Silver Moon by Monica Barrie Page B

love rose to torment him. When he arrived at the sugar plantation, night had come with a darkness that was bright, compared with the shadows filling Brace’s mind.
    The only light in the main house came through the open balcony doors of the upper hallway. The rest of the windows were dark. He dismounted, unsaddled his gelding, and put the horse in its stall. When he came out of the stable, he noticed that a light shone through his parents’ bedroom window.
    Pausing for a moment, Brace considered disturbing them to say hello, but decided against it. He would speak to them in the morning.
    Nodding to himself, Brace started toward the east wing and his room. Halfway there he saw the coal-red, hazy glow of his father’s pipe.
    “Good evening, Brace,” Charles greeted him.
    “Good evening, Father.”
    “How is your land coming along?”
    “Nicely,” Brace replied, aware of the stiffness of their conversation.
    Charles smiled at Brace and lifted his hand, pointing the pipe’s stem toward the garden. “Walk with me?”
    Brace nodded. For the most part, he and his father had always enjoyed a good relationship, as long as the conversation did not turn to Devonairre and obligations. They walked silently until reaching the garden, and there, Charles picked a stone bench to sit on and motioned Brace to do the same.
    When they sat, Charles took another draw on his pipe. He had always been able to sense his son’s moods and tonight he knew that Brace was troubled.
    “This garden has always been a calming place,” Charles began. “We’ve had many a long talk here.”
    Brace smiled. He knew that whenever his father began in this manner, he wanted to talk about something delicate. The first time had been about women. That one had been tough.
    “And we’re about to have another one, aren’t we?” Brace chased away the blackness in his mind for a moment.
    “I hope so,” Charles replied honestly. “I know you disliked returning here from America, but you did so, anyway. I’ve never thanked you for doing so.”
    “It was an obligation, wasn’t it?” Brace asked in a tight voice.
    “We both know better. You could have refused.”
    “Not really.”
    “Yes, really, and that is a fact. You inherited my sense of responsibility—which is not a bad thing, although a burden. Legally, you were within your rights to stay in America. Morally, the decision was one of conscience.”
    “Whatever it was, I came back, and I’m still here.”
    “And I thank you for that. Brace, in the past six years I’ve watched you mature into an intelligent man. When you returned from America, you were angry and bitter, but you overcame that, or at least I thought you had until recently. What happened?”
    Brace took a deep breath in order to stop his first rush of words. His father’s question hit him hard, and he’d been unprepared for it. A moment later, he spoke in slow, measured tones.
    “What happened is very simple. She came back.”
    Charles shook his head sadly. “As we knew she would. Devonairre is Elyse’s home.”
    Brace’s anger burst its bonds. “How can you sit there and speak like that? How can you? You, Mother, and I have given our lives to this place, cared for it as if it had been our own. And we’ve done this only to have some stranger who was raised among the spoiled fops of the world come and tell us what to do!”
    Charles almost leaned away from the force of his son’s anger, but held himself straight, not a flicker of emotion showing on his face. Instead, he placed his hand on his son’s thigh and gently squeezed the hard muscle. When he spoke, his voice was low, but emotions flowed powerfully through it.
    “You must not think that way.”
    “Why must I not?” Brace asked, anger making his words stiff. “She left sixteen years ago, and not even when her father died, did she have the courtesy to come home. Did she ever once write to us to find out how Devonairre was doing? What reasons could there be to