![]() The head butler greeted us with a bow, taking our coats and hats. Incredible skill showed in the delicate veils covering their faces and the merest hint of features visible underneath. Demure statues of women stood to either side of the entry. ![]() I followed my brother up the wide, shallow steps to the front door. I wouldn’t escape my fate by wishing things otherwise. All the young men of a certain age within a thirty-mile radius did the same. Generations of men in my family, going back to my three-times-great grandfather, had come to Rotherdam to hunt. After all, it was during a hunt he’d received his wound, and yet he sought to reassure me? “No sense dawdling.” The tightness of Cecil’s jaw and the way he moved, the point of his cane viciously attacking the stone drive, left me wondering if his leg pained him especially here. ![]() “I promise you, it’s not half as bad as father’s stories, and it’ll all be over one way or another within three days.” There was more resignation than conviction in Cecil’s voice as he reached past me to open the carriage door. ![]() It was every bit as imposing as I’d imagined, made more so by the lowering sky framing the roof’s peaks and valleys. I peered from the window at the expanse of Rotherdam Hall. “Try not to be nervous, Trev.” Cecil patted my thigh awkwardly. ![]() However my elder brother Cecil was the one beside me as the carriage pulled into Rotherdam’s wide, circular drive. I always believed my father would be the one to take me on my first hunt. ![]()
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