Shadows and Light

Chapter Two

Standing in front of the morning room door, Liam smoothed back his dark brown hair and resisted the urge to give the tops of his boots a quick polish on the back of his trouser legs. His mother knew he’d already been out working, had requested this appointment during the time when he usually came in to spend an hour going over accounts and correspondence and, lately, to reply to the black-edged notes of condolence. She wouldn’t expect him to look like anything but what he was—a man who tended the land that belonged to him and looked after the people who worked for him. The fact that he was now the Baron of Willowsbrook didn’t change anything. He’d been riding over the land for twenty years now, had started visiting the tenant farms on his beloved sorrel pony when he was barely seven years old. She wouldn’t criticize him for being dressed in clothes that were a bit sweaty and smelled of animals.

Maybe it was because she wouldn’t criticize his appearance that he had the urge to run upstairs and put on a fresh shirt before stepping into a room that was bright, feminine, and soothing.

Giving the door a light rap with his knuckles, Liam walked into the room. His mother, Elinore, stood at the glass door that opened onto a small terrace, no doubt watching the birds that gathered to drink and bathe in the stone basin that was scrubbed and filled with fresh water every morning. The sunlight made the strands of gray in her light brown hair shine like silver. She was a small, slim woman with an inner strength that had weathered all the emotional storms of her marriage.

He may have inherited his father’s looks—the dark hair, a face handsome enough to catch a woman’s eye, height that was a little above average—but he was glad he’d inherited his mother’s hazel eyes. Woodland eyes, she called them, because they were a brown-flecked green. Sometimes he wondered if, when she looked at him, she saw only a younger version of his father. At least when she looked at his eyes, she had to know there was a part of her in him, as well.

“Good morning, Mother,” Liam said. He glanced at the tray on the table near the sofa and instantly became wary. The tea, thin sandwiches, and pastries weren’t unusual fare for a midmorning chat, but the decanter of whiskey was definitely out of place. Elinore didn’t approve of indulging in strong drink, especially so early in the day. That she’d arranged for the decanter to be here meant she thought one of them would need something more potent than tea to get through this conversation.

Turning away from the window, Elinore offered him a hesitant smile. “Good morning, Liam. Thank you for taking time out of your day to meet with me.”

Heat washed through his body, a sure sign that his temper was rising. Making an effort to keep his voice calm, he replied, “Thanks aren’t necessary. You’re my mother. My being the baron now doesn’t change that.” At least, he hoped it didn’t.

“No, but... it does change some things.” She walked over to the sofa, sat down, and offered another hesitant smile. “Please sit down. There are some things I need to say to you.”

Reluctantly, he sat on the other end of the sofa. Then something occurred to him that had him leaning toward her, tense. “Brooke’s all right, isn’t she?”

“Brooke?”

The surprise in Elinore’s eyes, warming to amusement, made him feel limp with relief. His ten-year-old sister was a delightful child, but she did tend to get into scrapes.

“Brooke is fine,” Elinore said, pouring tea for both of them. “A bit sulky since it’s a lovely day and she’s stuck doing lessons instead of working with the new pony a certain someone recently gave her for her birthday.”

Taking the cup of tea she offered him, Liam gave her a bland stare. “I seem to recall another someone slipping money to that certain someone with the instructions to purchase new tack for the new pony.”

“Is that what you recall?” Elinore asked innocently. “Do you also recall that certain someone telling Brooke she could skip her lessons this morning so that he could take her for a long ride so the pony wouldn’t get bored working in the confines of the training ring?”

Liam choked on the tea he just swallowed. “I said maybe. After the midday meal.”

“ ‘Maybe’ means yes.”

“Since when?”

She just looked at him until he wanted to squirm. That was the problem with trying to argue with his mother, even playfully. She knew him too well and remembered far too many things from his own childhood.

“After the midday meal, if she has her lessons done, I’ll take her for a ride and we’ll put the pony through his paces,” Liam said.

“Listening to the two of you determine the definition of ‘done’ should be quite entertaining,” Elinore said placidly.

“I—” Liam leaned back, feeling a bit sulky himself. He wasn’t going to win this round. Brooke was his little sister.

His baby sister. He’d already been away at school when she was born, and her first years were odd flashes of memory for him. A baby who drooled and giggled when he made funny faces at her. An infant who had learned to crawl between one visit home and the next, and had sent him into a panic when he’d put her on the carpet and turned his back for what he swore had been no more than a minute, only to have her disappear on him. The toddler who giggled and ran through the gardens as fast as her chubby little legs could take her. The bright little girl who chattered about anything and everything to the point where he’d nicknamed her Squirrel. The silent, wary child she became whenever his father was around.

As the male head of the family, he’d do his best to be firm about getting the lessons done, but the minute she turned those big blue eyes of hers on him, he’d cave. He remembered too well how it felt to be stuck indoors laboring over sums when the land beckoned.

“Liam.” Elinore sipped her tea and didn’t look at him. “Did you mortgage the estate?”

It didn’t surprise him that she’d known his father had intended to take a mortgage out on the estate. No doubt the old baron had taken cruel delight in telling her he was stripping the land for everything it was worth.

When his father’s man of business had gone over the accounts with him, he’d been appalled at the amount his father had intended to wring from the already foundering estate. And he’d felt an obscene kind of gratitude that the old baron had choked to death while dining with his current mistress before the papers had been signed.

