“Probably that you were engaged in receiving obsequious servilities from your tenants. You know. ‘His lordship is out on the land at the moment.’” Peter did a fair imitation of the butler’s funereal tones. Both brothers laughed. “Do you want to ride back? It’s faster than the Rover.”

“Thanks, no. I’m afraid I’ve grown far too attached to my neck.” Lynley put the car noisily in gear. Startled, the horse reared and plunged to one side, ignoring bit, rein, and heels in her desire to be off. Hooves clashed against rocks, whinny changed to a rolling-eyed call of fear. Lynley said nothing as he watched his brother struggle with the animal, knowing it was useless to ask him to be careful. The immediacy of danger and the fact that a wrong move could mean a broken bone were what attracted Peter to the horse in the fi rst place.

As it was, Peter flung back his head in exhilaration. He’d come without a hat, and his hair shone in the winter sunlight, close-cropped to his skull like a golden cap. His hands were work-hardened, and even in winter his skin retained its tan, coloured by the months that he spent toiling in the southwestern sun. He was vibrantly alive, inordinately youthful. Watching him, Lynley felt decades more than ten years his senior.

“Hey, Saffron!” Peter shouted, wheeled the horse away from the wall, and, with a wave, shot off across the field. He would indeed reach Howenstow long before his brother.

When horse and rider had disappeared through a windbreak of sycamores at the far side of the field, Lynley pressed down on the accelerator, muttered in exasperation as the old car slipped momentarily out of gear, and hobbled his way back down the narrow lane.

LYNLEY PLACED his call to London from the small alcove off the drawing room. It was his personal sanctuary, built directly over the entrance porch of his family’s home and furnished at the turn of the century by his grandfather, a man with an acute understanding of what made life bearable.