But Tasker was made of sterner stuff. "Like your pa was kept informed by Mr. Eades?" It was a low blow.

Dominic compressed his lips. "The books will tell me all I need to know. It was through my examination of the books we discovered what Eades was up to."

Tasker snorted. "Us folk here could tell he was bent from the first. By the time you found he'd been fiddling, a deal o' damage was done and honest folks ruined."

Dominic was irritated by such blunt, plain speaking, not the least because he knew the blasted fellow was right. He made one last effort. "Abdul, on the other hand, is a man I've known for ten years and is completely trustworthy. He can get to know everyone."

Tasker looked skeptical. "Aye, p'raps folk will take to some furriner, I dunno, but they'll not take kindly to him unless they've met their lord first. 'Tis a matter of respect, m'lord. You respect them and they'll respect your man. But they'll not have a bar of him unless they hear it from you."

"You don't know Abdul! I've never seen him fail."

"And Abdul ain't never worked wi' no Shropshiremen, either," Jake said simply. "Stubborn as pigs, we be, and set in our ways." He said it with pride. "Six hundred years we been here, and six hundred years Wolfes have been tellin' us what to do. That's the way it's always been, and no clever furriner will change that. If you want the estate back on its feet, m'lord, ye need to get them all behind ye. And that means ye must meet 'em, every man jack of 'em, an' listen to what they've got to say."

Dominic sighed and sent for horses to be saddled. Dammit, he'd never wanted to come here, let alone get... involved. This would be a superficial visit only. He would meet all the most important people, give them a nod and listen to a few opinions and that would be the end of it. Then he'd hand them over to Abdul and forget about them all.

To his surprise the first place they stopped at was a rundown hovel on the edge of the woods. Tasker dismounted and reluctantly Dominic followed suit. "Why are we stopping here."

'Thought it only right, seeing as it's on the way."

Stubborn as pigs was right, Dominic thought. Tasker had a clear idea of what he wanted Dominic to see and he wasn't going to bend to suit his lord or to curry favor during his trial period. Dominic might be irritated at having to do what he would prefer not to, but he was also pleased- he'd judged the man aright.

Tasker knocked and the hovel door was opened by a woman in her fifties, neatly dressed in a worn blue gown and a clean white apron. She leaned heavily on a stick and she looked at Dominic with a steady blue gaze that he recognized. Tasker's mother.

"Miss Beth's boy," she said softly. Her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, m'lord, I'm so happy to meet you at last. I was your mam's maid, and more-I was her friend."

To his consternation she hobbled forward, reached up, and stroked his cheek softly, as if to check he was real. Dominic set his jaw. His mother used to stroke his cheek in just the same way.

Mrs. Tasker led him into the hovel. The family must all live in one room, he saw. A stone fireplace in the corner provided heat as well as being the kitchen area; there was a bench over which a blanket had been folded, two beautifully whittled chairs and a table, and that was all. Two corners were curtained off-sleeping areas, he assumed. It was small, smoky, and cramped but ferociously neat and clean. Jake set about making tea.

Mrs. Tasker made Dominic sit beside her on the bench. "She must have been so proud of you. Longed for you, she did. Wept every month when she knew there would be no baby."

"My father needed an heir for Wolfestone," Dominic agreed gruffly, wishing he were miles away.

"Him." She dismissed his father with a contemptuous wave. "That wasn't it at all, m'lord. I mean-he did want his heir, but that wasn't the only reason why Miss Beth wept. She wanted a babe for herself, see? A lovin' little lass, she was, and longing for a wee babe of her own. She'd visit all the young mothers on the estate and play wi' their babes for hours."

Dominic stared straight ahead of him, fighting for control. A lovin' little lass-it conjured up such an image of his mother.

She stroked his cheek again, and uncannily, it was as if his mother was doing it. "Glad I am that she had such a bonny boy. And you looked after her, didn't you, lad?"

Dominic forcing unwanted waves of emotion back, nodded. He had, as best he could.

Mrs. Tasker smiled. "Aye, I can see you did. You have your da's eyes, but there's a sweetness in you that's all Miss Beth."

