Demon Child

wounds.”
        The rain was no longer falling as heavily as it had been throughout the night. Overhead, the thick clouds parted for a short moment, let through a spear of white moonlight.
        Richard continued. “Apparently, Hobarth couldn't get Brutus to do a thorough enough job on a sleeping horse. The dog probably wanted a live adversary, one that would provide some challenge, that would scream and kick a little. Hobarth anticipated this and brought the hand-sized rake along with which he finished the job on Hollycross.”
        Jenny shuddered. “How ghastly!”
        Richard put his arm about her.
        She accepted it, gladly.
        “It is especially ghastly,” Richard said, “if you consider how pointless Symington's murder was. They knew he had found Brutus' hairs in the stall and that the hairs might lead him to them somehow. But neither Hobarth nor Malmont could be aware how much Symington already knew-how much I knew as well. The hairs would have helped us trace the killer dog sooner, that's all. But without them, knowing what we did, we would eventually have gotten around to the guilty parties.”
        “When you sneaked to the stables that night-when I saw you from my window-?”
        “It occurred to me that whoever was involved might try another bit of terror tactics that night. Cora would probably have snapped if another horse had died like the first. So I went down there to wait. But no one ever showed up.”
        Neither of them spoke for a time.
        The rain had all but stopped.
        The clouds were parting more than before.
        It was a large moon that shone on them, three-quarters full, its corona lengthened by all the moisture in the night air.
        “Do I pass inspection, Miss Jenny?” he asked. That boyish smile had returned after being kept under wraps for so long. “Have I explained myself thoroughly enough?”
        She thought a moment, recalling his actions of the past weeks. She said, “No. You haven't.”
        He looked surprised. “What did I leave out?”
        “You've been acting strangely otherwise,” she said. She wondered why she had to bring these things up now. She knew that he was not the one she should fear. He was the one who had saved her life, who had saved the Brucker land, Freya, Cora, all of them. Yet there was some small voice that urged her to go on.
        “If you mean the way I've acted with Cora, I'll admit it was not proper. But you can see the pressure I was under. I knew someone was so interested in the land that they would go to almost any lengths to obtain it. I never knew for sure what they might do next, to what extremes they were willing to press us.” He paused. “I'm not offering this as an excuse, you understand. My behavior was, at times, inexcusable. But I want you to see that I wasn't a complete beast.”
        “That's not it either.”
        He looked worried. “What, then?”
        “Do you remember when Walter and I were sitting on the lawn, down by the woods, watching the squirrels? And you were standing behind the house, watching us?”
        He seemed to blush.
        “Yes,” he said.
        “I wondered why you were looking at us that way. And later that same day, after dinner, you cornered me in the drawing room, when Hobarth went to bed and Cora was in the kitchen. I thought you were starting to confide something in me. But Cora returned, and you didn't have the chance. Anyway, your behavior was quite odd.”
        There was a moment of awkward silence in which Richard could not bring himself to look directly at her. Then he shook himself and raised his head to stare into her eyes.
        “When a man begins to realize that his feelings for a woman go beyond mere friendship-and when he sees that woman is more attracted to someone else than she is to him, he has every right in the world to act strangely, I believe.” He smiled at her. “Don't you agree?”
        Her head seemed to balloon, and she felt dizzy. “What do you mean?” she asked.
        “I thought I'd made it clear.”
        “Make it clearer,” she said.
        He laughed. “Well, I suspect that I have either fallen or am falling in love with you, Jenny.”
        “You don't know which?”
        “Wait until we get this incredible mess straightened out. Then I'll be better able to know exactly what is going on inside my head-and inside my heart.”
        “You're my cousin,” she