At the moment, however, he was just too tired to enjoy it. He was already angry with himself for having agreed to become involved. It was the combination of the two women that had done it to him, he thought now. The one with her face so full of fears and desperate hope, the other so vivid with fury and sneering disbelief. He could have handled one or the other, he thought as he descended the steps. But being caught in the middle of all that conflicting emotion, the sheer depth of it, had defeated him.

So he would look. Though he had promised himself a long, quiet break before taking on another case, he would look. And he would pray to whatever god was listening that he could live with what he might see.

But for now, he would take some time—one long, lazy morning—to heal his fatigued mind and ragged soul.

There was a paddock behind the house, attached to a low, gleaming white stable. Even as he approached, he heard the whicker of greeting. The sound was so ordinary, so simple and welcoming that he smiled.

There they were, the sleek black stallion and the proud white mare, standing so still that he thought of two elegantly carved chess pieces, one ebony, one alabaster. Then the mare flicked her tail in a flirtatious gesture and pranced to the fence.

They could leap it, he knew. Both had done so more than once, with him in the saddle. But there was a trust between them, an understanding that the fence was not a cage but a home.

“There’s a beauty.” Sebastian lifted a hand to stroke her cheek, her long, graceful neck. “Have you been keeping your man in line, Psyche?”

She blew into his hand. In her dark eyes he saw pleasure, and what he liked to think was humor. She whinnied softly when he swung over the fence. Then she stood patiently while he passed his hands over her flanks, down over her swollen belly.

“Only a few more weeks,” he murmured. He could almost feel the life inside her, sleeping. Again he thought of Morgana, though he doubted his cousin would care to be compared to a pregnant horse, even as fine an Arabian as Psyche.

“Has Ana been taking good care of you?” He nuzzled against the mare’s neck, comforted by her quiet good nature. “Of course she has.”

He murmured and stroked for a while, giving her the attention they had both missed while he’d been away. Then he turned and looked at the stallion, who stood alert, his handsome head high.

“And you, Eros, have you been tending to your lady?”

At the sound of his name, the horse reared to paw the air, trumpeting a cry that was rich in power and almost human. The display of pride had Sebastian laughing as he crossed to the stallion.