“Yes, I took out a mortgage,” Liam said, gulping down the rest of the tea. “A small one.” Enough to pay off the tradesmen his father owed and give himself some money to honor his own bills for the next year or so. Elinore had provided him with a generous quarterly allowance ever since he’d first gone away to school, and he’d been grateful for it, but now that the estate was his, he didn’t want to live off her money. With proper care and management, the land should be able to provide him and his family with a good living.

“I see.” Elinore set her cup down, then folded her hands in her lap. She focused her gaze on the terrace door. “I’ll make the same bargain with you that I made with your father.”

Don’t treat me like I’ve become him just because I hold the title, Liam thought fiercely.

“I’ll pay the servants’ wages and the household expenses,” Elinore continued, her eyes still focused on the terrace door. “And I’ll assist in paying any bills for the upkeep of the tenants’ cottages. But I won’t pay any bills for the upkeep of the town house in Durham, nor will I pay for any of your ... personal... expenses.”

Meaning, if he took a mistress as his father had done, he’d have to pay for his own pleasure. Not that he thought much pleasure could be had from a mercenary creature like the woman his father had been bedding when he died. On the other hand, he couldn’t blame her for being mercenary. It had showed she’d had a better understanding of his father than the other women the old baron had enjoyed.

“It’s a generous offer,” he said. It stung that he had to accept it, but he was practical enough to know it would be a few years before the estate would recover sufficiently to pay all the expenses. “I thank you for it.”

“Your father didn’t think it was generous.”

“My father and I didn’t see eye to eye about a great many things,” Liam said sharply. “Your father gave you an independent income for your benefit, not for my father’s and not for the estate’s. You had, and still have, every right to do with it as you please. Willowsbrook should be able to support itself twice over. The fact that it can’t quite support itself is my father’s—and his father’s—fault, not yours.”

After a long pause, Elinore said, “Would you like more tea?”

What he’d like was a hefty glass of that whiskey, but he had the feeling they’d only chewed the edges of whatever she’d wanted to talk to him about. “Please,” he said, holding out his cup. He waited until she refilled both their cups. “Would you mind if I sold the town house in Durham?”

“The estate and any other property is yours now, Liam. You may do with it as you please.”

“Would you mind?” he persisted.

When she looked at him, he saw a bitterness in her eyes she’d never allowed to show before. “There’s nothing in that place that I value.”

No, there wouldn’t be, not when his father’s string of mistresses had spent more time there than she had. Well, that was one burden and expense he could easily shed. He’d write to his man of business and set things in motion to sell the town house and its contents.

“Won’t you need the town house when you have business in the city?” Elinore asked.

Liam shook his head. “I can rent rooms easily enough for the two times a year when the barons formally meet.”

He felt a pressure building inside him, and he clamped his teeth to try to keep the words back as he’d done for so many years. Perhaps it was because the conversation was already difficult that he couldn’t hold it back anymore. “Why didn’t you leave him? He was a bastard, and you deserved so much better. Adultery is grounds for severing the marriage vow. You had income of your own, so you were never dependent upon him. Why did you stay?”

“I had three reasons,” Elinore replied quietly. “You. Brooke. And Willowsbrook.”

There was something about the way she said “Willowsbrook” that made him think she was talking about more than the estate.

“You’re the baron now. You have authority and power, not just on the estate and tenant farms but over the villagers and the free landowners, as well. You can use that authority and power for ill or for good.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“How you act will set a precedent for the rest of the people here.”

Liam snorted softly. “My father thankfully didn’t set much of a precedent.”

“If he’d ordered that something be done, that order would have been obeyed. The squires and magistrates in each village would have seen it carried out.”

Liam rested one hand lightly over his mother’s. “He still had to obey the decrees that the council of barons agree upon for the good of Sylvalan.”

“The barons have the power to change the decrees or make new ones, regardless of what the rest of Sylvalan’s people want. And a baron can impose his will over the people in the county he rules no matter what the decrees say.”

She looked pale and unhappy, and he didn’t know what she wanted from him. “To what use do you want me to put my new authority and power?” he asked gently.

“I want you to protect the witches at Willowsbrook—the Old Place this estate took its name from generations ago when your father’s kin first came here to live and work the land.”

Liam sighed, withdrew his hand. “Mother—”

“I have something to tell you,” Elinore said hurriedly. “A secret I’d kept from your father because of a few things he’d said on our honeymoon. But you have to know. You have to understand.”

“Understand what?”

Agitated, Elinore set her teacup on the table, then walked to the glass door. She stared at the world beyond the glass for a minute, as if she needed to draw strength from the view. Then she turned to face him.

“My great-great-grandfather was a witch’s son,” she said quietly. “He was the eldest son, but the Old Places always belong to the women of the family, and he wanted something to call his own. When he was a young man, he left home with his mother’s blessing. He traveled for a few years, learned a bit about several trades as he worked for his food and lodging and a few coins to rub together. Then, one day, he saw a piece of land that made him want to put down roots, so his mother and grandmother helped him scrape together enough money to buy the land and build a small cottage.

“He had a gift for knowing what the land could yield and what needed time to ripen. He was canny when it came to business—and he was canny when it came to people. Like the land, he could sense what each could yield and when something or someone needed time to ripen.

“He prospered, and the people he dealt with prospered, as well.

