Elisabeth Kidd Read Free

skirmishing in the form of accusing a member of the rival family of cheating at cards, stealing cattle, and the like.
    The most recent aggravation of The Quarrel had occurred, unwittingly this time on both sides, when Dulcie Jerome became engaged to Richard, Viscount Ashton, heir to the fifth Earl of Kimborough. Shortly after, however, Dulcie had—by sheer accident, to be sure—made the acquaintance of the Honorable Henry Bromley at a village fête, fallen instantly in love, and eloped with him.
    Richard Ashton, although initially lukewarm to his prospective bride, now became incensed, accused Henry of “stealing” her, and would have challenged him to a duel had not his father forbade the meeting on the sensible grounds that Henry was much the better shot. Henry’s own father had attempted to use the occasion to mend the ancient quarrel, but Lord Kimborough, considering that he had done all that anyone might expect of him in speaking so to his heir, drew the line at speaking at all to his neighbor.
    Now, Henry reflected with a full sense of the irony of the situation, his ever-unpredictable father seemed to be making a last attempt at peacemaking. He turned his attention eagerly back to the reading.
    “…and to my friend and neighbor, Simon Ogilvey, I bequeath that piece of land which marches with his between Michael’s Bridge and his south orchard, the separate deed to which is to be handed over to him in trust to his heirs in perpetuity.”
    Now everyone’s attention was caught, for no one could have missed the significance of that particular piece of land—the very one in dispute more than a century ago, which had given rise to The Quarrel. To give it over in such a way to a neutral party must leave no one in doubt of the late earl’s desire for reconciliation with his neighbors.
    Sabina’s wandering wits came back from the bright, sunny world outside into the funereal atmosphere of the library, which seemed now even more oppressive with portents of greater revelations to come. She sat up, clutching her hands together in her lap and staring intently at Mr. Quigley. Her lovely mouth and dark eyes seemed to stand out even more against her pale face, and Henry was struck for the first time with the realization that his pert tomboy sister had disappeared forever. Since Sabina was now four-and-twenty, this should not have been such a shock as it was, but Henry had loved the scamp Sabina had been as a girl enough to continue to think affectionately of her in that way long past her girlhood.
    To be sure, she had taken on a greater responsibility when her mother died and left the management of the household to Sabina at the tender age of fifteen. And she must have grown up forcibly when Peter Ogilvey was killed not six months before they were to be married. But Henry had been off on a protracted honeymoon at the time and, even had he been able to hurry back from Jamaica to comfort her, Dulcie had pointed out, their own happiness might only serve to deepen his sister’s misery. And so he had not been there, and when they met again, Sabina had seemed fully recovered from her loss and once again the merry companion he had always found her. Peter’s death must have had some effect on her, but these things crept up on one so subtly, how was one to know when youth and innocence had gone forever?
    “…from the income from my estates at Redmond and Killingborough…,” Mr. Quigley was saying now in a higher, clearer voice, as if he expected to be interrupted at any moment, “…in trust for my daughter Sabina Marie and, in the event of her marriage…”
    Henry scowled. What was this? He glanced at Sabina, who seemed to be equally in the dark but expecting the worst. Could their father really be cutting his most loved child, his “pet,” as Randolph had called her in full truth, off with the most niggardly of small allowances if she did not marry? Even if she married, it seemed, she would have no more than a