don't want to pass it on to a child. It's bad enough seeing Bridie every day and thinking every time she stumbles or drops something that she's got the bloody disease herself. I don't know what I'd do if I had a child of my own. Probably drive myself mad with worry."
"You don't have to have children. Or you could adopt."
"Men say that, of course. Nigel does all the time. But there's no point to marriage as far as I'm concerned if I can't have my own child. My own healthy child."
"Was the baby in the abbey a healthy child?"
She drew herself up to look at him. "On duty, Inspector? An odd time and place for it, wouldn't you say?"
He smiled wryly. "Sorry. Reflex action, I'm afraid." And then he added, unrepentant,
"Was she?"
"Wherever did you hear about the baby in the abbey? No, don't tell me. Keldale Hall."
"I understand it was a bit of a legend come true."
"Of sorts. The legend - fanned by the Burton-Thomases at every opportunity - is that sometimes one can hear a baby cry from the abbey at night. The reality, I'm afraid, is much as you'd expect. It's a trick of wind when it's blowing with just the right force from the north through a crack in the wall between the north transept and nave. It happens several times a year."
"How do you know?"
"When we were teenagers, my brother and I camped there for a fortnight one spring until we'd tracked the sound down. Of course, we didn't disappoint the Burton-Thomases by telling them the truth. But to be honest, even that wind doesn't sound a great deal like a baby."
"And the real baby?"
"Ah, back to that, are we?" She rested her cheek on his chest. "I don't know much about it. It was just over three years ago. Father Hart found her, managed to stir up a great deal of local outrage about her, and it fell to Gabriel Langston to sort it all out. Poor Gabriel. He never was able to discover anything at all. The furor died down after a few weeks. There was a funeral that everyone of conscience attended and that was the end of it, I'm afraid. It was all rather grim."
"And you were glad when it was over?"
"I was. I don't like grimness. I don't want it in my life. I want life filled with laughter and wild, crazy joy."
"Perhaps you're afraid of feeling anything else."
"I am. But I'm mostly afraid of ending up lost like Olivia, of loving someone so much and then having that person ripped out of my life. I can't bear to be near her any longer. After Paul died, she went into a fog bank and never emerged. I don't want to be like that. Ever." She spoke the last word on a hard note of anger, but when she raised her head her eyes shone with tears. "Please. Thomas," she whispered, and his body responded with the quicksilver flame of desire.
He pulled her to him roughly, felt her heat and passion, heard her cry of pleasure, felt the shadows drift away.
"What about Bridie?"
"What do you mean?"
"She's like a little lost soul. Just Bridie and that duck."
Stepha laughed. She curled on her side, her smooth back a pleasant pressure against him.
"Bridie's special, isn't she?"
"Olivia seems oddly detached from her. It's as if Bridie's growing up without parents at all."
"Liv wasn't always that way. But Bridie's like Paul. So exactly like. I think it hurts Olivia even to see her. She's not really over Paul yet. I doubt she ever will be."
"Then why on earth was she going to remarry?"
"For Bridie's sake. Paul was a very strong father. Olivia seems to have felt duty bound to replace him with someone else. And William was eager to be the replacement, I suppose." Her voice was growing sleepy. "I don't quite know what she thought it was going to be like for herself. But I think she was more interested in getting Bridie under control. It would have worked well, too. William was very good to Bridie. So was Roberta."
"Bridie says you are as well."
She yawned. "Does she? I fixed her hair, poor little pumpkin. I'm not certain I'm good at anything else."
"You chase ghosts away," he whispered. "You're very good at that." But she was asleep.
He awoke to find the reality this time. She lay, childlike, curled with her knees drawn up, with both of her fists under her chin. She was frowning with