brow as he reached for the tinderbox "I should hate for it to be chare any day Wholesoave hi, my lord"

"Yes I can see that," Colin h"

"Miss Finch, what a charether

"We think so" Sreen "Here we have the church, St Ursula’s--a prized exareen itself is lovely" She refrained frorass oval they used for cricket and lals, and quickly swiveled Mrs Highwood away, lest she spy the pair of stockinged legs dangling from one of the trees

"Look up there" She pointed out a ju the rocky bluff "Those are the ruins of Rycliff Castle They make an excellent place to paint and sketch"

"Oh, how perfectly rohwood pronounced

"Not at all In a month’s time, the castle will be the site of our midsummer fair Families come from ten parishes, some from as far away as Eastbourne We ladies dress in medieval attire, and my father puts on a display for the local children He collects ancient suits of arhtful notion," Diana said

"It’s the highlight of our summer"

Minerva peered hard at the bluffs "What’s the composition of those cliffs? Are they sandstone or chalk?"

"Ersandstone, I think" Susanna directed their attention to a red-shuttered façade across the lane Wideboxes spilled over with blosso noiselessly in the breeze "And there’s the tea shop Mr Fosbury, the proprietor, makes cakes and sweets to rival any London confectionery’s"

"Cakes?" Mrs Highwood’s mouth pursed in an unpleasantin an excess of sweets"

"Oh no," Susanna lied "Hardly ever"

"Diana has been strictly forbidden to indulge And that one"--she pointed out Minerva--"is tending toward stoutness, I fear"

At her aze to her feet, as if she were intently studying the pebbles beneath theround to s her whole

"Minerva," her mother snapped "Posture"

Susanna put an ar her up "We have the sunniest weather in all England, did I h two times a week Can I interest you all in a tour of the shops?"

"Shops? I only see one"