“When he eventually married, he took a witch for a wife. They had several children, and the family continued to prosper. By then, his merchant business was turning a good profit, and he built a large, rambling country house.

“His eldest son went into the business with him, while the other sons and daughters found their callings in other kinds of work. In time, some of them fell in love, got married, and had children, and their children had children.

“And so it went. And while the family never hid their ties to the witches who lived in several of the Old Places, they also didn’t flaunt those ties. As generations passed, not all of the spouses could make the same claim of having ties to an Old Place, and the gifts that come down through the blood became watered down or disappeared altogether.” Elinore paused, then shook her head. “Not disappeared. Nuala says the Mother’s gifts sometimes sleep in the blood, waiting to reappear again.” She smiled sadly. “The name means nothing to you, does it? Our nearest neighbor for all of these years, and you don’t even know who she is.”

“Of course I know,” Liam said testily. “She’s one of the witches.”

Elinore walked back to the sofa and sat down, folding her hands in her lap. She sighed. “Yes, she’s one of the witches. She’s also my father’s cousin, several times removed.”

Having no idea what she expected him to say, Liam drank his now-cold tea to give himself a little time. Given his father’s animosity toward the witches who lived in the Old Place that bordered the estate, he understood quite well why his mother had never mentioned this aspect of her family heritage. But...

“As you said, it was several generations ago,” Liam said, thinking she was worried about his feelings toward her changing. “You’ve no reason to feel shame because of it.”

Elinore’s eyes widened. “I’m not ashamed of my heritage. If I regret anything, it’s that my gift from the Mother is so weak.” Then she looked slightly annoyed. “Perhaps it’s because it came down through the paternal line in my branch of the family that the men’s gifts from the Mother were less diluted. My brother certainly has a stronger connection to water than I do to earth.”

Liam opened his mouth, then shut it again before he said anything. What was she trying to tell him? That she regretted not being a witch? How could she want to be like them?

“Mother,” he began hesitantly. “I can appreciate your concern for those ... women ... who live in the Old Place since they’re distantly related to you. But they’re distantly related.”

“To me,” Elinore replied. “But not so distant to you.” She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then looked at him. “The youngest of them is your half sister, one of your father’s bastards. She’s four years younger than you, and she’s not distant, Liam. She is family.”

“No!” Unable to sit anymore, Liam restlessly prowled the room. As he passed the table, he snatched up the decanter, splashed some whiskey into a glass, and downed it. He poured another two fingers into the glass, but, this time, resisted the urge to gulp it down.

“No,” he said again as he continued to prowl around the room. “She’s no more family than any of the other bastards my father seeded in the women he seduced. I know you established a fund to help those women and assist the children in learning a trade so that they could have a living, but they’ve never been acknowledged as family.”

“No, they never have.” Elinore looked down at her hands. “I’m not proud that I couldn’t find it in my heart to accept the children, but it is, I think, an understandable failing. But Keely is different. She was only fourteen when your father took her, and what he did to her scarred her mind in ways that time has never healed. And with the talk and stories that are starting to be told about witches, your sister—”

“She’s not my sister!”

“—is more vulnerable than any of those other children.”

“If she’s four years my junior, that makes her twenty-three,” Liam said. “She’s no longer a child.”

“Which doesn’t change the fact that she needs your protection.” Elinore stood up. “They all need your protection, Liam. There are troubles in the east. Things are happening there that threaten every woman, not just the witches. My cousin Moira—”

“Oh, yes, cousin Moira,” Liam said nastily—and then realized he’d used the same tone of voice his father had always used when Moira was mentioned.

“Did you know that the girls in her village were turned away from school last fall? The baron who rules Pickworth declared that too much learning is unhealthy for females. It makes them unfit for the duties that are beneficial to a man’s family. So now they are permitted to learn how to read and write and do sums to the extent that it is sufficient for them to run a household. By those standards, Brooke should be learning nothing more than how to do fine needlework and write out a menu rather than learning how to think for herself.”

“You misunderstood what Moira said,” Liam insisted. “Or she exaggerated something sensible, turning it into the ridiculous.”

“Sensible? Do you call leaving women totally dependent on the men in their families, with no way for them to earn a living on their own, sensible? What about the Widow Kendall? Should she have become little more than a beggar when her husband died instead of running the merchant store and making a good living for herself and her children? Or maybe she should have accepted any man who offered to marry her, whether she cared for him or not, trading the use of her body for sex in exchange for food and lodging for herself and the children. It isn’t sensible, Liam. All it does is turn women into unpaid domestic help and legal whores.”

“What?”

“If a woman is controlled by the male head of her household until she marries, performing whatever duties are required to provide him with a comfortable, well-run home, and then has to spread her legs when she does marry in order to earn her food and lodging, what would you call it?”

He said nothing for a moment, staggered by the crudeness of her words. “What’s wrong with a man taking care of his family?” he finally asked. “What is so wrong with him making decisions for his children or younger siblings since they would be too inexperienced to always make good decisions for themselves?”

Elinore sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with those things, Liam. But I’m not talking about children. I’m talking about grown women, independent women who are as capable of thinking for themselves and making choices about their lives as any man, who are now being forced back into being as dependent as a child. I don’t think a strong, healthy community can exist with that kind of forced dependence, but it’s my gender that is vulnerable. You, being a man, may see things differently.”

Liam shook his head. “You’ve misunderstood something.”

