Free Bloody Kin by Margaret Maron Page A

Colleton County tables. Pork is the mainstay of most meals, followed closely by chicken and beef. Pan fish are also favored, as well as any kind of shellfish so long as it can be battered and deep-fried; but eating baby sheep carries outlandish connotations and, as they went into dinner, Gordon Tyrrell had Kate laughing over how he’d initiated Mrs. Faircloth into the mysteries of buying and then cooking a leg of lamb. Kate described Lacy’s reaction to his first grilled lamb chop; and by the time Gordon finished carving, Mary Pat had lost her shyness of Kate and was peppering the dinner with questions about the baby.
    “But when will it come?” she asked again, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement.
    “In four more months—around the Fourth of July,” said Kate. “Independence Day will probably be my last day of independence.”
    Mary Pat looked puzzled and there was a brief digression as Gordon tried to explain the significance of the Fourth and American independence.
    He was extraordinarily patient with the child, thought Kate approvingly. Although Mary Pat displayed the precocity of most children raised in the company of adults, she seemed unspoiled. The conversation was geared to her level and her questions were taken seriously, but she was not allowed to monopolize.
    Seated beneath the crystal chandelier, the little girl looked more like Park Avenue tonight than Tobacco Road. Her dark curls were brushed to a sheen, parted on the side, and held back from her face with a delicate cloisonné barrette. Instead of scuffed sneakers, she wore black patent-leather Mary Janes and long white socks, and her scruffy knit slacks and pullover had been replaced by a white batiste dress smocked with green threads and laced at the waist with a thin green velvet ribbon. Her small face was a blend of her parents’ best features, and when she cut her eyes at Kate without moving her head as Patricia once had, or when her lips quirked in one of Philip’s smiles, Kate was captivated.
    “You know one nice thing about my baby?” she told Mary Pat. “You two will be double cousins.”
    “What’s that?” the child asked.
    “It means you share great-grandfathers on both sides.”
    Mary Pat was startled. “Sides?” she asked, looking down at both elbows.
    “Let’s see you explain that,” said Gordon, amused.
    Kate requested paper and pen and the maid produced them. “Southerners aren’t the only ones who keep their bloodlines straight,” she said, and hoped she would remember all that Miss Emily had told her that morning.
    Mary Pat slipped from her chair and came to stand by Kate’s shoulder.
    “Let’s say this is you,” said Kate, sketching in a small stick figure with twin ponytails. “And this is the baby.”
    On the other side of the sheet appeared a bundle with a tiny smiling face.
    “Here are your mother and father, and here’re Jake and me.”
    “Will you die, too, after the baby comes?”
    “No, sweetheart,” she said before Gordon could admonish Mary Pat.
    “Now here’s your grandfather Franklin Gilbert and your greatgrandfather Gilbert. Where you have grandfather Franklin, the baby has grandmother Jane. Jane and Franklin were brother and sister and had the same daddy. Your mother and Jake were first cousins so you and the baby will be second cousins on your Gilbert side. Got that?” she asked as her pencil deftly sketched amusing little stick figures.
    Mary Pat nodded.
    “Okay. Your dad and my mother had the same grandfather Carmichael, so you and I are second cousins and the baby will be your second cousin once-removed on the Carmichael side!” Kate finished triumphantly.
    “Bravo!” Gordon applauded and lifted his wine glass in toast.
    Mary Pat carried the tablet to the other end of the table. “Where are you, Uncle Gordon?”
    Gordon touched the Patricia figure with the pencil tip. “This is your mother, right?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I can’t draw as well as Cousin Kate, but we’ll let