Unfortunately, neither Kramer nor any of his contemporaries seemed to be in the country right now. Or, if they were, they had gone very close to the ground, leaving Cyril standing solitary in the field and ready to be struck by a mortar or bullets or a bolt of lightning. Whatever was coming, it would hit him first and hardest, and he would not be prepared. Because he refused to be.

His guilt she could understand. But this misplaced sense of duty … it was going to get him killed, and the blood would splatter her and her family. If he wouldn’t protect himself, she would have to do it for him.

Lillian had left strict instructions that Cyril and Stephen were not to leave the grounds of the estate.

Jinadh went with her to the city—work wouldn’t wait for a family crisis, especially if Lillian had been sacked. Which she had been. Overhearing that conversation from the hall, Cyril gleaned Honora’s half of it from Lillian’s responses. Given his inferences about the family’s financial situation, Cyril could understand why Jinadh left Cyril alone with his son. But he could also tell the man didn’t like it one bit.

“Be good,” he said to Stephen on the steps of the house. “Like your mother says.” Then he cast a narrow-eyed glance at Cyril. His mouth moved as though he might speak, but in the end he only gave a tense nod and joined Lillian in the back of the auto.

The car pulled away, leaving Cyril and Stephen standing at the top of the wide front steps.

“Go for a walk?” asked Cyril. “I’ll pack a picnic.”

Stephen shrugged.

Magnusson cleared his throat.

“Don’t worry,” said Cyril. “We’ll stay on the grounds. And we won’t get into any trouble.”

Which was how they ended up in Cyril’s childhood haunt: a clearing at the center of the far windbreak. When the overbearing expectations of Damesfort and the DePaul family had grown too strangling, he had run out here to play soldier, hero, hunter, spy. It was the greatest distance you could put between yourself and the village, yourself and Damesfort. The nearest ears belonged to sheep, and even those were at the far end of the field for the moment.

“What are we doing out here?” asked Stephen. He reached into the pocket of his knickerbockers and pulled out a toffee. When he dropped the wrapper, Cyril snatched it from the ground and tucked it roughly back into the pocket from whence it had come.

“Bad as a cigarette butt,” he said, patting his newly empty pocket out of habit. “Folk come by and see a stack of toffee wrappers, they know they didn’t just fall from the sky.”

He saw a teenage retort build, stall, and crumble before Stephen gave a nod very like his father’s and kept his own counsel.