Free Deceptions by Judith Michael

Stephanie's ear. 'She's cold. You're far more alive than she is. And much more beautiful.'
    In a sudden moment of illumination, Stephanie saw what her sister had done. Sabrina's weddingpresent, she thought: to diminish her beauty and subdue the vitality that makes her the center of attention. To stand in the shadows and leave the sunlight to me. She felt a wave of love and then of guilt. But I can't help it, she thought, if we're not close and she doesn't confide in me. We're making our own lives; we don't need each other anymore.
    How do you know? a small voice asked. Have you asked her if she needs you?
    Judge Fairfax began to speak and Stephanie pushed away her thoughts and her guilt. She only had time to think how amazing it was that just when she and Sabrina were farthest apart she had found Garth to love her, and then she concentrated on becoming his wife.
    Chapter 5
    The castle rose up from the green hills of Hampshire, its battlements and towers worn by the centuries to a pale gray, its windows cut deep into stone walls. Beyond, a forest of copper beeches loomed, like a gleaming bronze curtain rustling in the June breeze.
    Treveston Castle,' Stephanie read in awestruck tones from Sabrina's letter. 'Eighty rooms, twelve hundred acres of farms and parks ... Garth, look!' she cned, glancing up. Peacocks!'
    Garth slowed the car and looked at the two peacocks, the castle and the silver-blue lake that curved behind it, taking in what was once the moat. 'A cozy cottage,' he said

    ironically, but in spite of himself he was impressed. Straight out of a fairy tale, he thought; Minnesota farm boys and Midwestern professors have trouble believing such a thing is real. And, of course, it is ridiculous; it doesn't belong in the twentieth century. But still, it casts a spell: magnificent, beautifully proportioned, larger than Ufe.
    'Can you imagine Sabrina living here after the wedding?' Stephanie asked. 'I'd feel... dwarfed. As if I'd intruded in a house built for giants. I don't know how she'll do it.'
    * Ask her,' Garth suggested, and stopped the car as a servant came up to open the doors and take their luggage inside.
    Stephanie brouglit it up later as they took a tour of the grounds. 'I think about the people,' Sabrina said, 'Not four hundred years of wars and knights and royal processions, but the family. Especially the black sheep.'
    The three of them walked on paths that wound among a thousand rose bushes as Sabrina told stories of the black sheep of the Longworth family. 'I think they invented one every generation, partly to liven things up, but mainly so they could be as eccentric as they Uked and still have someone more disgraceful to point to.*
    Stephanie laughed. 'Is there one now?'
    'Not that I know of. I think Denton would like to be one, but his father and the board of directors frown on publicity, much less scandal.'
    *I didn't know he worked. How does he- and have so much time to travel and be with you?'
    'He works when the mood strikes. It seems he has a system
    They walked on, talking, as Garth lingered behind, turning aside to look at the high hedges of the famous Treveston maze.
    'Garth, we're going in,' Stephanie called. 'Do you want a tour of the house?'
    'I'll catch up to you,' he said. Stephanie had shown him a letter of Sabrina's that described the maze: a triangle two hundred feet long on each side, planted in 1775 by Staunton Longworth in a labyrinth of hedges where visitors could be lost for hours. Garth peered through the opening, pondering geometric patterns Staunton Longworth might have used.

    I'll tiy it later, he thought. Or tomonow, after the wedding.
    Inside the house, he followed the sound of his wife's voice. But, disconcertingly, he found it was Sabrina who was talking as he met them in the library. Odd, that over the years their voices remained identical even though they lived in different countries.
    * ... restored the ceiling,' Sabrina said, gesturing, and Garth began to pay attention,