by Anne Bishop
“You’re a fine-looking lad, aren’t you?” Liam said. “A very fine lad.”
The stallion nodded, then nipped at the pocket of Liam’s coat.
Liam gently pushed the horse’s muzzle away from the pocket. The horse gave him a shove that was less than gentle.
“You’d best give him the other lump of sugar before he knocks you down,” Ahern said, walking toward them.
Feeling his face heat, Liam gave the horse the other lump of sugar.
Ahern studied Liam and the bay. Then he nodded. “You’ll do for him. His name is Oakdancer. Come along now. There’s work to be done before the two of you leave here.”
Liam thought the old man had meant settling on a price or taking care of paperwork. Instead, he found himself in the training ring for the rest of the day while Ahern put man and horse through their paces.
By the time they left Ahern’s farm two days later, he and Oakdancer were comfortable with each other, and the old man’s parting words, “He trusts you as a rider,” were the finest compliment he’d ever received.
His father had sneered when he brought the stallion home …
“Oakdancer? What kind of name is that for a horse?”
… but Liam had been astute enough to see the envy in the old baron’s eyes.
The stallion, on the other hand, had hated the old baron on sight. Had hated Flint and the rest of the stable men. For that first year, Liam had taken care of Oakdancer, since the horse wouldn’t tolerate the other men — until Arthur showed up one day, a pale, starving youth who was looking for any kind of work. He had an almost magical touch when it came to horses, and Oakdancer responded to him as if they’d been friends their whole lives.
“Here he is, Baron,” Arthur said, leading Oakdancer out of the stables.
“Thank you, Arthur,” Liam replied. He mounted, took a moment to test the feel of the saddle. No, there was no need to tighten the girth. There never was with this horse.
Arthur stepped back, brushed a finger against an imaginary cap brim, then retreated inside the stables.
Liam kept the stallion to an active walk until they were away from the house and stables. The moment he eased the reins a little, Oakdancer lifted into an easy canter that swiftly changed to a gallop.
They flew over the land, and for a few short minutes, Liam’s world narrowed to the horse beneath him, the wind in his face, and the land that rose up and flowed away.
Then they reached Willow’s Brook — and the bridge.
Oakdancer pricked his ears and dashed for the bridge.
Liam sat deep in the saddle and reined the resisting horse to a halt.
Oakdancer tossed his head. Snorted. Stamped a foot.
That bridge, Liam thought as he studied the stones that looked as if they’d come together on their own accord to span the brook. What is on the other side of that damn bridge?
The Old Place. A place his father had forbidden him to set foot, threatening disinheritance as well as a beating if Liam ever disobeyed. A bad place, his father had said. No place for good, decent men.
If what Elinore said was true, his father had crossed that bridge at least once. Of course, he doubted if anyone in this county thought his father had been a good, decent man.
The Old Place. The home of the witches — the women he had to come to terms with, somehow, if he was going to prevent his mother from leaving the family home with his little sister.
“Come on, boy,” Liam said. “Let’s find out what’s on the other side of that bridge.”
After crossing the bridge, they trotted down the road, such as it was, for several minutes before the house came into sight.
He wasn’t sure what he expected. A tumbled-down cottage. Or a neat cottage. Maybe even a small stone house.
This was an old manor house that rivaled any gentry home in the neighborhood, with the exception of his family home. To the right was a stone arch, large enough for a wagon to pass through, that connected the main house to another building.
Dismounting, Liam led Oakdancer toward the arch. No servant came out to take charge of the horse. Peering up at the house’s windows, he didn’t see anyone peering back. Had they gone somewhere? Did they even have any servants? Until now, he’d never wondered about them. Not really. They’d been one of the forbidden things of childhood, but, as he grew older, it always seemed easier just not to think of them. Now he was standing in front of the witches’ house. He was standing in the Old Place. And he had no idea if he should knock on the door, as he would have done with another neighbor, or ride away.
“At least I can tell Mother that I tried,” he muttered, turning toward Oakdancer.
As he gathered the reins and prepared to mount, a woman yelled, “Idjit! Drop that, you mongreled excuse of a flea-infested dog!”
The reins slipped from his hands before he realized he’d responded to that angry command. His heart jumped into his throat. Would they curse him for daring to step onto their land? If that were the case, he wouldn’t show them his back while they were doing it.
“Idjit!”
Liam turned and took a step forward at the same moment a small black dog, its tail happily curled over its back, ran through the arch toward him. A piece of white linen was clamped firmly in its jaws, its length flapping and dragging on the ground.
Grinning with relief that something else could qualify for a mongreled excuse of a dog, Liam dropped to one knee and held out a hand. The dog, with what Liam would have sworn was laughter in its eyes, loped toward him, tossing its head to show off its prize. When the dog got close enough to tease and invite him to play, Liam grabbed one end of the linen with one hand at the same time he grabbed the dog by the scruff with the other. Ignoring the hand that held it, the dog opened its jaws to get a better grip on its prize. Liam whipped the linen behind his back and stood up.
The dog watched him, its mouth open in a grin as it danced back and forth in front of him.
