“The house is decaying, the furnishings are museum pieces, half the staff are consumed with loathing of me out of loyalty to my father, or because I remind them of my brother. In any case, they’re people who lived in the same house as Hector when there are perfectly good ditches to die in, which tells you as much as you need to know. Nobody within thirty miles of Piper can cook. And you can thank your lucky stars for the weather, I doubt we’ll need more than four or five fires to make the place tolerable of an evening.”
