Seacliff by Felicia Andrews

why, he couldn’t hate us more if we were the French.” She looked past Gwen to the front hall, feeling the tension make a wooden mask of her face, and an icy flow of her veins.
    “It doesn’t matter that he dislikes you,” she said sternly. “Though God knows you’ve given him little chance to feel anything different.”
    “Cat, please—”
    “And,” she said, her voice rising, “it does not matter to me what Davy said to him. I do not approve, mind, but I know the lad well, and he must have been provoked or he would not have said something so completely, so terribly wrong.” Her eyes narrowed then, and Gwen backed away from her. “It was wrong; you must understand that, Gwen. It was wrong, what Davy said.”
    Gwen nodded quickly.
    “And it was equally wrong for my husband to strike him. He has no right. Provoked or not, he should not have raised a hand.” A fist pressed hard to her chest. “He has no right!”
    In the face of Caitlin’s anger Gwen seemed abruptly ill at ease, regretting that she had said anything at all. Her lips moved soundlessly, and her expression lost its combination of rage and sadness, twisting instead into fearful concern.
    “Cat, he mustn’t know what I’ve told you. He mustn’t know I’ve said anything at all.”
    “What?” she snapped, the obsidian eyes turned to glaring stone.
    “If …if you say something to him, he’ll only take it out on poor Davy again. Or on me. It’ll only be worse, Cat, believe me. I’m…” She put a trembling hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry I said anything at all.”
    “No,” Caitlin told her sharply, striding purposefully off the hearth and taking her friend’s hands in her own. “My God, no, Gwen, you must never think that. Never. You must tell me everything. Do you hear me? I’m not permitted to discipline Bradford or the others, and by God I don’t care what Oliver thinks, he is not permitted to take such charge of my people. My own people!”
    She took a trembling deep breath to say more, to bring some small comfort to ease the pain Gwen was feeling, but in the midst of her pause she could hear the clatter of heavy footsteps descending from the gallery.
    “Listen, Gwen,” she said quickly, her gaze on the doorway. “You must promise me something.”
    “Cat—”
    She lowered her voice almost to a hissing. “There’s no time! You must promise me something.”
    Gwen, confused, nodded rapidly.
    “If this ever happens again, or if anything like it comes to your ken, you must come to me at once, do you understand?”
    “I … yes.”
    “You swear to me, Gwen?”
    Gwen put a hand over her heart. “I swear.”
    The footsteps paused, their echoes in the hall swiftly fading.
    “All right, then. Get along now, before he finds you here. I’ll speak to him, believe me. This won’t happen again.”
    Gwen opened her mouth as though she were anxious to say something more, but the renewed hard crack of boot heels against stone sent her racing from the room, through a narrow door in the paneled back wall. Caitlin waited with hands at her sides until Oliver stood framed in the doorway. He wore his black silk dressing gown open as if it had been flung on in haste, and his shirt was unfastened halfway down his chest; the disarray took her aback until her mind’s ear heard again the distress in Gwen’s voice.
    “Oliver, I must talk to you.”
    Oliver nodded once, but said nothing. He walked calmly to the brandy and poured himself a portion much larger than he usually took so soon before dinner. He stared at the glass for several long moments, and her own tempered anger prevented her from seeing immediately that his face seemed abruptly older, more lined, and that the flesh on his scalp appeared as fragile as parchment.
    “Oliver?”
    He lowered the glass without sipping the brandy and crossed to her side to lead her to the couch.
    “Oliver, what is it?”
    He cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable. “This afternoon,” he