“Had I been told about you, Keir . . . I would have taken you in and raised you with all the care and devotion a father could give a son. You would have been a joy to me. From the moment I received that letter from your mother, I’ve run the gamut from fury to fear, wondering what your life had been like. My only consolation in all of it has been

Even if he couldn’t manage to cook for himself yet, he had scores of friends and— Salty, chewy bacon with crisp edges. God, he was starving. —friends and neighbors who would welcome him to their tables.

“I’ll expect you at my house the day after tomorrow.” His eyes narrowed. “I dinna say I would come, you wee bully.” “Don’t forget the whisky,” she said, and hastily entered the carriage before he could reply.

“Many women in her position would consider him as . . . well, an embarrassment.” That drew a real smile from him, the first she’d seen from him in a while. “You know Evie. She already thinks of him as someone else to love.”

Lady Merritt blinked in surprise. “I didn’t mean I was going to hand you a sack of cash. I’m a businesswoman, not a fairy godmother.”

“’Tis just a wee scratch.” “A scratch from what?” she demanded. “A knife.” “In other words, you have a stab wound?”

“But ten years from now, Phoebe, I’ll still say it was love. It was love from the beginning.”

An earsplitting report, a flash of light from the muzzle, and one of the rabbit sculptures on the wall shattered. In the silence that followed, Merritt heard her father say dryly, “Go on, Merritt. Put the other bunny out of its misery.” She cocked the hammer, aimed and fired again. The second rabbit sculpture exploded. “Sweet Mother Mary,” Ethan

Far outside the estate at Heron’s Point, the busy world of smokestacks and railway terminals went about its business, but here within the boundaries of Kingston’s domain, time moved at a different pace. It was a world— That smell in the air was definitely bacon. —a world where people had the luxury to read, think, and discuss high-minded subjects.