It was, therefore, of special concern to him that the new nanny, Mrs. Baylock, often took Damien there, finding God-knows-what to amuse him with for hours at a time. Horton also noticed, on helping his wife sort through the laundry, that the boy's clothing had a great many dark hairs on them, as though he had been playing with an animal. But he failed to make any connection between the animal hairs and the trips into the Pereford forest, chalking it up to just another one of the disturbing aspects of Pereford House, of which there were coming to be many.

For one thing Katherine was spending less and less time with her child, somehow replaced by the new, exuberant nanny. It was true that Mrs. Baylock was a devoted governess and that the child had come to love her as well. But it was disquieting, even unnatural, that the boy preferred her company to that of his own mother. The entire staff had noticed it and talked about it, feeling hurt for their mistress's sake that she had been replaced in her child's affections by an employee. They wished that Mrs. Baylock would leave. But instead each day found her more firmly entrenched, exerting more influence on the masters of the house.

As for Katherine, she felt much the same way, but found herself helpless, unwilling to allow jealousy to again interfere with someone's affection for her child. She felt responsible for once having robbed Damien of a cherished companion, and she was loath to let it happen again. When, after the second week, Mrs. Baylock asked to move her sleeping quarters to a room directly opposite Damien's, Katherine consented. Perhaps among the rich this was how it was supposed to be. Katherine herself had been raised in more modest circumstances where it was a mother's job, and her only job, to be the companion and protector of her child. But life was very different here. She was the mistress of a great house, and perhaps it was time she started behaving that way.

Her newfound freedom was occupied in all the right ways; ways her husband heartily approved of. Mornings were taken up with charity causes, afternoons devoted to politically oriented teas. Thorn's wife was no longer the social oddball, the fragile flower, but a lioness possessed of an energy and confidence he had never seen before. This was the wife he had dreamed of for himself, and although the sudden change in personality was somehow disquieting, he did nothing to stand in her way. Even her lovemaking had changed, becoming more exciting, more passionate; Thorn failed to realize that it was possibly an expression of desperation rather than desire.