Dominic felt something inside him, some tension, unravel.

"Did she have a happy life in the end, lad?"

He nodded and said in a voice that cracked, "Especially in the last ten years." There was no point in telling this woman how dreadful the first eight years had been.

She nodded. "I'm glad. She got a letter to me, after she'd escaped." She smiled at his surprise. "I was her friend. Did you think I didn't know how it was between her and your da?" She shook her head. "I nearly went with her. That was the original plan, only it weren't to be." She rubbed her leg absently, as if it pained her. Tasker brought over the tea, and she looked up and gave him a loving smile. "And if I had gone with her, I wouldn't have married Jake's dad and had a bonny lad o' my own, so things worked out for the best, I reckon."

The tea was weak and tasteless, the leaves used, dried, then used again. Poor people's tea. Dominic drank it in silence. The taste recalled his childhood.

"Fetch him out the album, son."

Jake set down his empty cup and from a small wooden chest by the wall took out a wrapped bundle and handed it to Dominic. Bemused, and not a little apprehensive, Dominic removed the oilskin wrapping to reveal a brown pigskin folder, about twelve by sixteen inches. He glanced at Mrs. Tasker, who gave him an encouraging nod, so he opened it.

The album turned out to be paintings, fine, delicate watercolors of Wolfestone from every angle, a place he wouldn't have recognized, with flowers spilling over the harsh angles of stone. Paintings of the rose arbor, of various people, of children playing, of a dog sprawled in sleep, painted with delicacy... and love.

"Your mam's paintings," Mrs. Tasker told him. "That's me." She pointed. He would never have recognized her. The girl in the painting was pretty and full of life, not tired-looking and with a face aged by pain.

"The album's yours, lad," she told him. "I been saving it for you, ever since I heard you'd been born. I knew after Lord D'Acre died, you'd come home to us in the end. I'm just so sorry you couldn't bring Miss Beth home with you." Her eyes flooded with tears and, forgetting he was a lord and she an impoverished tenant, she hugged him.

Dominic sat frozen through the hug, and when it was over, he thanked her gravely for the tea. As he said his goodbyes, she stopped him. "I hope you don't mind, m'lord, but I just have to do this, for yer mam's sake." She pulled his head down and kissed him on the cheek.

Dominic gave her an awkward nod and walked in frozen silence to his horse. He tucked the precious oilskin bundle into his saddlebag and mounted his horse.

"You didn't mind Mam hugging you like that, did you, m'lord?" Tasker asked after a moment or two.

Dominic shook his head curtly. He couldn't trust himself to speak. His emotions were in turmoil "Powerful fond of your mother she was," Tasker explained. "She wept for days when Mr. Podmore told her Miss Beth had died."

Dominic's head whipped up at that. "Podmore told her?"

"Oh, aye. Mr. Podmore, he always makes a point of looking in on Mam. Sweet on Miss Beth, Mam reckons he was, and liked the opportunity of talking about her with someone else who loved her. Mam reckons there's comfort to be had in that."

Dominic bit his lip. She was right. He hadn't spoken of his mother since the day he'd buried her, for no one he knew had known her. Now, since he'd come to Wolfestone, he'd met two people who not only knew her but had loved her. And in the pain of talking about her, there had been comfort as well.

What irony, to find them both at Wolfestone, the place he'd sworn to destroy.

After a few miles had passed he said to Jake, "How did your mother hurt her leg?"

There was a short silence. "You don't know?"

A sense of foreboding filled Dominic. He shook his head.

"It got busted up badly the night Miss Beth run off. When your pa found out she'd gone, he was wild with fury." He rode on a few paces more and then added, "Mam wouldn't tell him where Miss Beth had gone, so your pa threw her down the stairs."

Grace sat in the library, reading through the slender volume of poems Dominic had given her. After Dominic's discovery of the little book, she'd searched all through the shelves in the hope of discovering more texts in Arabic, but she hadn't found a single one. How strange to have just one book in that language.

But what a wonderful one to have. She hugged it to her bosom. Such a romantic inscription. The more she read, the more she could see that Faisal had loved his dove very much.

