I crooked my neck to examine the flat, narrow package on the bar beside his elbow. 'Is that my brother's writing?' I asked.

Iain nodded. 'Aye. When he was here last we got talking about the poet Robert Herrick, and Tom promised to send me his copy of Herrick's works, so I could refresh my memory. I expect that's it.'

'You mean you haven't opened it, yet?' Vivien leaned across the bar toward us, frankly incredulous. 'Honestly, Iain, you've got no proper sense of curiosity. It could be any-thing....'

'Go on, then,' he invited, nodding toward the parcel. 'Open it, if you're so eager.'

'All right, I will.' She tore at the brown paper, lifting the small book away from its wrapping with a lopsided smile. The Poems of Robert Herrick, she read the cover aloud.

Iain said nothing, but his eyes were faintly smug as he exhaled a thin stream of smoke.

'I don't think I've read any Robert Herrick,' I said.

Vivien had flipped to the table of contents. 'Well, you ought to,' she told me. 'He wrote an awful lot of poems about you.'

'About me?'

'Well, to Julia. Heaps of them. He's even got one here about Julia's clothes.'

'How fascinating,' I said dryly, leaning forward to look. Vivien turned the pages, slowly, scanning the lines.

'That's probably why your brother bought the book in the first place,' she speculated. 'He is rather fond of you, isn't he? Oh, look, here's one for you: "Then, Julia, let me woo thee, Thus, thus to come unto me; And when I shall meet Thy silv'ry feet, My soul I'll pour unto thee."' She read the sentiment with appropriate drama, frowning a little at the end. 'What do you suppose he meant by "silv'ry feet"?'

Iain sent her a lazy look. 'Would the fact that they're meeting by moonlight give you a clue?' he asked.

'Oh. I get it.'

'It's lovely stuff, most of it,' he commented, stretching out a hand to repossess the book. 'I haven't read Herrick since Cambridge. Nice of your brother to lend it to me.'

I didn't answer immediately. The poet's call for his lover to come to him still echoed in my brain like a spoken voice, deep and familiar. I shook my head a little to clear it, and smiled up at Iain. 'You must have made quite an impression,' I said. 'Tom's usually very jealous of his books. Probably my fault, come to that—I've still got volumes in my own shelves that I borrowed from him when we were kids, and never gave back.'

'And one or two of my gardening books, as well.'

'Mm, I know.' I took a hasty swallow of gin and tonic and smiled apologetically. 'It's a bad habit of mine, hoarding books. Libraries all over the country shudder at the sound of my name. I promise I'll get your garden guides back to you soon.'

'No panic' He shrugged. 'I don't use them much, anymore, and you seem to be getting something from them. The garden looks good.'

'You've seen it recently?' My voice was a casual probe.

'Couple of days ago.'

'Oh. I'm sorry the bleeding hearts got ruined,' I said, but Iain's response was philosophic.

'Not your fault,' he absolved me. 'It's not as if you mowed them down yourself. These things happen. Could I get another, love?' he asked Vivien, lifting his empty glass a few inches off the bar. 'Certainly. Julia?' She looked a question at me, but I shook my head. My restlessness had reasserted itself, and I wanted to be on the move.

'Actually,' I said, 'I think I'll drop in and see your aunt for a few minutes. Is she likely to still be at the Hall?'

Vivien checked her watch. 'At three-fifteen? I should think so. Even with Geoff away, she usually keeps at it until supper time. It's a lot of house to clean.'

'Should I telephone her first, do you think?'

'Who, Freda?' Iain's mouth quirked, amused. 'There's no need. She'll have a pot of tea waiting for you when you get there, you just see if she doesn't.'

He was, as it turned out, quite right. It was wonderful to walk into that warm, bright kitchen, where the teapot huddled under its checked cozy on the table while the kettle whined a dying whistle on the stove and the sweet smell of indefinable baking permeated everything.

'What a lovely surprise,' Alfreda Hutherson said, filling my teacup and setting a plate of warm scones on the table between us. 'I was hoping for an afternoon visit.'

'It's a visit with a purpose, actually,' I told her, biting into a crumbling scone that dripped with butter. 'Are there any tours going on in the house today?'

'Not on Wednesdays, no.' She tilted her head and looked at me, her eyes shrewd and knowing. 'You want to use one of the rooms.' It was not a question.

'Yes.' I gathered my courage and looked up. 'I want to know what it was that Mariana saw through the window in the Cavalier bedroom. All my flashbacks are tied to a physical place, you see, and I have to be standing on that exact spot if I want to go back there.'

'Yes, I know. But are you sure that you want to go back to that moment just yet? You felt the pain yourself.'

I was silent a moment, remembering. 'I have to know,' I said, finally. 'You should understand that. These people, they're all so real to me.... I have to know.'

'Would you like me to go with you?' 'No, thanks,' I said hastily, smiling to soften the rudeness. 'I'd be embarrassed to have someone watching me.'