“No, I think I understand perfectly what is at stake. I don’t think the eastern barons care about healthy communities anymore,” Elinore said. “I don’t think they care about anything but having domination over women, over the land, over life.” She paused, then added bitterly, “But I will not stand by and let it happen here.”

“It would never happen here, so it’s a moot point.” Liam angrily circled the room.

“Won’t it? Your father was going to make the same decree, forbidding girls to receive more than three years of formal education. He was also going to follow the example of some of the eastern barons and forbid women of any age to read anything that wasn’t approved of by the male head of the household. And he was quite pleased to inform me that the barons were considering a new decree that would prevent a woman from owning property in her own name, or running a business, or even having an independent income.”

“But that would mean—”

“That your father would have had control over my income. He could have spent it as he pleased, and I wouldn’t have seen another copper from it except what he chose to dole out to me.”

Liam shook his head. His father had made some dark hints about changes in the wind, but this?

“Even if he wasn’t just baiting you for some cruel reason,” Liam said slowly, “it still has nothing to do with the witches.”

“It has everything to do with them!” Elinore’s hands clenched. “Don’t you see? These troubles all have the same root. The witches were the first to be destroyed in the east. Once they were gone, other things began happening to the rest of the women. It’s not that far a step from killing one kind of woman to enslaving the rest.”

“That’s nonsense, and you know it!” Liam shouted. “Why are you pushing this?”

“Because I’m afraid!” Elinore’s breath hitched. It took several seconds for her to regain control. “I’m afraid for myself, but I’m more afraid for Brooke because I don’t want her to live in fear that any thought she has, any comment she makes, anything she does might give a man an excuse to brutalize her. If these decrees are passed, fear and pain are the only things she’ll know.”

“You’re jumping at shadows, Mother, and I’ve heard quite enough of this.” Realizing he still held the glass of whiskey, he drank it.

Spinning around, Elinore rushed to the work basket next to the chair near the windows. She pushed aside the needlework, pulled something out of the bottom of the basket, strode back to the sofa, and tossed two objects on the cushions.

Liam studied the strips of leather that had brass buckles and were connected to what looked like a leather tongue.

Harness of some kind, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what animal a harness like that would fit.

“It’s a scold’s bridle,” Elinore said, her voice deliberate and cold. “A tool and a punishment to teach females never to speak unless their words are pleasing to a man’s ears. You don’t like what you’ve heard? You don’t like the feelings and opinions I’ve expressed? That’s your answer, Baron Liam. You’re bigger than I am, and you’re stronger. Will you force me down to the floor and shove that leather tongue into my mouth and buckle that bridle around my head? Will you use your fists to subdue me when I fight you so that when you order me to open my mouth to be bridled I’m too frightened and hurt too much to do anything but obey?”

Liam swallowed hard to keep down the whiskey that threatened to rise up in his throat. “He did that to you? He did that?” He suddenly understood the days, a few months ago, when his mother had barely spoken, had moved so carefully, had denied there was anything wrong. The whiskey glass slipped from his fingers, hit the carpet, but didn’t break. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“If I’d said anything, he would have hurt Brooke.”

Liam looked at the second, smaller bridle. “Did he—? Did he ever—?”

“No,” Elinore said. “If he had, he wouldn’t have lived long enough to choke at his mistress’s table. I would have cut the bastard’s heart out before then.”

A long, uneasy silence hung between them.

“You have a choice to make, Liam. You can give me your word that you’ll do whatever you can to protect the witches in the Old Place.”

“And if I don’t give you my word?” he asked hoarsely.

“Then I will pack my things, take my daughter, and go live with my kinswomen.”

If she’d pulled a bow and arrow from beneath the sofa and aimed it at his heart, she couldn’t have shocked—or hurt— him more.

“You’d leave me? You’d walk away from your son to live with them?”

“I wouldn’t be walking away from my son since I would already have lost him. I’d be walking away from the Baron of Willowsbrook and any control he might have over my life.”

“Mother...” Liam rubbed his hands over his face. “If you left like that, everyone in the village would know inside of a week. We’d be laughingstocks.”

“I don’t have the luxury of considering hurt feelings,” Elinore replied quietly. “Not when my daughter’s life is at stake.”

Anger burned through him. “Do you truly think I’m capable of hurting Brooke? She’s my little sister.”

“I know what my son would, and wouldn’t, do. I don’t know what the new baron is capable of when he doesn’t get his own way.”

He looked at her pale face and clenched hands. Pain lanced through him when he admitted to himself that she meant every word.

“You make your choice, Liam. Then I’ll make mine,” Elinore said.

“I can’t give you an answer. I—I can’t think. I need to think.”

He strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He left the house and headed for the stables. A hard ride. That’s what he needed. A horse that required his attention and energy as a rider. Maybe fresh air and speed would help clear his head so that he could think again. But, right now, he needed a little time not to think at all.

When Liam reached the stables, Flint, the stable master, gave him a sour look. Nothing new about that. Flint had been the old baron’s man and had always resented taking orders from anyone else—including the baron’s heir.

“You’ll be wanting the gelding again?” Flint asked, his tone implying that unsaddling the gelding had wasted the time of one of his men.

“Yes,” Liam said curtly. He turned away to wait for the horse, then turned back. “No. Have Arthur saddle Oakdancer.”

Flint’s expression soured even more, but he turned his head to call out, “Boy! Saddle the stallion for Baron Liam.”

