North Bartonburg! Hogsmeade. How long had she been living there? Surely he would have known if Ana had lived there, so it couldn't have been terribly long — but on the other hand, perhaps that might explain how Ana had tracked him down in Spain, after so many years and with no apparent warning, if she had been surreptitiously monitoring him all along. But no, he couldn't believe that. If Ana had been lying in wait for her chance to ambush and ruin him, she would have had ample opportunity before he'd gone to Spain. She could have been the one to catch him with Elfrieda Yaxley; he was no doubt she had the observational skills required. Hell, Dean Hudson lived in North Bartonburg — she could have done far worse than just derailed a particular relationship. So he had to believe that this was an arrangement that had come about after Ana's death — which meant the girl's new guardians had been remiss in not mentioning it.

"Well, no one bloody told me that," he snapped. The letter hadn't had much about the future care of the girl on any front, actually; it had been mostly a recap of details from the years preceding Ana's death. Perhaps they had assumed that whatever arrangements they were making to provide for her were temporary; perhaps they had imagined he would write back and make arrangements to collect her. In that case it mightn't have mattered so much where she lived in the intervening months.

"And you're half Irish, you obstinate thing." He finished pouring his drink and turned around to regard her warily. "Was this your idea, or did someone put you up to it?"

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