She took one of the brick paths done in Saratoga’s traditional herringbone pattern that snaked through the grounds. In a few minutes the main house was behind her. It was the jewel of the unique estate-lavish, overdone, oddly whimsical. The exterior was a maze of clapboards, shingles, brick, stone and stucco, with bay windows, towers, turrets, porches, balconies and gingerbread fretwork. Inside there wasn’t one ordinary room.

Ulysses Pembroke’s dream. And what had it cost him? What had it cost his family?

Dani made her way back to her cottage, where she quickly changed into a T-shirt, sweatpants and battered sneakers. No need for her full rock-climbing regalia. She rubbed on sunscreen, then headed through her meadow into the woods, bumping into some guests out for a nature walk or exercise run-and one enterprising couple picking wild blackberries. Seeing people enjoying the place lifted her spirits.

She bypassed the Pembroke Springs bottling plant. She could hear the clatter of bottles running through the expensive, automated equipment. The plant was operating at top capacity. Orders were up. Business was great. Why did people think she’d overextended?

Because you’re a Pembroke. It’s what Pembrokes do.

She came to the rocks. By standards farther north in the Adirondack Mountains, they weren’t much as cliffs went. But they gave novices a taste of climbing, and kept her in shape, and a drop from top to bottom wasn’t too terrifying to imagine, although no doubt it could be lethal. After circling a hemlock, Dani jumped off a smallish boulder on the far edge of the vertical rock, then went down to low-lying brush, so that the steepest part of the cliffs were above her. If she’d been doing a climb, it would be cheating. But she had other plans. She walked out on a flat rock and sat down, letting her legs dangle over the edge. Below, at the bottom of the cliffs, were hemlocks and oaks and a path that led around the rocks back up to the bottling plant.