One of the poems in the little leather book had already become her all-time favorite poem. Written a thousand years before, it was still fresh and lovely enough to make her weep.

And she came like bright dawn opening a path through the night or like the wind skimming the surface of a river.

The horizon all around me breathed out perfume announcing her arrival as the fragrance precedes a flower.

The door opened and Mr. Netterton entered. "Oh, terribly sorry. Didn't mean to disturb you, Greystoke. Miss Pettifer has just gone back up to tend to her father and I thought I'd snatch a few moments to write some letters... well, actually... a sermon."

He looked rather self-conscious. "Thing is, I've never actually conducted a whole service before, not by myself. Oh, don't look so surprised, I know all the rote stuff, it's the sermon I'm worried about. Thought I could crib a few ideas. Bound to be books of sermons in that lot." He gestured to the shelves of dusty old books.

"Yes, I can see that it would be a bit nerve-wracking," she agreed. "Your first time, and I imagine you'll want to make a good impression on your new flock."

"Flock." He pulled a face. "I don't feel like anyone's shepherd. And if you want to know the truth, I think I've slept through almost every sermon I've ever heard. Dreary stuff."

She smiled at him. "Then you know exactly what to do."

He looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know how not to write a sermon. Why don't you write the sort of sermon that you would have liked before you, er, found your vocation."

He snorted. "The only sermon I would have liked was one that was as short as all get out, maybe with a joke or two and with no jaw-me-dead moralizing."

She laughed, surprising herself. "Exactly. It's your sermon, after all."

His jaw dropped. "Oh, I say, what a good idea. If you don't mind, I'll make a few notes while your suggestion is fresh in my mind." He sat down at the desk and started to write.

They stayed like that for some time, Grace lost in the beauty of medieval poetry rising fresh and lovely from the page a thousand years after it was first penned, Mr. Netterton scribbling rapidly, filling several sheets of paper, then screwing them up and starting again.

After a while Grace became aware that he'd finished writing and was staring blankly at a wall of books.

"Finished?"

He started. "Yes. Yes, I think so." He looked doubtfully at the sheet of paper in front of him. "It's very short."

She laughed at the expression on his face. "Don't worry. I'm sure everyone will be grateful. What's the subject?"

He looked a bit embarrassed. "Er, it's a sort of fable, not from the Bible, actually. About the dog in the manger-not Jesus's manger, of course, another sort of manger entirely. In a different country. In a different time."

"It sounds just the ticket," she assured him. "A nice rural theme for a rural parish. In any case, you'll be writing sermons for the rest of your life. There's no hurry. You'll get the hang of it eventually."

He looked appalled. "It's just like school," he said mournfully. "Hated essays then. Why the dev-er, deuce did I choose a career that involved writing?"

It was an opening Grace couldn't resist. "You knew Lord D'Acre at school, didn't you? What was he like then?"

Frey grinned reminiscently, glad to be changing the subject. "He was a bit of a savage at the beginning. Spoke English with a slight foreign accent and would fight anyone who looked sideways at him. That's how we met, actually. We had a good old punch-up-forgotten what it was about-but we slogged into each other until neither of us could stand, and ended up best friends." He said it quite matter-of-factly.

She must have looked as horrified as she felt, for he laughed and said, "Can see you haven't any brothers, Greystoke. Boys are like that. Uncivilized young brutes. Perfectly normal to punch the living daylights out of each other and wind up friends. Happens all the time."

"I'll take your word for it," Grace said.

"Anyway, after that we were inseparable. Did everything together-games, lessons, mischief... Would have spent the holidays together, too, if we'd been allowed." His smile dimmed. "Bad show, that."

"What was?"

He looked uncomfortable. "Not sure he'd want me to be telling this stuff."

"But it's all in the past. What can it hurt?" Grace coaxed. She wanted to know all about him. "And besides, I won't tell a soul."

