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Power. He felt it almost as a sexual ecstasy. For those hundreds of years, the English aristocracy in Ireland, in their great mansions and castles, had wielded a cruel power throughout Ireland. But that was the time of his forebears. The power had shifted. Things political had changed, would change more. But he was not one for Sinn Fein. Not one for the IRA. Never, for him, to band together with anyone. Always, as if in some twilight place, he got revenge his own way. Power, through riches, was his. His! Not any longer for a Moore to be a stable boy under the lash of English lords. Arrogant lords. The Comerfords. He gave a sudden shudder.
    “Why is it so hot!” Torrey Tunet was looking at him, questioningly.
    At her words, he saw the wine glass in his hand, felt the warmth of the evening, and then—another shudder; it was always, always as though he himself were a stable boy of that cruel time, feeling the searing whiplash. He could feel the red welts rising, the scream in his throat.
    “ Why is it suddenly so hot? ” Torrey appealed to him. Beads of perspiration were on her upper lip. She blew a breath upward and reached for her glass of water; ice tinkled.
    Desmond forced himself from that strange miasma of the past that so often overtook him. He blinked his eyes; he became aware of the humid warmth of the evening. He watched Torrey lift the glass to her lips. Did she know what the shape of her lower lip did to men? He had plans for this young lady.
    “Kasvi,” Luke Willinger said, “Lars Kasvi. Poor fellow. And his family in Finland. Makes me think how in The Virgin Spring, that Swedish movie of Ingmar Bergman’s, the thieves who raped and murdered the girl stole her robe. That bit of thievery gave them away.” He half-turned away from Torrey on his right. He looked through the great arched dining gallery windows to where beyond the long sweep of cropped lawn lay the woods. It was barely dark and the sky was a wash of lilac and magenta, darkening to purple; the woods looked black. “Kasvi,” he said, “Lars Kasvi driving along a country road in Ireland was possibly—”
    “Plant,” Torrey Tunet said, sounding absentminded.
    “What?” Luke looked at her.
    “In Finnish. Kasvi means ‘plant’ in Finnish.”
    “Oh.” Was there any language that Torrey Tunet didn’t dance around in? The air had grown thick and humid. Tendrils of dark curls, dampened by perspiration, clung in flat, Matisse-like clusters to her brow; they looked varnished on. Luke wanted to shed his jacket; he could feel a trickle of perspiration sliding down his rib cage under his shirt.
    “Weird, this heat,” Desmond said. “It happens sometimes. We’re at fifty-two to sixty-eight Fahrenheit in July in this part of Wicklow, then—bang!—humidity comes in thick as a fog. It rolls up to the castle from the lake beyond the southwest fields a quarter of a mile away. The lake itself is like a cold drink.”
    “Ummm,” Torrey Tunet said. There was dew on her upper lip. “Sounds delicious.”
    Desmond, looking at her, ran a finger along the rim of his wine glass. “I’ve a bathhouse at the lake. Stock of towels and the like. A case of lager. Swimsuits for the chaste or modest.” He leaned toward Torrey. “Why not? After dinner, why not cool off the way God meant us to?”
    “Yes,” Torrey said. “Why not?”

14
    They left right after dinner, pushing back their chairs and going out through the great hall.
    It was a ten-minute walk on a grassy path. Tree branches above the path were dark against the magenta; there was a vestigal moon, still white. There was no breeze; here and there a firefly’s momenary flicker.
    Desmond led the way, talking over his shoulder about the Moore estate, but feverishly conscious of Torrey walking behind him at Luke Willinger’s side. In his mind’s eye, he saw her legs moving against her loose, black pants, saw the swell of her breasts with the emerald blazing between them, saw the small brown mole