*Horace*
On the way to the Highlands, I ride alongside the carriage carrying the bailiff and solicitor with whom I'm supposed to be consulting. Fury drives me for hours, partnered with a pounding, leaden sense of betrayal.
But somewhere between one league and the next, my anger slips away and is replaced by a much crueler truth: I have failed. I'm shite in bed, as my father would have put it.
I’ve never really failed at anything before. Oh, there’ve been the occasional problems with leaf rust on the wheat or sheep infected with murrain. I’ve made mistakes. But failure is another thing. Failure...
It takes me two days, all the way to the Highlands estate, to grasp something important. Rapunzel has never before failed at anything, either. That’s why she couldn’t bear to tell me the truth
