belief that she needed somehow to contribute more to their relationship. And she had done so - on the mattress in the old Howenstow mill where they'd spent an entire April making love, starting January's baby. She'd given little thought to how her life might change. She'd given less thought to how Mick himself might change. Only the moment existed, only sensation mattered. His hands and mouth, his hard, male body insistent and eager, the faint salt on his skin, his groan of pleasure as he took her. The knowledge that he wanted her superseded any reflection upon the possible consequences. They were insubstantial. How different it was now. "Can we talk about it, Roderick?" she'd heard Mick say. "With our money situation being what it is, I hate to see you make a decision like this. Let's talk about it when I get back from London." He'd listened, laughed once, replaced the telephone receiver, and turned to find her shrinking back from the doorway, a flame-faced eavesdropper. But he wasn't concerned by her presence. He merely ignored her and returned to his work while above them in the bedroom little Molly wailed. Nancy had watched as he tapped on the keys of his new word processor. She heard him mutter and saw him pick up the manual to read a few pages. She didn't cross the room to speak to him. Instead, she wrung her hands. With our money situation being what it is . . . They didn't own Gull Cottage. It was merely a rental, let to them on a monthly basis. But money was tight. Mick spent it too freely. The last two rental payments hadn't been made. If Dr. Tren arrow intended an increase now, if that increase were added to what they already owed, they would sink. And if that happened, where on earth could they go?
Certainly not to How enstow where they would have to live in the lodge on her father's angry charity.
"Linen's gotter 'ole in it, Mary. Brought another?"
"Not with. Set a plate down on't."
" 'Oo the 'ell's gonna sit squat in the middle of the table, Mar?"
Laughter drifted Nancy's way as the dailies shook out a crisp white table cloth. It billowed from their hands, caught in a sudden gust of wind that managed to find its way through the armour of the trees, Nancy raised her own face to it, but it captured a patch of dead leaves and dust and flung them up at her so that she tasted fine grit. She lifted a hand to brush at her face, but the effort drained her of strength. Sighing, she trudged on towards the house. It was one thing, of course, to talk of love and marriage in London. It was another to feel the full range of implications behind those easy words when she saw them spread out before her in Cornwall. By the time she got out of the limousine that had met them at the Land's End air strip, Deborah Cotter was feeling decidedly light-headed.
Her stomach was churning as well. Because she had never known Lynley in any way other than in her own environment and upon her own terms, she hadn't thought about what it would mean to marry into his family. She knew he was an earl, of course. She'd ridden in his Bentley, been to his London house, even met his valet. She'd eaten off his china, drunk from his crystal, and watched him dress himself in his hand-tailored clothes.
But all of that had somehow fallen into a category of behaviour which she had conveniently labelled How Tommy Lives. None of it had ever affected her own life in any way. However, seeing How enstow from the air, as Lynley circled the plane twice over the estate, had served as the first indication to Deborah that life as she had known it for twenty-one years faced potential - and radical - alteration. The house was an enormous Jacobean structure built in the shape of a variegated E with its central leg missing. A large secondary wing grew in reverse direction from the building's west leg and to the northeast, just beyond its spine, stood a church. Beyond the house clustered a scattering of outbuildings and stables, and beyond these the Howenstow park spread out in the direction of the sea. Cows grazed on this parkland amid towering sycamore trees that grew in abundance, protected from the sometimes inclement southwestern weather by a fortuitous,