“Who’s left to quarrel?” Rachel said pensively. Except for you and Stephen, she added to herself. The youngest, the FitzHughs. I barely remember Anne-only that she and Olivia were so much alike that the adults couldn’t tell them apart. And I could. Now Olivia is dead as well. The end of the Marlowes. And both of the Cheneys are gone too, Richard… and Nicholas. Rachel threw off her deepening depression and pulled herself back to what Stephen was saying.

“Not yet, it isn’t settled!” Stephen fumed. “If Chambers won’t stop you, I’ll find my own lawyers. Bennet will act for me-”

“Don’t be an ass, Stephen,” Cormac said without rancor. “You’ll still lose. And more to the point, so will the family. The courts will agree with the majority-once the family’s dirty wash has been thoroughly aired in all the newspapers. Do any of us want that?”

Mrs. Trepol came to the door to say that dinner was waiting. She looked tired and sad.

Stephen put down his drink and made to follow her.

“Will they? Agree with you?” he asked over his shoulder. “She’s O. A. Manning, remember? That’s bound to count for something. And the fact that none of us is going hungry. You don’t destroy a national heritage as easily as you might a mere family estate.”

Putting down her glass on the small walnut table beside her chair, Rachel watched them walk out the door of the drawing room and across the hall to the dining room. She’d never seen Stephen so angry. Or so determined. She had a very uneasy feeling that it just might come down to a court matter. And in the end, he’d win. Stephen.

Somehow Stephen always seemed to win. Even as a child, he’d been the luckiest of them all. Cornish luck, Rosamund called it. He’d survived four years of bloody war with half a dozen medals for bravery and a reputation for wildly daring heroics. Devil FitzHugh, they’d called him at the Front. Lucky.