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“And this is Edmund and Maude Broadcastle.” Hector introduced her to the older couple. “They’ve been with the family since before I was born.”

“Madam, pleased to meet you.” Edmund bowed from his considerable height, while Maude settled a quarter of an inch in a curtsey.

“Shall I take your luggage, Sir?” Edmund said.

“No, no, I can manage,” Hector said, worried Edmund might do himself irreparable damage if he picked up anything heavier than a newspaper.

“I’ll go and put the kettle on,” Maude said as they entered the house.

The thick-walled living room was neat, nothing was new, and it smelled of mold and wood smoke. They sat at the fireplace, where burning logs gave some warmth to one side while the other remained cold. A portrait of a man in an army captain’s uniform hung over the fireplace, and it took no great imagination on Caitrin’s part to see that it was Hector’s father. He had the same erect posture, blond hair, and clean, open features.

“I am going to chop more wood—we need it—while you two get to know each other better,” Hector said, as through the window he saw Edmund, ax in hand, tilting toward a wood pile. He hurried out to avoid catastrophe. Moments later, Maude brought in a tray, and Elinor poured them both tea.

“Bobby—”

“I’m sorry, Elinor, but I cannot get used to him being called Bobby,” Caitrin said.

“I really shouldn’t say this, but I never liked the name Hector and have always thought of him as Bobby.”

“Then why didn’t you call him Bobby from the beginning?”

Elinor gave her a wise smile. “If only it were that simple. Hector is an old family name.” She gestured toward the painting. “His father’s name was Argus. In the misty past someone decided ancient Greek names were dignified, I suppose, and we’re stuck with the tradition now.”

“Poor Bobby Hector.”

“It could have been worse. The other names under consideration were Herakles and Horace.”

“Horace? That’s habsolutely horridly hawful.”

Elinor laughed. “You have a sense of humor.”

“It was a present from my mum, and it’s the only thing that keeps me alive sometimes.” Caitrin put down her cup, stood, and went to inspect the painting. It also put her closer to the fire’s warmth. “He was a handsome man, and Hector looks just like his dad.”

“He and Bobby were so close. They went hunting and fishing together. They loved riding. Do you ride?”

“Bikes and buses.”

“We don’t have a stable anymore anyway.”

Caitrin glanced at a row of photographs beneath the painting. They showed a group of boys at a ski resort. Hector stood in the middle between two boys with huge grins, but he was not smiling.

“In their final year at St. Paul’s, Bobby went with his friend James Gordon and the class to Kolbensattel for skiing. It’s a quaint little place near Oberammergau, you know, where they hold that Passion Play every ten years, when the year ends in zero.”

“Probably not this year.”

“No, probably not for a while. All the other boys took their fathers, but my husband was not well enough to travel. Bobby didn’t say anything, but you can tell he was disappointed.”

“I understand. It must have been difficult for him.”

“It was for both of them. Now, enough about us, tell me about your family. You’re Welsh.”

“Yes. Dad was a coal miner. Died of black lung. Mum is the rock in the family. Older brother Evan was killed at Passchendaele—”

“That’s where my husband was badly wounded.”

Caitrin saw pain flicker through Elinor’s eyes. The pain blurred a little over time, losing an edge but not its weight, and would never go away. “I’m sorry.”

“And I’m sorry for your brother.”

“I was a little girl when Mum and Dad got a letter from King George V apologizing for losing Evan. At the time I didn’t understand how anyone could lose Evan because he was my big brother who I loved very much and was easy to spot. I wasn’t at all impressed with King George V. Didn’t he have hundreds of dukes and lords to help him keep track of his subjects? Later I learned Evan was not lost. He was killed in the war. I remember thinking that although King George V said he was sorry, I didn’t think he was, and one day I would go to London and tell him exactly how I felt. But George died before I could set him straight.”

“George was a fortunate monarch to have passed away before you got to him.”

“Yes, he was. My middle brother, Dafydd, is an RAF flight instructor at Kinmory, some godforsaken place high up on the west coast of Scotland; and Gareth, the baby, is away on the high seas with the Royal Navy.”

“My husband died five years ago. The pain of his injuries was always with him, and he never fully recovered. When he came back from the war, he tried so hard for so long but was not the same man.”

And at that moment Caitrin saw the woman. She saw the hurt and the loneliness. Elinor was landed gentry, and so of a different class, but far more than that she was a woman who had lost her husband, the man she loved. She remembered Hector saying that only he and his mother remained of the family. Who then could Elinor turn to in this isolated place? Surely not the superannuated servants. Elinor didn’t have what she had, a loving compassionate family. Elinor would like my mum, and she would like Elinor.

“I shan’t ask about your task because it’s probably all very hush-hush,” Elinor said, “and I suppose you both swore a dreadfully serious secret oath not to reveal anything.”

“It started that way, but now it’s beginning to feel silly, wandering around England discovering the daftest place names.”

“We have a few of our own here.”

“Yes, you do. Thackwaite.”

“Flusco.”

Are sens

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