“Hm. I guess they too will have to get used to each other.” I can just about picture how that’s going.

Lois doesn’t like Miriam, but not many of the staff seem to. I get it. And part of me wonders if I should have left her upstairs with Mercedes. If I should have done what I did because Mercedes’s pride will be wounded. But then I remember the ruined suit. A little humility may be good for her. I have no doubt she’ll survive.

Besides, other things are more important. Like where those scars came from.

I leave the kitchen and go to my study. This room has become my dark sanctuary with mahogany wood paneling, a black marble fireplace, and heavy, antique furnishings that date back over a hundred years. The smell of cigar smoke still clings to the walls from the time my grandfather, Carlisle Montgomery, used to occupy this space. I stop to take in the portrait of him. He’s alone in this one. In the living room is another with my grandfather, grandmother and my father painted when he was fifteen years old. He looks like me, my grandfather. Or I look like him. Exactly like him.

Shifting my gaze, I put the thought out of my head. I am not my grandfather.

I walk around the large desk, glancing out of the windows into the garden. Warm lights showcase the large swimming pool, the curving patio with its three separate seating areas, and pots and pots of flowering plants. Beyond it, a path curves toward the stables that house my horses. Past those stables, and not visible from the house, are the cottages once used by staff. Some still are, and some are empty. My mother lives in one. She moved out of the main house after my father’s death.

I sit down in the worn leather chair and lean back. It’s been six months since my grandfather’s death, but it’s still sometimes hard to grasp that he’s gone. That the house, its contents, the stables, the horses, and the grounds are all mine.

Theron’s dark eyes meet mine from the framed photo on the edge of the desk. Theron is my younger brother. He’s been gone for years. Left the night of his twenty-fifth birthday. He’ll be back soon enough, though, now that grandfather is gone. He has to return. I cut off his allowance, so he’ll show his face. And then we can have our reckoning.

But now isn’t the time to think of them.