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now.
It’s getting late.”
    I said goodbye to him on the beach and thanked him for
trying to help. “You’re right about one thing,” I admitted. “I am tired.”
    He nodded. “Just keep in mind that Leo might’ve been
stubborn, selfish and bullheaded but he rarely made rash decisions. Perhaps you
shouldn’t be too quick to denounce this arrangement.”
    I gritted my teeth. Marry Grant? The idea was preposterous!
It seemed ridiculous that Giles, of all people, should encourage it. He was
David’s father, for heaven’s sake and only a few short weeks ago my prospective
father-in-law.
    To avoid further discussion, however, I said I’d consider
the matter. This seemed to satisfy him and he patted my hand affectionately and
jogged off down the sandy expanse toward Spindrift.
    I stood briefly at the base of the steep rise of log steps
that led up from the beach and savored the crisp, early-autumn air, heavy with
the tang of decomposing seaweed and fish, wet sand and spray. There was no use
brooding tonight. My mind was too weary to tackle much of anything.
    I turned and began to climb, remembering each step as if I
were ten years old again. Now, however, my legs felt heavy and the energy that
once saw me fly up and down with agility deserted me. I vowed to try to get
back into shape.
    When I reached the top of the ridge, I glanced back over my
shoulder at the darkening sky. The moon was already rising despite the fading
glow of sunset. It hovered like a slim ivory pendant above the lighthouse, cold
and distant, yet exquisite. I sighed. How I longed to be able to stand aside
and view the whole sordid situation without bias or emotion. I was too
involved—too close—to see it as simple, the way Giles seemed able to do.
    I trudged up the narrow path that wound through the rippling
razor grass and tangled, low-growing shrubs at the top of the cliff. Short,
delicate catkins raised their furry golden heads and danced in the breeze. The
shifting sand gave way to a darker, harder earth where briar bushes had taken
root and intertwined to form a formidable barrier along the base of the iron
fence, marking the rear boundary of Beacon’s rolling grounds.
    Grasshoppers and crickets whirred and chirruped from their
prickly hideouts, their voices rising in a unified crescendo over the clacking
reeds and the mournful shriek of a gull. The wind lifted my hair and brushed my
temple. I stood with my hand on the gate, loath to enter the structured world
beyond. But, it was no use balking and with grim conviction, I pushed through
and strode across a vast expanse of meticulously manicured lawns to the rear
gardens.
    As with everything at Beacon, these gardens were magnificent
though strangely out of place with their distinctly European flavor. Gravel
walkways edged in brick meandered and criss-crossed, lined on both sides by
blocked and trimmed evergreen hedges rising to almost six feet and serving as a
windbreak against the raw weather that swept in off the lake. At corners where
the paths intersected, the hedges were clipped into spheres at the top to
resemble corner-posts. Leo had imported a topiary expert from Rome to sculpt
them and I was grateful that in this one area he hadn’t gone overboard.
    The paths themselves met in miniature roundabouts—circling
flowerbeds thick with marigolds, asters, zinnias, lavender and roses. The
flowers were updated at the start of each season so, except during the frigid
winter months, there were blooms all year. Grotesque porcelain gnomes squatted
here and there below ivory birdbaths and somewhere nearer the house, a
miniature statue of Apollo posed above a small round lily pond where Leo’s cat,
King Kong, loved to idle away the afternoons batting at goldfish.
    Leo had painstakingly imported truckloads of dark loamy
earth from further inland to enrich the otherwise sandy soil and an army of
landscape artists from all over the world were given free rein in designing it.
Now the grounds were