Page 127 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
So they were in the process of buying the old Hennessy estate. It lay to the north of Carsphairn village, but on the opposite side of the main road. The estate was mostly gently rolling hills, and in the past had carried good flocks of sheep, but old man Hennessey had gradually let his flocks, and his staff, dwindle. He’d been living as a recluse for the last ten years, hiding in the old farmhouse at the center of the estate.
Richard knew the old man; he’d also known where the Hennessey children were to be found. He’d made the family as a whole a very good offer, and after much internal discussion, they’d accepted.
Soon, the old Hennessey place would be Marcus’s. He would have a place to call his own, a place tomakehis own, where he could house and continue to breed his deerhounds, and indulge in his other passion—making sheep-farming more profitable. In the latter enterprise, he already had a very useful potential partner-in-experimentation in Thomas, who through his firm, Carrick Enterprises, also had the contacts and links to better match production and supply to the most profitable demand.
They’d already drawn Thomas’s cousin Humphrey, who had stepped into Thomas’s previous role in Glasgow, into their discussions.
As he paced through the cool quiet of the forests cloaking the eastern slopes of the Rhinns of Kells, Marcus looked inside, and sensed that the tremors that had rippled through the bedrock of his life over the last month or so were finally subsiding.
He wasn’t like his twin; he didn’t have her connection to the Lady. Only when he was outside, tramping over Her land and embraced by it, did he have any sense of Her presence.
Today, he sensed that all was well, and that all would be well. His interim plan was well chosen.
The impression he received was that She approved.
Deep inside, he found that comforting. He rarely lacked for confidence; that was a trait he’d been born with in abundance, and his family and its standing had only further fostered it. But that didn’t mean he didn’t question, didn’t ask himself those most important questions in life. Such as what was he doing there, and what did he want to achieve? What would he leave for future generations? What would his name mean to them?
The same fundamental questions he felt sure everyone asked of themselves at some point. That said, he suspected that, when facing such questions, those born with supreme confidence suffered from commensurately deeper uncertainty, simply because the doubts generated by those natural and unavoidable questions grated so very powerfully against their innate assurance, undermining something they normally took for granted.
The dogs rambled to either side of him. Halting in a deeply shadowed clearing, he closed his eyes and filled his lungs—and finally felt anchored again.
On the right path—a new path, but the right one for him, at least at this time.
Confidence fully restored, he smiled and opened his eyes.
Just as the dogs to his far right alerted.
But not in any way that signaled game. He’d brought six dogs out; all drifted to the same point, all looking, heads up, ears pricked.
Tails slowly wagging.
Then the lead dog—an experienced bitch—looked back at him, tail waving more definitely. Asking for permission to go forward.
He walked across the forest floor, his steps muted by the thick mat of fallen needles. Joining the dogs, he looked ahead but could see nothing to account for the dogs’ behavior. But he couldn’t see all that far; the trees grew more thickly in that direction, and the staggered boles largely blocked his view.
Murmuring to the dogs to stay close, at heel, he started forward.
The bitch kept pace with him; he took his direction from the angle of her snout.
Whatever lay ahead, it was something the dogs were interested in.
The thick band of trees ended a few yards from the edge of an escarpment. He stepped free of the shadows—and saw another, larger pack of deerhounds scrambling to their feet. They’d been napping in the sunshine around a wide, flat-topped rock on which a lone figure sat, knees drawn up and arms wrapped around them, staring out over the Carrick estate.
The movement of her dogs brought Niniver’s head around.
He’d halted, halting his dogs as soon as hers had reacted.
Meeting Niniver’s eyes across the narrow strip of clear ground between the forest and the cliff’s edge, he waved at his dogs, then at hers. Both packs—hers was the larger by several animals—were alert, but holding still, waiting for some indication of whether the other group was friend or foe.
He arched a brow. “All right?”
She smiled slightly and nodded. She said something to her dogs—he thought it was “friends”—and the pack stood down.
He used the same word to his dogs, then walked forward.
His dogs ranged at his sides, and then the two packs were weaving together, snuffling and snorting and getting acquainted.
Reaching the stone on which Niniver sat, he looked out at the vista. “How are things going with the Carricks?”