One of these days, he’s going to use that tone with me and find himself looking for a new position, Liam thought as he took a few steps away from the stable. His feelings were too raw, and butting heads with Flint now would only add to the resentment most of the men felt toward the boy for being the only person besides Liam who could handle the big bay stallion.

“So you want to buy a stallion from me?” Ahern said, scowling at his guest.

Wondering if his father had been right about this being a fool’s errand, Liam set the small glass of ale on the scrubbed kitchen table without tasting it. “Yes, sir.”

Ahern was silent for a long moment. Then, looking at the woman who kept house for him, he said, “The lad will be staying for supper.”

“Good for the lad,” the woman replied tartly. “He—and the rest of you—just might find some supper to be had if you take your business out of my kitchen and back to the stables where it belongs.”

Ahern flashed the woman a quick grin before draining his glass. “Come on then,” he told Liam as he walked to the kitchen door. “Let’s see if you’ll suit one of the youngsters.”

Liam offered the woman a weak smile of apology for intruding on her domain—an effort that was wasted since she’d already turned her back on him to fuss with something near the sink. He eyed the sugar bowl on the table. Not finely ground, as it was in many of the gentry houses these days, but broken up into small lumps. After another quick glance to make sure the woman wasn’t watching him, and keeping his back to the kitchen door, he snitched a couple of lumps of sugar and stuffed them into his coat pocket as he turned to follow Ahern back to the stables.

“It’s been said that you raise the finest horses in Sylvalan,” Liam said, stretching his legs to keep pace with the older man.

“There’s truth to the saying,” Ahem replied.

Well, so much for flattery, Liam thought. Not that he’d actually thought it would help. The other things that were said about Ahern being gruff and difficult to deal with were equally true. The old man sold horses when he chose, to whom he chose. And no amount of money could seal the bargain if Ahern decided against a man for some reason.

They walked silently for several minutes until they reached a fenced pasture where a dozen young stallions grazed. Heads came up. Ears pricked. Then they all returned to their grazing.

Ahern climbed over the fence. Liam followed.

“Stand there,” Ahern said, pointing to a spot on the ground before walking a few feet away.

“But—”

“Stand.”

Liam stood. And waited.

Nothing happened.

“How can you keep them pastured together?” Liam asked.

“I don’t tolerate bad manners.”

From man or horse, Liam concluded, biting his tongue to keep from saying anything else to fill the silence.

Then the wind shifted just enough for the horses to catch the scent of the two men. Suddenly they were all in motion, cantering in a large circle as if to show off their paces. Two of them veered away from the rest, headed toward the men, wheeled, and galloped to the far end of the pasture. Two more broke away from the circle, moved off a ways and began grazing. One by one, the young stallions lost interest in the men until only one, a bay, trotted toward Liam.

Slipping his hand in his pocket, Liam brought out one of the lumps of sugar, loosely clasped in his fist.

The stallion came forward more slowly now.

Hoping to hide the sugar from Ahern, Liam cupped his hand and held it out. “Hello, lad,” he said quietly. “Come to make friends?”

The stallion was quite willing to make friends with a man who offered sugar. While the horse took the treat, then licked Liam’s palm to get the loose grains of sugar, Liam petted him and kept talking.

“You’re a fine-looking lad, aren’t you?” Liam said. “A very fine lad.”

The stallion nodded, then nipped at the pocket of Liam’s coat.

Liam gently pushed the horse’s muzzle away from the pocket. The horse gave him a shove that was less than gentle.

“You’d best give him the other lump of sugar before he knocks you down,” Ahern said, walking toward them.

Feeling his face heat, Liam gave the horse the other lump of sugar.

Ahern studied Liam and the bay. Then he nodded. “You’ll do for him. His name is Oakdancer. Come along now. There’s work to be done before the two of you leave here.”

Liam thought the old man had meant settling on a price or taking care of paperwork. Instead, he found himself in the training ring for the rest of the day while Ahern put man and horse through their paces.

By the time they left Ahern’s farm two days later, he and Oakdancer were comfortable with each other, and the old man’s parting words, “He trusts you as a rider,” were the finest compliment he’d ever received.

His father had sneered when he brought the stallion home....

“Oakdancer? What kind of name is that for a horse?”

... but Liam had been astute enough to see the envy in the old baron’s eyes.

The stallion, on the other hand, had hated the old baron on sight. Had hated Flint and the rest of the stable men. For that first year, Liam had taken care of Oakdancer, since the horse wouldn’t tolerate the other men—until Arthur showed up one day, a pale, starving youth who was looking for any kind of work. He had an almost magical touch when it came to horses, and Oakdancer responded to him as if they’d been friends their whole lives.

“Here he is, Baron,” Arthur said, leading Oakdancer out of the stables.

“Thank you, Arthur,” Liam replied. He mounted, took a moment to test the feel of the saddle. No, there was no need to tighten the girth. There never was with this horse.

Arthur stepped back, brushed a finger against an imaginary cap brim, then retreated inside the stables.

Liam kept the stallion to an active walk until they were away from the house and stables. The moment he eased the reins a little, Oakdancer lifted into an easy canter that swiftly changed to a gallop.

They flew over the land, and for a few short minutes, Liam’s world narrowed to the horse beneath him, the wind in his face, and the land that rose up and flowed away.

Then they reached Willow’s Brook—and the bridge.

Oakdancer pricked his ears and dashed for the bridge.

