She reached to take the picture from me, but I pretended not to notice. Her mouth tightened, but she said nothing as I tilted it for a better look.
She sighed. “Yes, that’s Sarah. And Lucinda beside her.”
Aunt Lucinda looked a lot like my mom. Smooth hair, in a shade of ripe apricots. Broad at hip and shoulder. Same long nose and close-set eyes the color of faded denim. But even though Lucinda was smiling in the picture—and dressed for a frat party besides—her erect posture seemed too stern, like she was preparing to rally the troops.
Mom was squashed between her sister and a guy with freckles and a blaze of red hair. The boy had his arm around Mom, squeezing her to him. While Lucinda looked to be in her twenties, the other two couldn’t have been much older than I was now. Hair wrapped around her head in elaborate braids, her shockingly slim body draped in folds of white linen, and gold sandals laced up bare calves, my mom grinned madly into the camera. So young. So happy. I’d never seen her look like that.
Moira peeked around my arm. “That’s Collum and Phoebe’s da, our son Michael, there with your mum. I’d always hoped . . .” She paused, frowned. “Well, but he was young and stupid. Ended up marrying a local girl, didn’t he? Fiona, the children’s mum, wasn’t worth a hill of beans. Took off with another man soon after Phoebe’s birth. I ask you, what kind of woman leaves a young lad and newborn behind for a father to raise? If things had been different, he and Sar—” Her voice cracked as she traced a finger over the happy-looking young man. “Oh, but Michael did love those babes.” She gave a small sigh. “He’s been gone nigh on twelve years now.”
“I’m so sorry, Moira,” I said, feeling a rush of sympathy for the funny girl, Phoebe. At least I still had my dad.
She waved me off, and I stared down at the photo, still incredulous. “So my mom actually went to a toga party.”
“Not exactly,” Moira said.
Suuure.
At the edge of the frame, a pretty, olive-skinned girl with high cheekbones and jutting chin stood slightly apart from the others. Dark braids twined to her waist, like slender snakes. She was the only one not looking at the camera. Instead, her black eyes were narrowed on Michael MacPherson and my mom snugged up together. While the rest practically danced off the photo, the brunette glowered. Though she was dressed like the others, there was something different about her. The longer I stared, the more I could almost feel the rage and jealousy flow off the picture.
“Is the black-haired girl Fiona?” I asked. “’Cause she doesn’t look too happy in this picture.”
Moira stiffened and plucked the picture firmly from my grip. Mouth tight, she glared down at the dark-haired girl, and I got the impression she wasn’t Moira’s favorite person. “No,” was all she said.
Moira thumped the frame onto the table, picture side down.
“And this is the end of the tour, I’m thinking.”
With a decisive step, she moved off toward the door. I didn’t follow at first, only watched as she flitted around the room, clicking off the small, mismatched lamps and casting the library into shadow.
“Hey, Moira? I—”
“Och, but this place needs a good dustin’,” she cut me off, reaching on tiptoe to swipe a finger across the edge of an upper shelf.
When Moira glanced back to see me standing still and alone in the center of the room, her pursed mouth softened. “Come along then, my lamb,” she said, “’tis time for tea.”
Chapter 5
WHEN MAC WOKE ME FROM A NAP A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, I felt drained—a wrung sponge left to dry on the sink. My limbs dragged as I moved the book that lay open on the bed beside me, a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine someone had left on my bedside table, and followed him to the stables.
Outside, the lowering sun shot streams of gold through heavy clouds as I trotted through the stable yard astride a sturdy gray mare named Ethel. A fragrant breeze blew past, ruffling my clothes as I stared, astounded by the brutal beauty of the land around me. Beyond the yard, the valley spread out like a rumpled green and purple quilt, with the vast moor just beyond.
Behind us, the fortress-like Christopher Manor guarded the sheep and cattle that roamed between it and the charcoal roofs of a small village. The town lay at the foot of the valley, on the opposite side, nestled between craggy, twin mountains rubbed bald by millennia of wind and rain. A river bisected the gorge and disappeared into the heather and gorse of the moors.
“The uplands look flat,” Mac warned from his perch on a wide gelding. “But ’tis full of dips and hidden burns—those are streams, mind—that cut through the heather before joining the river. Ye’ll come on them sudden-like, especially once ye get closer to the big mountain, so keep our girl here to a nice, easy trot.” The lines in his weathered cheeks deepened as he smiled. “Ethel likes to run, so ye’ll have to hold her back.”
I pivoted in the saddle. “I can go alone?”
The horse danced under me, eager to get moving. When I stilled her with heels and reins, Mac nodded in approval.
“Seems ye handle yourself well enough.”
Every girl of good family should sit a horse well. My mom’s approving voice spoke in my memory.
I’d adored my weekly riding lessons, the only nonacademic hobby my mother had ever allowed. At eleven, I’d never been near a horse before. Yet that very first day, my instructor, Mr. Waterman, told Mom he’d never seen a child take to riding like I did.
Look at her go. It’s like she was born to it, Miz Walton.
Watching me, Mom frowned, though I’d blushed to the roots at the old man’s praise. Used to feeling awkward and klutzy, from the moment I climbed in the saddle it was like my hands and feet took on a mind of their own. On the horse, I’d felt graceful for the first time in my life. The smells and the movement of the horse and leather beneath me was familiar, like returning to an old friend. It felt wonderful. It felt right.
After Mom died, Dad never mentioned the lessons. I could’ve said something, I suppose. But it hadn’t seemed right without her. So I’d kept quiet, and the one activity I had loved slid to the wayside.
“I’m away to the south pasture to check the flock.” Mac walked his horse over to the gate and leaned down to open it. “Ye’ll have but a few hours of peace, lass. I’d enjoy them if I were you. When Lu returns tomorrow, things may become . . . different.”
He frowned, as if he wanted to say more.
“Mac?” I nipped at a cuticle on my free hand. Moira’s warning echoed in my head, but I had to try one last time. “When was my mother here last?” I trailed off as his eyes cut away.
He clucked to his gelding, who ambled over until our knees almost touched.
“Lass,” the word came on a sigh. “I don’t pretend to understand what you’ve suffered. You’ve been through the wringer, and that’s the truth of it. But I’m knowing one thing for certain.” He placed a rough, careworn hand over mine where they gripped the reins. “Our darlin’ Sarah loved ye more than life itself. And she did her best by ye. And so too will all of us here. Ye can take to the bank, aye?”