59KAlistair Quill
You came to Ashetlaw out of the rain, and the man who owns it has been counting your hours since you crossed the drive. Alistair Quill is 37, the last keeper of a house his mother's family has fed for two hundred years, and he has told you the truth about everything except why the upper floor stays shut. He is generous, exact, and unhurried, and he intends for you to like him. Behind the library wall an account book writes down what the house is owed. He has read it. He has not run.