Liam sat deep in the saddle and reined the resisting horse to a halt.

Oakdancer tossed his head. Snorted. Stamped a foot.

That bridge, Liam thought as he studied the stones that looked as if they’d come together on their own accord to span the brook. What is on the other side of that damn bridge?

The Old Place. A place his father had forbidden him to set foot, threatening disinheritance as well as a beating if Liam ever disobeyed. A bad place, his father had said. No place for good, decent men.

If what Elinore said was true, his father had crossed that bridge at least once. Of course, he doubted if anyone in this county thought his father had been a good, decent man.

The Old Place. The home of the witches—the women he had to come to terms with, somehow, if he was going to prevent his mother from leaving the family home with his little sister.

“Come on, boy,” Liam said. “Let’s find out what’s on the other side of that bridge.”

After crossing the bridge, they trotted down the road, such as it was, for several minutes before the house came into sight.

He wasn’t sure what he expected. A tumbled-down cottage. Or a neat cottage. Maybe even a small stone house.

This was an old manor house that rivaled any gentry home in the neighborhood, with the exception of his family home. To the right was a stone arch, large enough for a wagon to pass through, that connected the main house to another building.

Dismounting, Liam led Oakdancer toward the arch. No servant came out to take charge of the horse. Peering up at the house’s windows, he didn’t see anyone peering back. Had they gone somewhere? Did they even have any servants? Until now, he’d never wondered about them. Not really. They’d been one of the forbidden things of childhood, but, as he grew older, it always seemed easier just not to think of them. Now he was standing in front of the witches’ house. He was standing in the Old Place. And he had no idea if he should knock on the door, as he would have done with another neighbor, or ride away.

“At least I can tell Mother that I tried,” he muttered, turning toward Oakdancer.

As he gathered the reins and prepared to mount, a woman yelled, “Idjit! Drop that, you mongreled excuse of a flea-infested dog!”

The reins slipped from his hands before he realized he’d responded to that angry command. His heart jumped into his throat. Would they curse him for daring to step onto their land? If that were the case, he wouldn’t show them his back while they were doing it.

“Idjit!”

Liam turned and took a step forward at the same moment a small black dog, its tail happily curled over its back, ran through the arch toward him. A piece of white linen was clamped firmly in its jaws, its length flapping and dragging on the ground.

Grinning with relief that something else could qualify for a mongreled excuse of a dog, Liam dropped to one knee and held out a hand. The dog, with what Liam would have sworn was laughter in its eyes, loped toward him, tossing its head to show off its prize. When the dog got close enough to tease and invite him to play, Liam grabbed one end of the linen with one hand at the same time he grabbed the dog by the scruff with the other. Ignoring the hand that held it, the dog opened its jaws to get a better grip on its prize. Liam whipped the linen behind his back and stood up.

The dog watched him, its mouth open in a grin as it danced back and forth in front of him.

“Game’s over,” Liam said, glancing up to see a dark-haired woman run through the archway, then skid to a halt.

The dog raced around him, forcing him to turn to keep the linen away from it.

“Idjit!” the woman said sternly, placing her fists on her hips. “Sit!”

The dog stopped racing around Liam, stood on its hind legs, and turned in a circle.

“Sit!”

The dog lay down, then rolled over twice.

“Did someone drop him on his head when he was a puppy?” Liam asked.

“It’s possible,” the woman replied, her lips twitching with the effort not to grin. “He’s either very dumb or very smart. We just can’t tell which it is.” Then she really looked at him, and humor gave way to uncertainty. “You seem familiar, but...”

Taking a good look at her, Liam felt his heart jump into his throat for the second time in the past few minutes. The young woman standing before him looked more like his sister than Brooke did. She had dark brown hair like his, the same woodland eyes. Her face was a feminine variation of his own. He’d hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted to be able to dismiss what Elinore had said—or at least think of this woman with the same emotional distance he managed with his father’s other bastards. But he couldn’t dismiss what had been said, couldn’t maintain a distance. With her, the word sister hummed through him. A like mind. A like heart. Someone who saw the same world that he did and yet saw it differently. He felt as if one of them had been gone on a long journey and had finally come home, and they just had to get reacquainted all over again.

Except he’d never seen her before, had never spoken to her, had no idea if she really was of like mind where anything was concerned. And he didn’t want to feel anything toward her. He hadn’t come here to feel anything toward any of them.

She still seemed to puzzle over who he was—until she looked over his shoulder and noticed the stallion. Then her face became hard and cold. He knew that expression, too. His father had worn it often enough.

“So,” she said with icy courtesy. “The new baron has come to pay a call. Why?”

“Because I am the new Baron of Willowsbrook,” he replied quietly. Remembering the linen he still held, he took a step forward and offered it to her. “I hope it’s not ruined.”

She reached for it slowly, as if reluctant to take anything from his hand. “It’s nothing that washing it—again—won’t fix.”

An awkward silence hung between them.

“Why are you here?” she said.

“Because—” Frustrated, Liam raked his hand through his hair. How was he supposed to explain this?

“You’ve paid your brave courtesy call to the witches,” she said, her voice vicious and sneering. “You can ride on now.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to lose my family!”

There were winter storms in her eyes now. “Not even the old bastard of a baron had had the balls to insult us like that on our own ground—although he certainly caused us other kinds of pain.”

“I meant no insult,” Liam said.

