Anne Bishop - Shadows and Light

Ahern studied Liam and the bay. Then he nodded. “You’ll do for him. His name is Oakdancer. Come along now. There’s work to be done before the two of you leave here.”

Liam thought the old man had meant settling on a price or taking care of paperwork. Instead, he found himself in the training ring for the rest of the day while Ahern put man and horse through their paces.

By the time they left Ahern’s farm two days later, he and Oakdancer were comfortable with each other, and the old man’s parting words, “He trusts you as a rider,” were the finest compliment he’d ever received.

His father had sneered when he brought the stallion home....

“Oakdancer? What kind of name is that for a horse?”

.. . but Liam had been astute enough to see the envy in the old baron’s eyes.

The stallion, on the other hand, had hated the old baron on sight. Had hated Flint and the rest of the stable men. For that first year, Liam had taken care of Oakdancer, since the horse wouldn’t tolerate the other men—until Arthur showed up one day, a pale, starving youth who was looking for any kind of work. He had an almost magical touch when it came to horses, and Oakdancer responded to him as if they’d been friends their whole lives.

“Here he is, Baron,” Arthur said, leading Oakdancer out of the stables.

“Thank you, Arthur,” Liam replied. He mounted, took a moment to test the feel of the saddle. No, there was no need to tighten the girth. There never was with this horse.

Arthur stepped back, brushed a finger against an imaginary cap brim, then retreated inside the stables.

Liam kept the stallion to an active walk until they were away from the house and stables. The moment he eased the reins a little, Oakdancer lifted into an easy canter that swiftly changed to a gallop.

They flew over the land, and for a few short minutes, Liam’s world narrowed to the horse beneath him, the wind in his face, and the land that rose up and flowed away.

Then they reached Willow’s Brook—and the bridge.

Oakdancer pricked his ears and dashed for the bridge.

Liam sat deep in the saddle and reined the resisting horse to a halt.

Oakdancer tossed his head. Snorted. Stamped a foot.

That bridge, Liam thought as he studied the stones that looked as if they’d come together on their own accord to span the brook. What is on the other side of that damn bridge?

The Old Place. A place his father had forbidden him to set foot, threatening disinheritance as well as a beating if Liam ever disobeyed. A bad place, his father had said. No place for good, decent men.

If what Elinore said was true, his father had crossed that bridge at least once. Of course, he doubted if anyone in this county thought his father had been a good, decent man.

The Old Place. The home of the witches—the women he had to come to terms with, somehow, if he was going to prevent his mother from leaving the family home with his little sister.

“Come on, boy,” Liam said. “Let’s find out what’s on the other side of that bridge.”

After crossing the bridge, they trotted down the road, such as it was, for several minutes before the house came into sight.

He wasn’t sure what he expected. A tumbled-down cottage. Or a neat cottage. Maybe even a small stone house.

This was an old manor house that rivaled any gentry home in the neighborhood, with the exception of his family home. To the right was a stone arch, large enough for a wagon to pass through, that connected the main house to another building.

Dismounting, Liam led Oakdancer toward the arch. No servant came out to take charge of the horse. Peering up at the house’s windows, he didn’t see anyone peering back. Had they gone somewhere? Did they even have any servants? Until now, he’d never wondered about them. Not really. They’d been one of the forbidden things of childhood, but, as he grew older, it always seemed easier just not to think of them. Now he was standing in front of the witches’ house. He was standing in the Old Place. And he had no idea if he should knock on the door, as he would have done with another neighbor, or ride away.

“At least I can tell Mother that I tried,” he muttered, turning toward Oakdancer.

As he gathered the reins and prepared to mount, a woman yelled, “Idjit! Drop that, you mongreled excuse of a flea-infested dog!”

The reins slipped from his hands before he realized he’d responded to that angry command. His heart jumped into his throat. Would they curse him for daring to step onto their land? If that were the case, he wouldn’t show them his back while they were doing it.

“Idjit!”

Liam turned and took a step forward at the same moment a small black dog, its tail happily curled over its back, ran through the arch toward him. A piece of white linen was clamped firmly in its jaws, its length flapping and dragging on the ground.

Grinning with relief that something else could qualify for a mongreled excuse of a dog, Liam dropped to one knee and held out a hand. The dog, with what Liam would have sworn was laughter in its eyes, loped toward him, tossing its head to show off its prize. When the dog got close enough to tease and invite him to play, Liam grabbed one end of the linen with one hand at the same time he grabbed the dog by the scruff with the other. Ignoring the hand that held it, the dog opened its jaws to get a better grip on its prize. Liam whipped the linen behind his back and stood up.

The dog watched him, its mouth open in a grin as it danced back and forth in front of him.

“Game’s over,” Liam said, glancing up to see a dark-haired woman run through the archway, then skid to a halt.

The dog raced around him, forcing him to turn to keep the linen away from it.

“Idjit!” the woman said sternly, placing her fists on her hips. “Sit!”

The dog stopped racing around Liam, stood on its hind legs, and turned in a circle.

“Sit!”

The dog lay down, then rolled over twice.

“Did someone drop him on his head when he was a puppy?” Liam asked.

“It’s possible,” the woman replied, her lips twitching with the effort not to grin. “He’s either very dumb or very smart. We just can’t tell which it is.” Then she really looked at him, and humor gave way to uncertainty. “You seem familiar, but...”

Taking a good look at her, Liam felt his heart jump into his throat for the second time in the past few minutes. The young woman standing before him looked more like his sister than Brooke did. She had dark brown hair like his, the same woodland eyes. Her face was a feminine variation of his own. He’d hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted to be able to dismiss what Elinore had said—or at least think of this woman with the same emotional distance he managed with his father’s other bastards. But he couldn’t dismiss what had been said, couldn’t maintain a distance. With her, the word sister hummed through him. A like mind. A like heart. Someone who saw the same world that he did and yet saw it differently. He felt as if one of them had been gone on a long journey and had finally come home, and they just had to get reacquainted all over again.

Except he’d never seen her before, had never spoken to her, had no idea if she really was of like mind where anything was concerned. And he didn’t want to feel anything toward her. He hadn’t come here to feel anything toward any of them.

She still seemed to puzzle over who he was—until she looked over his shoulder and noticed the stallion. Then her face became hard and cold. He knew that expression, too. His father had worn it often enough.

“So,” she said with icy courtesy. “The new baron has come to pay a call. Why?”