From Across the Ancient Waters by Michael Phillips Page B

words rankled, but an argument now would not help his cause.
    “Don’t worry about a thing, Edward,” put in Westbrooke with blustery confidence. “We shall have an amiable time of it. Although I dare say the country life may be more dangerous than you bargained for,” he added, laughing.
    “How do you mean?” asked the vicar.
    “Tilman Heygate, my factor, came to the house early this morning to tell me that the body of an old man was found on the shore a mile south of the harbor just after daylight by one of the village fishermen.”
    “Who, Roderick?” asked Mrs. Westbrooke in alarm.
    “Old Sean Drindod.”
    “The poor man!” she exclaimed as her hand came to her mouth.
    “Drowned?” asked the vicar.
    “No, actually. That’s the curious part,” answered Westbrooke seriously. “Seems his neck was broken.”
    “What happened?” asked his brother-in-law.
    “No one knows. There appears no sign he’d fallen among the rocks. I’ll ride into town later this morning and speak with the magistrate. At the moment it appears he was murdered.”
    His wife gasped as her face went white. Silence fell around the table.
    Lord Snowdon quickly resumed his zestful spirits. “I assure you such occurrences are most out of the ordinary.” He laughed, though his wife’s face remained pale. “As I said, Percival will be most welcome. We shall make a man of the young Scotsman! Once he has a taste of the country life, you may never get him back to Glasgow.”
    “Thank you, Roderick,” replied the vicar. “You cannot know how much this means to Mary and me.”
    “It is the least we can do for your brother, is it not, Katherine?” replied the viscount. He glanced briefly across the table to his wife. “If the lad proves troublesome,” he said, throwing Percy a quick wink and grin, “I shall hire him out to one of my tenants to help with the sheep shearing or send him to sea on one of the fishermen’s boats. Eh, Percival, my boy? Hard work and country air—that’s what’s wanted. We shall provide both in good measure.”
    Lord Snowdon’s words rang a little hollow in his wife’s ears, seeing as how he had never taken the slightest interest in making a man, as he put it, of his own son, who would sooner have jumped over the moon than soiled
his
hands in the matted wool of a dirty sheep. But the moment her brother’s letter had arrived from Glasgow with its request, the viscount had perceived his opportunity to reestablish himself in his wife’s good graces. Well knowing her family’s notions of spirituality and Katherine’s fondness for her older brother, Westbrooke determined to assist her side of the family in the matter of their wayward son. Secretly he hoped for the result of his wife’s loosening up her purse strings. Toward that end he would make himself everything an aristocratic country uncle should be to a Glasgow-bred youth. Thus he would win favor with the brother-in-law
and
his wife.
    Whether eighteen-year-old Courtenay would greet the presence of his city cousin with equal jubilation was doubtful. He had behaved himself last night. Yet from the moment Percy’s eyes met those of Courtenay Westbrooke, his elder by a year and a half, it was clear that a contest for supremacy was inevitable. Courtenay’s fifteen-year-old sister, Florilyn, was every bit the equal of either boy in feisty self-centeredness. But she would gain her ends by wile rather than bluff. She possessed the face and physique of an eighteen-year-old, with cunning and coquetry in equal measure. She was already turning more heads among local old youths than either of her parents had any idea and had bewitched several to attempt foolhardy exploits to gain her notice.
    That both young Westbrookes were as spoiled as money could make them was as much a grief to their mother as it was object of humorous jocularity to their father. The viscount was not a man for whom character was life’s highest ambition, either for himself or his