Free Where Love Dwells by Delia Parr Page A

all. But if she did, I wouldn’t even consider taking any responsibility for her, even temporarily, without talking it over with you first.”
    â€œWould you be discussing it with me as your lawyer? Or as your future husband?”
    â€œBoth,” she admitted.
    Apparently satisfied, if only for the moment, he nodded and started them toward Hill House again without saying another word. But Emma sensed they were no longer walking alone.
    Wryn now walked between them, as surely as she had walked between her mother and stepfather, and Mark and Catherine.

7
    I DIDN’T RUN OFF, and you should have known I didn’t run off, because I didn’t leave a note. I always, always leave a note because that’s how it is done. When you run away, you must leave a note.”
    With a toss of her head, Wryn folded her arms across her chest and let her words echo in the library. With her lips pursed, she sat straight and stiff, with her back to the fireplace, where a softly burning fire chased the early evening chill from the room. Framed with the glow from the fire, she appeared almost angelic; hardly the image that suited her at the moment, considering her behavior for the day.
    Seated a fair distance to Wryn’s left, Emma held silent, as well, which was no small accomplishment for her. As proprietress of Hill House, she was not accustomed to relinquishing authority when confronted with disagreements between guests, but Mark and Catherine and Wryn were not guests. They were family, although Wryn’s relationship to Emma was dubious.
    Still, she was careful to keep to the boundaries she had set for herself as merely an observer before this family meeting had begun. Unless Mark asked her a direct question or specifically asked her tointervene, she was not going to say a word. Mark was no longer a child. He was a grown man, a husband and a father, and she needed to allow him to exercise his authority as the head of his family, particularly where Wryn was concerned.
    â€œForgive me for jumping to an erroneous conclusion that you had run away,” Mark snapped, clearly frustrated by the way Wryn had spent the past twenty minutes cleverly twisting his words to suit herself and manipulating the conversation to confuse the very issue that had brought her here. “I wasn’t aware there were rules surrounding exactly what a fifteen-year-old was supposed to do if and when she decided to run away.”
    â€œI didn’t say there were rules. I said that I always leave a note when I run off, which you would have known if you had taken the time to speak to my mother about it. You obviously didn’t cover the topic well, which surprises me because you seem to know practically everything else I’ve done. Unless she deliberately didn’t tell you, which wouldn’t surprise me at all. She’s good at hiding things. She’s good at lots of things that aren’t—”
    â€œDon’t be disrespectful when talking about your mother,” Mark cautioned in the sternest voice he had used so far.
    Catherine placed her hand on her husband’s arm and addressed her niece for the first time. “Mark and I were very worried about you,” she said gently. “Uncle Mark clearly asked you to remain in your room. When we found you weren’t there later, we had no idea that—”
    â€œThat I might not have run off and that I might simply have wanted to see the town for myself? Or that I might want to have something to give to everyone here? You were so busy getting ready to come for this visit and to make sure you had something special for everyone, you never once thought that I mightwant to have something to give them, did you?” Wryn said, once again diverting fault from herself to Mark and Catherine.
    â€œNo, I . . . I suppose I didn’t,” Catherine murmured, clearly as frustrated as her husband.
    Emma held tight to the keepsakes in her pocket. Unfortunately,