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Page 351
losing her son. Not a twinge of guilt did I feel then, for he was my grandson. Only later did I learn that the story was quite different."
"Ainsley killed her," said Mariah.
"He told you, then," Pierce said. "And I had conspired with him." Pierce was silent for a few minutes as they continued their stroll around the perimeter of the Isthmus. The Point was now to their right, but Mariah saw only the mist obscuring the buildings of the town.
She was beginning to feel tired. It had been an exhausting day. "Please finish the story," she said. "I want to go find Thorn and get back to the inn." If, of course, he wanted her to go. He'd been less than inviting before.
Had she imagined, those days earlier, that he'd said he loved her?
Now wasn't the time to think about that.
"All right, I will finish. As you now know, the grievous wrong you were to right was Thorn's death at the hands of my grandson, Billy. Billy thought Thorn guilty of causing his mother's death. I, I'm sorry to say, never disabused him of that notion." He paused. "In fact, there is a lot I am sorry about when it comes to the way I dealt with my grandson."
For the first time, when Mariah looked at him, she felt a little sorry for him; he looked quite old and time-ravaged. Guilty, perhaps.
Good. Of everyone in this story, he and Ainsley shared all the guilt. Yet Thorn had been the one to shoulder it all this time.
"Before your intervention," Pierce continued in his hoarse monotone, "the duel occurred in that time. It shouldn't have. Thorn had no culpability in the death of Mary. But I let the duel happen. I let Billy kill the man shamelessly. And Billy suffered for it later. He took to drink, was unkind to his wife and children. And those children grew up hurting their children, and so forth, for generations to come."
The idea slapped Mariah just as they reached the second bridge she'd already crossed that day. "Then that was why

 
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