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"Oy," Daniel shouted over the banisters "Angus Bring a drah the hall turned on his heel and went back into the dining roo carefully "At each other’s throats? Oh, aye Always shouting about soet used to it"

"Will I?"

"You’ll have to, won’t you? But they’ve been unhappy" Beth blinked away the moisture in her eyes "What about you? Are you unhappy?"

Daniel shrugged his lanky shoulders "You mean because my mum tried to murder me and my dad and then offed herself? I never knew her, and Dad’s done his best" His matter-of-fact acceptance of his mother’s violence twisted Beth’s heart It had been the sairls whose prostitute ed shoulders and said tightly, "She were a whore What’d she expect?"

Unaware of her pity, Daniel took the cut-crystal glass that Angus brought and thrust it into her hand Beth sipped, the sue Ladies don’t drink spirits, she heard Mrs Barrington say This despite the secret brandy bottle stashed in Mrs Barrington’s bedside table

"Tellroo had come down Why?"

Daniel wrinkled his forehead "Why? ‘Twas because Ian laughed I don’t think any of us have ever heard Uncle Ian laugh out loud before At least not since he got sprung from the asylum"

Beth progressed on her riding lessons until, by the end of the week, she could ride unassisted as long as Cas to guide the horse and not flail or grab the reins to keep her balance The soreness began to slacken as herof her second week of lessons, she could clily capable atthe stiffness out of her

Beth beca pedigree na the stable lads was Emmie While Beth and Ean, Ian and Cameron raced or put their horses over fences Ian was an excellent rider, but Caiving Beth lessons, he worked at training the filly he’d brought, letting her run on a long line he held in coift," Ian said to Beth as they watched hi with horses They love hiuage colored the air At first he apologized to Beth, but after a while he forgot to Beth remembered what Isabella had told her, that the Mackenzies had lived as bachelors for so long, they didn’t think to soften their hs, decided she could bear it As she’d told Inspector Fellows, she was not a wilting weed

She learned to treasure Ian’s conversations with her, like this one about Cameron, because she never saw him much outside of bed Over the next teeks, he closeted hi alone, and neither would say where

Ca that anything was unusual Beth tried to ask Ian once what he and Hart were doing, and Ian answered laconically, "Business," before looking off into the distance It maddened her to not understand, but she hated to poke and pry Hart had been right; she barely knew Ian, and perhaps this hat they always did

I can’t expect thee their entire lives for me, she chided herself Another part of her would respond, But he’s s went on like this until one afternoon when Ca beyond the park up into the hills

It was a beautiful day, with a fine suered on the highest peaks of the h to melt it

"There’s a folly in the woods out here," Calossy black stallion The stable lads were afraid of the beast, but he obeyed Cam without fuss "My father built it for hlands for him, so he decided to build a fake one"

The brothers never spoke much about their mother, or their father either, for that lared at her every day from the top of the second-floor staircase, but she’d never seen a picture of their ed Emmie to move faster, interested Behind her Cameron’s horse stumbled Beth turned in alar the stallion’s hoof

"Is he hurt?"

She spoke to Caht Threw a shoe, didn’t you, old lad?" He patted the horse’s neck "Go on up to the folly E ventured out by herself, but she decided she had to soed Emmie onward, and the old her hill

The day had turned hot, the air close a the folly would hold a cooler breeze

She saw it before long, a picturesque stone building with moss on it The flat sides had tiny s and artfully cru brick She could see why the folly had been built in that particular place, however The vieas breathtaking Fold after fold of land rolled away toward the flat gray sea far away A creek gushed in a gorge that dropped froe