“Game’s over,” Liam said, glancing up to see a darkhaired woman run through the archway, then skid to a halt.
The dog raced around him, forcing him to turn to keep the linen away from it.
“Idjit!” the woman said sternly, placing her fists on her hips. “Sit!”
The dog stopped racing around Liam, stood on its hind legs, and turned in a circle.
“Sit!”
The dog lay down, then rolled over twice.
“Did someone drop him on his head when he was a puppy?” Liam asked.
“It’s possible,” the woman replied, her lips twitching with the effort not to grin. “He’s either very dumb or very smart. We just can’t tell which it is.” Then she really looked at him, and humor gave way to uncertainty. “You seem familiar, but…”
Taking a good look at her, Liam felt his heart jump into his throat for the second time in the past few minutes. The young woman standing before him looked more like his sister than Brooke did. She had dark brown hair like his, the same woodland eyes. Her face was a feminine variation of his own. He’d hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted to be able to dismiss what Elinore had said — or at least think of this woman with the same emotional distance he managed with his father’s other bastards. But he couldn’t dismiss what had been said, couldn’t maintain a distance. With her, the word sister hummed through him. A like mind. A like heart. Someone who saw the same world that he did and yet saw it differently. He felt as if one of them had been gone on a long journey and had finally come home, and they just had to get reacquainted all over again.
Except he’d never seen her before, had never spoken to her, had no idea if she really was of like mind where anything was concerned. And he didn’t want to feel anything toward her. He hadn’t come here to feel anything toward any of them.
She still seemed to puzzle over who he was — until she looked over his shoulder and noticed the stallion. Then her face became hard and cold. He knew that expression, too. His father had worn it often enough.
“So,�
� she said with icy courtesy. “The new baron has come to pay a call. Why?”
“Because I am the new Baron of Willowsbrook,” he replied quietly. Remembering the linen he still held, he took a step forward and offered it to her. “I hope it’s not ruined.”
She reached for it slowly, as if reluctant to take anything from his hand. “It’s nothing that washing it — again — won’t fix.”
An awkward silence hung between them.
“Why are you here?” she said.
“Because —”Frustrated, Liam raked his hand through his hair. How was he supposed to explain this?
“You’ve paid your brave courtesy call to the witches,” she said, her voice vicious and sneering. “You can ride on now.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to lose my family!”
There were winter storms in her eyes now. “Not even the old bastard of a baron had had the balls to insult us like that on our own ground — although he certainly caused us other kinds of pain.”
“I meant no insult,” Liam said.
“Of course you didn’t.” Her hands fisted. “You imply that we’ll cause your family harm, without provocation, and you don’t think that’s an insult?”
“No. Yes.” He closed his eyes for a moment. There wasn’t time to put his thoughts in order. If she walked away now, he knew instinctively that she would never listen to him again. “We’re kin. Distant kin. On my mother’s side.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“And we — you and I — are closer kin. Because of our father.”
“Your father. He was never mine, thank the Mother, and for that I am grateful.”
“You should be,” Liam snapped. “At least you didn’t grow up under his fist.”
They stared at each other.
“Baron —”she began.
“Liam,” he said. “My name is Liam.”
She hesitated, her reluctance obvious, before she said, “I’m Breanna.” She took a breath, blew it out slowly.
“What —?”
“What’s he doing here?” another voice wailed.
Liam looked over at a woman clinging to one side of the arch. Her brown hair glinted with red where the sun touched it, and was cropped short, like a boy’s. She just stared at him.
“Keely,” Breanna whispered, taking a step toward the woman.
Breanna’s mother. Liam glanced at Breanna, not sure what he should say or do.
“He’s dead,” Keely wailed. “You told me he was dead.” Then her face filled with a rage unlike anything Liam had ever seen. “Get away from her.” She moved toward him. “Get away from my girl!”
“Keely, no!” Breanna shouted.
The land rolled beneath Liam’s feet. Suddenly, clots of earth flew straight at him. He threw up his arms to protect his head and face, felt a clot hit his upper arm hard enough to bruise. Two others hit his ribs and thigh.
“No!” Breanna shouted.
Wind tugged at his coat, lifted him off his feet, and shoved him to the ground. It roared in front of him. He heard the dog yelp, heard Oakdancer’s neigh of fear.
“Keely, stop it!”
“I won’t let him have my girl! He won’t hurt my girl!” “This is Liam, Keely. Liam.”
Squinting to protect his eyes, Liam raised his head enough to peer over his arms. An arm’s length in front of him, wind and earth swirled furiously, blocking the women from his view. He rose to his knees, unsure if it was safer to stay where he was or try to run.
“You told me he was dead!”
“The old bastard is dead,” Breanna said sharply. “His body was given to the Mother to feed the worms, and his spirit has gone to wherever spirits like his go when they pass through the Shadowed Veil.”
Liam saw movement at the edges of the swirl. Then Breanna dragged Keely around it to where they could all see each other clearly.
“This is Liam,” Breanna said. “Elinore’s son.”
Keely shook her head fiercely. “Liam is a boy. A nice boy. I’ve seen him riding on his pony.”