Mr. Netterton thought for a minute and then nodded. "Thing is, it was his father had him brought to England and to Eton. Hadn't known about the boy for years, but someone spotted him with his mother and, well, Dom is the spitting image of his father, so there's no doubt of his blood! As soon as the old man found out, he wanted him trained for the position he would one day take-heir to Wolfestone and the D'Acre title, that sort of thing. His mother was in... Egypt or somewhere I think. Too far, anyway, for Dom to go to his mother's for holidays-not that his father would have allowed it. Once he'd got his hands on Dom, he wasn't going to let him leave England again. Kept him short of funds the whole time. Poorest boy in Eton, he was-or should have been. Thing about Dom is, he has this knack for making money-amazing he is!" He pondered this for a moment. "Where was I?"

"Holidays," she prompted him.

"Yes, well, my parents would have been happy to have Dom spend his holidays with us. Keep us both entertained. M'father wrote to old Lord D'Acre for permission." He grimaced. 'Turned m'father down. Dom wrote and asked, too. Said no, every time."

"I expect he wanted Dominic to spend them with him."

Mr. Netterton shook his head. "No. Dom only ever met his father twice in his life. Never spent more than an hour in his company."

"What? Not even for holidays?"

"No. Fixed it that Dom wasn't allowed to leave the school at all. Not ever. Think the old man was afraid that Dom would try to escape-and he wasn't far wrong at that."

"Wasn't he happy at school?"

"Not that. He was worried sick about his mother. Hadn't heard a word from her since he set foot in England. And d'you know why?" His voice rose in indignation. "That father of his had stopped all her letters. Dom found out eventually from his father's lawyer-old Podmore. Fellow was acting for his father, but seems to have had a soft spot for the mother and thought that old Lord D'Acre was doing the wrong thing by the boy."

"I should think so, too!" Grace declared, feeling quite upset by the thought of young Dominic incarcerated in a school in a foreign land-and then forbidden letters from his mother.

"The school was under instructions to send his mother's letters to the lawyer, and the lawyer was under instructions to destroy them, which he did."

Grace was horrified. "Destroy his mother's letters! How could anyone be so cruel?"

Mr. Netterton winked and tapped his nose. "Cunning beggar, Podmore. Copied the letters first, didn't he? Burned the originals as instructed. Sent the copies to Dom, passing them off as his own letters. School wasn't told to stop Dom getting letters from his pa's lawyer."

Grace clasped her hands together. "What a wonderful man!"

'The fellow saved Dom's sanity, I believe. Stands to reason, a boy who's spent the first twelve years of his life looking after his mother isn't going to abandon her just because some father he's never met tells him to!" He made a scornful noise.

"His father must have been a very unfeeling sort of person," she said thoughtfully. At twelve a boy was still very much a child and needed his mother. Her heart bled for that boy.

"He was a right ogre," Mr. Netterton agreed. "Wouldn't even let Dom spend Christmas or Easter with any of his friends. Never had a proper English Christmas, Dom, poor beggar. The first few years he used to ask me all about it- you could tell he was dying to experience it for himself. In Egypt and Italy they don't do Christmas like we do in England, with all the trimmings. He used to hang on every tale, at first..." He broke off, shaking his head.

'Tell me," she prompted softly.

"Well he hoped, you see. Every year his father let him think there was a possibility he might be asked to Wolfestone for Christmas... Dom would get all excited-not that he'd say anything, but he'd get... I don't know, keyed up. Well, stands to reason -your first family Christmas, meet the relatives, clap eyes on Wolfestone, the place you're going to inherit..."

"And?"

"Every year it was called off at the last minute. Year after year. One year a coach came with his father's crest on it and you should have seen the look on Dom's face! Those odd eyes of his fairly blazed with excitement. All his Christmases coming at once-literally." He clenched his fist. 'Turned out to be a footman bringing him a set of new clothes-someone must have reported that he'd outgrown all his others-and a history of the Wolfe family for him to study over the holidays." He gave her a somber look. "Bastard even set him a test, afterward."

"Did his father not realize what he was doing?"

"I don't think he cared. I don't think he ever thought of Dom as someone with feelings. He was just the heir."

"What an inheritance." She knew now where his intense bitterness about Wolfestone had come from.

Frey nodded. "Yes, and after that Dom just sneered at the mention of Christmas or holidays. Said they meant nothing, that he couldn't care less, that it was a stupid English custom, and that he had better things to do."