Free Bloody Kin by Margaret Maron Page B

this be Aunt Elaine next to your mother because they were sisters. Then we draw double lines from Aunt Elaine to me and put me in here like this because we were married.”
    “Do Uncle James, too, please.”
    Patiently, Gordon drew in the figure and lines that included his brother on the crowded chart.
    Kate began to regret that she’d brought up the subject of kinship, but if Gordon was pained by this mention of James and Elaine, he hid it from his niece.
    “No, honey, we can’t put lines to Sally. She’s not kin. But here’s Uncle Lacy.”
    The entrance of dessert sent Mary Pat back to her chair. Their conversation turned to kittens and Kate invited her to come back the next afternoon to find the kitten Lacy had given her.
    “We’ll have coffee in the study,” Gordon told the maid and as they left the dining room, Sally Whitley appeared on the landing above.
    She gave Kate a shy smile and beckoned to Mary Pat. “Time to get ready for bed.”
    “Off you go,” said Gordon.
    Still carrying the tablet, Mary Pat scampered up the wide carpeted stairs. “Guess what, Sally? I’m going to have a second cousin on both sides!”
    Gordon laughed as they entered the study. “I hope you’re prepared for the whole neighborhood to know.”
    It was a welcoming room. Books lined the fireplace wall and a fire in the hearth banished the slight chill that had appeared after the sun went down. The lamps cast mellow pools of light upon a faded oriental rug and over comfortable leather chairs and couches.
    The maid—Kate thought she was one of Bessie Stewart’s nieces, but she wasn’t sure—followed with the coffee tray and then withdrew.
    Gordon brought a bottle from a side cabinet. “Brandy in yours?”
    “No, thank-you. I probably shouldn’t even be drinking this much coffee. I will join you in a cigarette, though.”
    He held a light for both of them. “I should think cigarettes would be verboten.”
    “They are,” she sighed. “I’ve cut down to less than half a pack a day, but I just can’t seem to quit altogether. Especially after a meal when there’s someone to talk to. And that ,” she added grimly, “is the first positive thing about life with Lacy Honeycutt that I’ve come up with. After a week of facing him at every meal, I’ll probably be cured of ever wanting another cigarette.”
    “Don’t be bitter, Kate. It’s been rough on him, too.”
    She shrugged and Gordon stooped to put another log on the fire. He seemed awkward for a moment.
    “Was it the left leg you broke?” she asked.
    Gordon nodded. “It’s pretty much healed, but the doctors said I could expect some continuing weakness there for at least a year. I’ve acquired quite a collection of canes for my old age. Midge and Knowland Whaley—did you ever meet them?”
    Kate shook her head.
    “They sent me a gold-headed cane from Cannes and Sean Riley—”
    “A redheaded Irishman with a professional brogue?”
    “The same. He turned up at the hospital in Mexico with an authentic shillelagh. I was still pretty groggy, bandaged from head to foot like King Tut’s mummy, but damned if he didn’t make me laugh before the nurses chased him out.”
    “How long were you actually in the hospital?”
    “Eight weeks total, I think it was. From early September to late October. The concussion kept me in a coma for almost ten days.”
    He fingered the scar along his jawline. “This took twelve stitches, they tell me.”
    Kate made a sympathetic sound.
    “The worst thing about it is that the whole day was wiped out of my memory.”
    Gordon resumed his seat on the couch and stared into the flames.
    “I remember dinner on the terrace the evening before. James and the Harknesses were spending a few days with us and Cyrus Dickerson called and invited us to go sailing the next day. It was a ninety-footer, teak deck—beautiful thing. Crew of three. The Harknesses loved messing about in boats. Jill’s father was one of the stewards at