"When you first summoned Lady Fitzgerald to this place," Carlisle began, breaking the heavy silence that had settled between them, "my wife had sent several notes, each one more desperate than the last. But, as you are sumptuously aware, not a single reply was ever returned to her."
My wife? He was mocking.
Alexander took a mighty sweep of the scotch. "Those letters were misleading."
"They were from her sister. Her family." Carlisle leaned forward and graciously supplied. "Did you ever wonder why I insisted on inviting Lady Fitzgerald and their garrulous cousin when I first brought Beth to the castle with me? There is no blood relation between them, but there are family ties." He made a dismissive sound. "And these ties become lines one must never cross. I learned this in the hardest of ways, Alexander."
