Free Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley Page B

made you cut it?"
    "Brian fancied short hair on a woman," she said, with a shrug. "And I was younger then."
    Brian, I had learned, was her husband—Robbie's father. Having never actually met the man I'd nonetheless managed to form a rather unbecoming picture of him. He skippered his own fishing boat, I knew, which meant he must be capable of some responsibility, yet it was hard to have a good opinion of a man who appeared to divide his odd weekend
    home between the nearest public house and his bed. I changed the subject.
    "I take it everyone else is up?"
    "Aye. Peter and Fabia were on their way out when I got here, half an hour ago. They've gone down to take some photographs, I think, before they start the digging. I've not seen Adrian's car, yet, but I know Davy's around ... he's been down playing drafts with my Robbie since seven, if you can believe it. Eh, speak of the devil,'' she broke off, flapping her dishcloth toward the kitchen window to direct my attention to the figures walking down the hill outside. "There they go now."
    There were three of them—four if one counted Robbie's dog, Kip. The collie ran energetic circles around David Fortune's legs, jumping up every few paces to bring its head within reach of his hand so he could rumple its ears in an absent way without interrupting his conversation with Robbie. Behind them walked an older man I didn't recognize, a short man with a slightly bent back and a dour expression. "Who's that with them?"
    "That's my dad," Jeannie informed me, in a voice that held affection. "I forgot, you've not met him yet, have you? He made himself scarce, last weekend."
    Scarce, I thought dryly, was hardly the word. I hadn't caught so much as a glimpse of the groundskeeper of Rose-hill, although Jeannie assured me that was not uncommon. There were, according to Jeannie, two things that Wally Tyler hated—living on his own, and living within sight of his son-in-law. Which had left him, after his wife's death several years ago, facing a dilemma. Inviting his daughter and grandson to fill the empty comers of Rose Cottage meant inviting Brian, too.
    And so Wally Tyler had reached his own compromise. When Brian McMorran came home, Wally went elsewhere.
    "It's not so bad as it sounds," Jeannie told me, smiling at my expression. "Brian's away to the fish most of the time—he keeps the boat out for a fortnight when the fishing's good. And Dad has friends in town." She wiped the last plate and set it in the rack to dry. “Right, what will you have for your breakfast? There's porridge made, or I can fix you some eggs—''
    "I usually just have toast."
    "You're never thinking to spend a whole day running around after Peter with nothing but toast in your stomach!" She fixed me with a look that made me feel about as old as Robbie, and repeated her offer of porridge or eggs.
    Meekly, I opted for a boiled egg.
    "Hard or soft?"
    "Middling, please." Taking a seat at the kitchen table, I glanced out the window again at the disappearing cluster of men, boy, and bouncing dog. Jeannie dropped bread in the toaster and smiled.
    "They won't start the digging without you," she promised me. "Peter and Davy will be busy for a bit yet, organizing things, and with my dad down there it'll be a miracle if they've done so much as break the turf by the time you finish your breakfast. Sausages or bacon?"
    "You needn't go to so much trouble ..."
    "It's no trouble. This is what I do," she explained patiently, her eyes amused. "I cook the food, and you eat it. Now which will it be, sausages or bacon? Or will I give you both?"
    One simply couldn't argue with a woman like that, I decided. And the plate of egg and sausages she finally set in front of me did draw a hungry rumble from my normally spartan stomach. "This is marvelous," I admitted, after the third sausage. "Thanks."
    "Oh, any fool can boil an egg." From her tone of voice I knew she honestly believed that, so I chose not to disillusion her by telling her that