“Of course you didn’t.” Her hands fisted. “You imply that we’ll cause your family harm, without provocation, and you don’t think that’s an insult?”

“No. Yes.” He closed his eyes for a moment. There wasn’t time to put his thoughts in order. If she walked away now, he knew instinctively that she would never listen to him again. “We’re kin. Distant kin. On my mother’s side.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“And we—you and I—are closer kin. Because of our father.”

“Your father. He was never mine, thank the Mother, and for that I am grateful.”

“You should be,” Liam snapped. “At least you didn’t grow up under his fist.”

They stared at each other.

“Baron—” she began.

“Liam,” he said. “My name is Liam.”

She hesitated, her reluctance obvious, before she said, “I’m Breanna.” She took a breath, blew it out slowly. “What—?”

“What’s he doing here?” another voice wailed.

Liam looked over at a woman clinging to one side of the arch. Her brown hair glinted with red where the sun touched it, and was cropped short, like a boy’s. She just stared at him.

“Keely,” Breanna whispered, taking a step toward the woman.

Breanna’s mother. Liam glanced at Breanna, not sure what he should say or do.

“He’s dead,” Keely wailed. “You told me he was dead.” Then her face filled with a rage unlike anything Liam had ever seen. “Get away from her.” She moved toward him. “Get away from my girl!”

“Keely, no!” Breanna shouted.

The land rolled beneath Liam’s feet. Suddenly, clots of earth flew straight at him. He threw up his arms to protect his head and face, felt a clot hit his upper arm hard enough to bruise. Two others hit his ribs and thigh.

“No!” Breanna shouted.

Wind tugged at his coat, lifted him off his feet, and shoved him to the ground. It roared in front of him. He heard the dog yelp, heard Oakdancer’s neigh of fear.

“Keely, stop it!”

“I won’t let him have my girl! He won’t hurt my girl!”

“This is Liam, Keely. Liam.”

Squinting to protect his eyes, Liam raised his head enough to peer over his arms. An arm’s length in front of him, wind and earth swirled furiously, blocking the women from his view. He rose to his knees, unsure if it was safer to stay where he was or try to run.

“You told me he was dead!”

“The old bastard is dead,” Breanna said sharply. “His body was given to the Mother to feed the worms, and his spirit has gone to wherever spirits like his go when they pass through the Shadowed Veil.”

Liam saw movement at the edges of the swirl. Then Breanna dragged Keely around it to where they could all see each other clearly.

“This is Liam,” Breanna said. “Elinore’s son.”

Keely shook her head fiercely. “Liam is a boy. A nice boy. I’ve seen him riding on his pony.”

A bleak sadness filled Breanna’s eyes for a moment. “He was a boy. He’s grown up now.”

“He looks like the baron,” Keely whispered. Her eyes began to fill with blank rage again.

“He is the baron, but he’s Liam.” Breanna grabbed Keely’s shoulder and pivoted. “Look who he brought for a visit.”

The blank rage slowly faded as Keely stared at the stallion. A smile lit her face. “Oakdancer!” Then she frowned, leaned toward Breanna, and whispered, “I didn’t hit him with a clot of earth, did I?”

“Not likely,” Breanna replied dryly. “He’s a horse. He knew enough to get out of the way.”

Sidling past Liam, Keely walked over to the stallion and began petting him.

“Are you all right?” Breanna asked, offering him a hand.

He slipped his hand into hers, not because he needed help getting to his feet but simply because she had actually offered it.

“A couple of bruises,” he said, trying to sound dismissive as he brushed dirt off his clothes. In truth, now that it was over, fear put a tremor in his hands. The power these women could wield—and what they could do with it—was something else he’d never given much thought to. He looked at the swirling wind and earth. “How—?”

“Keely’s branch of the Mother is earth. Mine is air. It was the fastest way to stop her from hurting you.” Breanna raised a hand. The swirling wind gradually slowed, depositing a pile of earth in front of her. She sighed. “Edgar is going to be annoyed about having the drive torn up like this.”

“Edgar?”

“The groundskeeper. We take care of the kitchen garden and our own flower beds, but he maintains the rest.” She hesitated, her gaze fixed on Keely and the stallion. “What did you mean about losing your family?”

“There’s been trouble in the eastern part of Sylvalan. Bad trouble. My mother is worried about what might happen if that trouble comes here.”

“So what is it you want from us?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” Liam said. It sounded harsh, so he went on quickly. “My mother wants me to use my position as the Baron of Willowsbrook to keep you and your family protected.”

“And if you don’t?”

He swallowed hard. “She’ll leave the family home, taking my young sister with her, and move in with her kin.”

“With her—” Breanna’s eyes widened. “Here? She’ll move in here?” Using both hands, she pushed her hair away from her face. “That would certainly be grist for the gossip mill, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t give a damn about that,” he said sharply, but remembering to keep his voice low to avoid disturbing Keely. “They’re my family. I love them. I don’t want to lose them.”

Understanding softened Breanna’s face. “I know how that feels.” She sighed. “I’ll talk to Nuala. She’ll be more persuasive where Elinore’s concerned.”

“Thank you.”

Breanna hesitated, seemed to be arguing with herself. “Is that the only reason you came here?”

It seemed crude right now to admit that it was, so he said nothing.

She winced a little. “You see, I’d wondered if you’d also come to demand a stud fee.”