A bleak sadness filled Breanna’s eyes for a moment. “He was a boy. He’s grown up now.”
“He looks like the baron,” Keely whispered. Her eyes began to fill with blank rage again.
“He is the baron, but he’s Liam.” Breanna grabbed Keely’s shoulder and pivoted. “Look who he brought for a visit.”
The blank rage slowly faded as Keely stared at the stallion. A smile lit her face. “Oakdancer!” Then she frowned, leaned toward Breanna, and whispered, “I didn’t hit him with a clot of earth, did I?”
“Not likely,” Breanna replied dryly. “He’s a horse. He knew enough to get out of the way.”
Sidling past Liam, Keely walked over to the stallion and began petting him.
“Are you all right?” Breanna asked, offering him a hand.
He slipped his hand into hers, not because he needed help getting to his feet but simply because she had actually offered it.
“A couple of bruises,” he said, trying to sound dismissive as he brushed dirt off his clothes. In truth, now that it was over, fear put a tremor in his hands. The power these women could wield — and what they could do with it — was something else he’d never given much thought to. He looked at the swirling wind and earth. “How —?”
“Keely’s branch of the Mother is earth. Mine is air. It was the fastest way to stop her from hurting you.” Breanna raised a hand. The swirling wind gradually slowed, depositing a pile of earth in front of her. She sighed. “Edgar is going to be annoyed about having the drive torn up like this.”
“Edgar?”
“The groundskeeper. We take care of the kitchen garden and our own flower beds, but he maintains the rest.” She hesitated, her gaze fixed on Keely and the stallion. “What did you mean about losing your family?”
“There’s been trouble in the eastern part of Sylvalan. Bad trouble. My mother is worried about what might happen if that trouble comes here.”
“So what is it you want from us?”
“I don’t want anything from you,” Liam said. It sounded harsh, so he went on quickly. “My mother wants me to use my position as the Baron of Willowsbrook to keep you and your family protected.”
“And if you don’t?”
He swallowed hard. “She’ll leave the family home, taking my young sister with her, and move in with her kin.”
“With her —”Breanna’s eyes widened. “Here? She’ll move in here?” Using both hands, she pushed her hair away from her face. “That would certainly be grist for the gossip mill, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t give a damn about that,” he said sharply, but remembering to keep his voice low to avoid disturbing Keely. “They’re my family. I love them. I don’t want to lose them.”
Understanding softened Breanna’s face. “I know how that feels.” She sighed. “I’ll talk to Nuala. She’ll be more persuasive where Elinore’s concerned.”
“Thank you.”
Breanna hesitated, seemed to be arguing with herself. “Is that the only reason you came here?”
It seemed crude right now to admit that it was, so he said nothing.
She winced a little. “You see, I’d wondered if you’d also come to demand a stud fee.”
Liam felt his jaw start to drop. “A — a stud fee?”
Color suddenly blazed in her cheeks. A little defiant, she lifted her chin to indicate the stallion. “Well, that one comes visiting when he pleases, doesn’t he? It wasn’t as if we’d planned on…” She huffed.
“You had a mare in season on one of those visits,” Liam concluded.
“And him acting the ardent lover, and not a fence that can keep him out when he puts his mind to getting over it.”
Liam tucked his hands in his pockets — and firmly tucked his tongue in his cheek. He hoped it took her a little longer to fumble through this explanation. He was enjoying seeing her flustered.
“
It wasn’t like there was anything we could have done about it by the time Clay came running to tell us your horse was helping himself to our mare.”
Liam made little coughing noises to keep from laughing out loud. “So what did you get out of his helping himself to your mare?”
“A filly.”
“Can you afford to keep her?”
Breanna’s eyes slashed at him. “We aren’t paupers.”
“I didn’t think you were.” Especially after seeing the house and the well-kept grounds. “But that doesn’t mean you’d want an extra horse.”
She looked uncomfortable again. “There’s good bloodlines on both sides, and she is a sweet little thing. I would like to keep her.”
“Then let’s just consider the filly a peace offering,” Liam said quietly.
“Thank you.”
“Well.” He scuffed the toe of his boot in the dirt. “I’d better collect my horse and get back to my work.” He watched the dog trot up to Breanna, dragging the linen that must have blown away while Breanna had dealt with Keely’s wrath. The dog sat at her feet, looking up at her until she took the offering and gave the expected praise. “And I’d better let you get back to your own work.”
Breanna studied the dog. Then she looked at him, the light in her eyes making him want to check to make sure his purse hadn’t been stolen. “How old is your sister?”
“Ten,” he replied cautiously.
“Wouldn’t she like a dog?”
“I’m not taking him.”
“He’d be a fine companion for a young girl.” “He’d be a domestic disaster.”
She drew in a breath to say something else, then simply grinned. “He is that. But you could consider him a peace offering.”
He grinned back at her. “Your keeping him here is a much better peace offering.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Come along, then. I’ll walk you over to your horse.”
He fell into step with her, keenly aware of how easily their strides matched.
“Keely,” Breanna said quietly. “Oakdancer has to go home now.”
Keely pouted, reminding Liam of Brooke. “Arthur hasn’t come to fetch him yet.”