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a smile. Not compared to what she used to have done, before Father . . . “I was not always an English duchess, Brice. Always a Lowlander, but they were willing to forgive that much. At least long enough to invite us to dine with them once or twice. It’s as lovely inside as you would think—positively medieval. Though I can’t think I would ever want to live with cold stone surrounding me always.”
    “Well.” In consideration of her aching muscles, he turned them both away, back toward the walking path. “I obviously should have come with you and Ella the summer the earl was away. So I could have seen it for myself.”
    His mother laughed. Not so bright, not so free, but a laugh nonetheless. He had heard precious few of them from her over the past months. “We never went there that summer. They always came here. And besides, you would have been bored senseless, with no boys your age about.”
    “Young men, you mean.” He bit back a grin as he said it. He’d thought himself a man at seventeen, to be sure. Though praise to the Lord that he’d never had to prove it. He hadn’t had to manage stewards and solicitors and tenants and rents and . . .
    He missed his father. Missed walking through the village at Midwynd with him, cataloguing repairs that needed made, inquiring about the tenants’ ailing mothers and wayward sons. Missed seeing the measured wisdom alight in his father’s eyes. Missed knowing that he was there, always there, ready to answer questions and pat backs and smile encouragement.
    Mother gripped his arm. “There are invitations awaiting us and replies to the ones we sent out. After breakfast, we should go through them. Plan our stay.”
    Brice nodded. His mother had still been in first mourning throughout the Season, so he and Ella had gone through his sister’s debut summer on their own. Only now was Mother accepting and giving invitations—though it was other plans he felt most compelled to make. Plans about what he would do once they went back to England. How he would draw out Lady Pratt and prove—and thereby halt—her hunt for the Fire Eyes. Put an end to that nonsense once and for all so he could focus on the estates.
    Heaviness gripped his chest. It wouldn’t be so simple. He knew that so clearly that words might as well have sounded audibly, so perfectly did they settle in his mind. Just like they had when Brook had been kidnapped last year. And like that dreadful day when the silent but echoing Go had sent him outside to meet his father, crumpled on the steps so near where they now walked.
    Maybe one of these days, the Lord would send the warning when he could actually do something about it.

    By the time Brice found his sister and their guests, they had all taken their separate breakfasts and the sun had burned the mist from the face of the loch. He followed the girls’ laughter to what Mother had always called the morning room—east-facing, with golden sunshine spilling in, nearly as bright as his sister’s laughter.
    He paused outside the door just long enough to thank the Lord for hearing it again. Too long Ella had been nearly silent, all of her mirth dampened by grief. Bringing Geoff and Stella Abbott along to the Highlands had been a good idea, though. Their steward’s children had grown up alongside them, knew how to brighten their moods. He rather wished they wouldn’t both be heading off to far and sunder parts of England in the next few months.
    Sucking in a fortifying breath, Brice fastened a smile onto his lips and strode in just in time to see Abbott balance himself on one foot, arms up and tugging back as if holding an imaginary fishing pole.
    “And then the beast gave a mighty tug and sent him splashing into the river.” Abbott flung himself onto the divan amidst another shout of laughter from the girls.
    Brice’s smile went more earnest. “You ought to include that tale in your first sermon, Abbott. Complete with reenactment.”
    His old friend