Liam felt his jaw start to drop. “A—a stud fee?”

Color suddenly blazed in her cheeks. A little defiant, she lifted her chin to indicate the stallion. “Well, that one comes visiting when he pleases, doesn’t he? It wasn’t as if we’d planned on ...” She huffed.

“You had a mare in season on one of those visits,” Liam concluded.

“And him acting the ardent lover, and not a fence that can keep him out when he puts his mind to getting over it.”

Liam tucked his hands in his pockets—and firmly tucked his tongue in his cheek. He hoped it took her a little longer to fumble through this explanation. He was enjoying seeing her flustered.

“It wasn’t like there was anything we could have done about it by the time Clay came running to tell us your horse was helping himself to our mare.”

Liam made little coughing noises to keep from laughing out loud. “So what did you get out of his helping himself to your mare?”

“A filly.”

“Can you afford to keep her?”

Breanna’s eyes slashed at him. “We aren’t paupers.”

“I didn’t think you were.” Especially after seeing the house and the well-kept grounds. “But that doesn’t mean you’d want an extra horse.”

She looked uncomfortable again. “There’s good bloodlines on both sides, and she is a sweet little thing. I would like to keep her.”

“Then let’s just consider the filly a peace offering,” Liam said quietly.

“Thank you.”

“Well.” He scuffed the toe of his boot in the dirt. “I’d better collect my horse and get back to my work.” He watched the dog trot up to Breanna, dragging the linen that must have blown away while Breanna had dealt with Keely’s wrath. The dog sat at her feet, looking up at her until she took the offering and gave the expected praise. “And I’d better let you get back to your own work.”

Breanna studied the dog. Then she looked at him, the light in her eyes making him want to check to make sure his purse hadn’t been stolen. “How old is your sister?”

“Ten,” he replied cautiously.

“Wouldn’t she like a dog?”

“I’m not taking him.”

“He’d be a fine companion for a young girl.”

“He’d be a domestic disaster.”

She drew in a breath to say something else, then simply grinned. “He is that. But you could consider him a peace offering.”

He grinned back at her. “Your keeping him here is a much better peace offering.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Come along, then. I’ll walk you over to your horse.”

He fell into step with her, keenly aware of how easily their strides matched.

“Keely,” Breanna said quietly. “Oakdancer has to go home now.”

Keely pouted, reminding Liam of Brooke. “Arthur hasn’t come to fetch him yet.”

“He’s not going home with Arthur,” Breanna said firmly. “He’s going home with Liam.” She gave the stallion a pat as she slipped an arm around Keely’s shoulders and moved her away from the horse.

Liam mounted. “Ladies.”

“Blessings of the day to you, Liam,” Breanna said.

How much had it cost her to say those words? Liam wondered as he held Oakdancer to an easy canter all the way home. How hard had it been to grow up with a mother who had never grown beyond childhood emotionally? That had been his father’s doing, the scars Elinore said time hadn’t healed. And yet...

Breanna was his sister. She was a witch. She had power that frightened him now that he’d seen a small demonstration of it. And yet she was a woman like any other.

A sister.

A witch.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, how he felt about her. But he knew he’d find another reason, before too many days had passed, to cross that bridge again for another visit.

“You liked him.”

Standing next to Nuala as they watched Keely throw a stick for Idjit to fetch, Breanna nodded reluctantly. “Yes, I liked him. I didn’t expect to, didn’t want to.”

“He’s your brother,” Nuala said quietly.

Breanna shook her head. “He’ll never be that.”

“Never is a long time. Things can change.”

“Not that much.”

“We may need his help. He may need ours. The family is uneasy about the things that are happening in the eastern villages. Harsh words are being said about witches, and that has the elders worried, too. Some of our cousins will be coming for the Summer Solstice—and they may be staying for quite some time.”

Breanna turned to look at her grandmother—the gray that streaked the dark hair, the lines that accented a strong face. “Are you worried?”

Nuala remained silent. Then, “Yes, I’m worried. I dream of water that turns dark from the gore spilled into it. Keely has had a couple of nightmares recently about trees that weep blood. What about you, Breanna? What have your dreams carried in them?”

“Wind that turns black, becomes filled with wings and fangs. And everything it touches dies.” Remembering those dreams made her shiver.

Nuala nodded. “So, you see, I have reason to be worried. And the Small Folk have told me that the Fae have been skulking about lately.”

Breanna shrugged, but her voice had a bite to it. “The Fae come and go as they please and don’t care whose land they use to do it.” Not that she’d actually seen any of the Fair Folk. Well, perhaps once, when she was still a girl and had snuck out of the house one restless summer night to take a walk. But those riders she’d glimpsed at a distance in the moonlight could have been anyone.

“They’ve never questioned the Small Folk before, never paid any attention to anything beyond themselves,” Nuala said.

Breanna frowned. “What would they question the Small Folk about?”

“Us.” Nuala took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “It seems the Fae have developed a surly interest in us.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. The Fae don’t do anything that doesn’t serve themselves, so it has to have some benefit for them.”

“Did the cousins say anything about the Fae taking an interest in them?”

Nuala shook her head. “When there’s a wolf at the door, you don’t worry overmuch about the fox raiding the henhouse.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Neither do I. So it may be in our own best interest, as well as the interest of those who are coming to us, not to dismiss Liam as a potential ally—especially when we may have enemies gathering in Tir Alainn as well as in this world.”