“I remember the last time I was here,” Daniel said. “You could tell she couldn’t wait until we were gone.”

“We brought in the real world,” Susannah agreed. “Life. She lived in that strange half-world of hers. I never understood why she wrote such bleak poetry. Well, not counting Wings of Fire, of course. Scent of Violets and Lucifer gave me the creeps, I can tell you! But then she was a cripple. They’re often dreary people anyway, suffering and wretched. I suppose her mind dwelt on such things.”

“She wasn’t dreary,” Rachel said suddenly. “And she wasn’t truly crippled. I think we bored her.”

“Don’t be silly,” Daniel said. “That’s ridiculous. Her family?”

“It’s true! For the past six or seven years I’ve had the feeling she didn’t need us. That her life was full, that she had all she wanted right here.”

“I don’t know how Nicholas put up with it all these years,” Susannah said, glaring at Rachel. “I’d have gone mad!”

“Livia told me once that he was paying a debt,” Stephen remembered out of nowhere. “Odd thing to say, wasn’t it? I asked what sort of debt, and she said a debt of blood.” He got up and limped over to the drinks table and poured himself another whiskey.

Cormac said, “Oh, for God’s sake!” And sat down again, impatient with the lot of them.

“I don’t want to stay the night here,” Susannah said, looking up at her husband as she changed the subject. “We’ll find rooms at The Three Bells.”

“Don’t be morbid!” Daniel told her. “Mrs. Trepol has already made up our rooms here.”

“I’m not morbid! This place is morbid! It’s like a hothouse where something unhealthy thrived. And it was never that way while Mother was alive.” She glanced up at the elegantly framed portrait over the hearth. Rosamund Beatrice Trevelyan, who’d had three husbands and children by each of them, loving them all with equal devotion, stared back at her with a half smile that captured both serenity and passion.