Chapter 1

CHAPTER1

“Almost to Stokeleigh,” the driver told me. “Markham Hall isn’t far beyond that.”

The clatter of hooves and wheels on the road prevented me from answering. Instead, I continued to watch the landscape roll by outside, thick woods and shallow vales punctuated by narrow streams and low stone bridges. Dusk fell quickly; by the time I had marked the long shadows and impenetrable murk growing between the trees, dark orange and purple streaked the sky. And by the time the carriage rolled through the small hamlet, it was almost completely dark. Only the faintest lavender remained—the last breath of daylight—and against it was the silhouette of a house, large and tall, with a square tower at one end. It sat on a hill high above the vale of Stokeleigh, the only space cleared of trees for as far as the eye could see.

“Markham Hall,” the driver shouted. I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.

I busied myself with straightening the pleats on my skirt and checking my hair. I’d never been to Markham Hall, and it had been many years since I’d been to any house as fine as this. Seven years, in fact.

The carriage stopped and the driver hopped down to open the door. I climbed out with his help, and a servant emerged from the house, helping the driver unload my single trunk and bag.

“Is this all?” the servant grunted.

“Appears that way,” said the driver.

Seven years without parents had taught me to accept frugality, to be proud of it in a strange way, but now that my brother was also dead, I was in the strange position of being poor and at the mercy of strangers. And so when my cheeks burned, they burned not for the single battered trunk, but for the entirety of the situation. If the solicitor responsible for dispensing my brother’s meager estate hadn’t been able to track down Mr. Markham, my late cousin’s husband, I would have been forced to apply for a position as a governess or a schoolteacher. And while I wasn’t afraid of work itself, I was also keenly aware that finding and keeping employment was never a guaranteed prospect.

Wickes the solicitor had made the owner of Markham Hall sound like the proper old country gentleman, twice widowed and mourning the loss of his young wife, but that didn’t make the thought of accepting his kindness any less daunting. I might have been frugal, but I was also proud and used to being solitary, and to claiming my time as my own.

Lodging with a lonely old man sounded like its own kind of work.

“This way,” the servant said, and I followed him to the entrance, a massive stone arch set with two ancient-looking doors. Black iron fittings bound the door together and the knocker was a snarling bear of tarnished brass. “Inside,” he said.

The entranceway was nearly as dark as the outdoors—more so, for there were no stars here. I blinked owlishly while the servant manhandled the door shut again. The driver spoke softly to the horses and the carriage rattled away.

Wait!I wanted to shout. Don’t leave me here!

But it was too late. The carriage was gone, the door closed, and I was alone in the dark. I heard the grunt and shuffle of the servant lugging my trunk somewhere.

“Where should I?—”

“The housekeeper will come for you. Soon.”

So I waited in the dark, shifting my weight from foot to cold foot, suppressing my irritation at being made to wait like a stranger. You’re only technically family, I reminded myself. Be grateful that Mr. Markham offered you a roof over your head at all . . .

A dim glow appeared—a bobbing, flickering glow—and as it came closer, it was clear that it was attached to a rather severe figure dressed in black. The telltale ring of keys jangled at her hip.

“You must be Miss Leavold.”

I made a low curtsey and was about to deliver my prepared speech of gratitude, but she was already turning away, shoes clicking sharply on the floor. It was hardly a warm welcome, and I had the brief fantasy of running outside and chasing after the carriage. I could take my chances being a governess. I could survive and keep my independence intact.

But the carriage was gone, and my path was set.

I took a deep, steeling breath and followed her.

The lamp she carried illuminated only the barest glimpses of the house. A grim tapestry here, a frowning portrait there. We climbed the wide staircase.

“I’m sorry for the lack of light,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “When Mr. Markham is away, we generally keep early hours. We are not used to having guests so late.”

“I apologize for my lateness. We set off before dawn, but it was still a long drive.” I was keenly aware that I didn’t sound sorry.

Be grateful, I reminded myself again. Grateful.

She unlocked a room and led me inside. No fire had been lit and from the damp smell, I supposed it hadn’t been aired out either. I certainly didn’t mind diminished conditions—it appeared to be my lot in life these last seven years—but one glance at the housekeeper’s pinched face told me that this discomfort had been deliberately calculated.

Determined to undermine whatever trap she had laid, I declared as cheerfully as I could, “What a lovely room. I am so grateful for your care.”

She made a noise that indicated nothing other than an acknowledgement that I’d spoken. “Owain brought your things up already. We’ve long since supped, but if you feel it necessary, you can rouse the cook from her bed to tend to you.”

I made a demurring sound.

She continued. “Breakfast is early here, perhaps around six-thirty, although Mr. Markham generally eats later, perhaps around ten. I suppose there might be a chance that you are asked to dine with him.” She sniffed, letting me know what she thought of this supposition. “He is away frequently, and I am very busy tending to the house. There are no other residents here, so you will need to occupy yourself or walk to Stokeleigh if you cannot.”

She didn’t know of the years I’d spent alone in my dead parents’ house, with no one except the servants to keep me company, while my brother gambled away the last of our money in London. Years spent roaming the countryside, sitting by the sea, reading all the ancient books in the library. And besides, at nineteen I was no longer a child.

“I will endeavor to amuse myself,” I said.

Another sniff. “Well. Good night then.”

“Good night, Mrs . . . ?”

“Brightmore.”

She left, and by the thin trickle of moonlight, I found matches and a lamp by my bedside, which I lit. But despite the long journey and the protracted weeks of grief and uncertainty since my brother’s passing, I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t care that it was dark as pitch and that the servants were abed—I wanted to see more of this house that I would call home.

I shed my cloak and bonnet and left my room, careful to tread as quietly as possible. While I didn’t think there would be anything improper about me walking about the house, I felt certain that Mrs. Brightmore would disapprove.

My corridor was lined with similar doors, all closed and presumably locked, so I went downstairs with my lamp instead. The yellow pool of lamplight did little to drive back the shadows, but I still made my tentative way into the receiving rooms of the first floor. First to the dining room, dominated by a large table and a massive iron chandelier, then to the drawing room, filled with more delicate furniture, armchairs and chaises of a lavender damask, all of it looking almost black in the darkness. In the far corner of the drawing room hung a large portrait set into an elaborate gilded frame. I walked closer and lifted the lamp. It was my dead cousin, Violet Leavold.

Violet Markham. She would have been Violet Markham when she died.

We’d met only twice, in those dreamy, peaceful years when my parents had still been alive. She’d been a few years older than me, and I vividly remembered how worldly and classically feminine her fourteen years had seemed to my ten the first time she’d visited. She had stayed the summer, and in those months, I had become convinced that there was no girl brighter or more lovely or more knowledgeable than Violet. The second time she came, I was twelve, and she came with the secret knowledge that only girls of sixteen had, knowledge of men and of dancing and of what happened in the corners of ballrooms. I’d been fascinated.

But we hadn’t spoken since that last summer—not a visit, not even a letter. She had gone on to live the life befitting a beautiful girl of means and I had gone on to live like a wild thing, alone and strange and wary.

Her yellow hair seemed like burnished gold in the lamplight and the portraitist had managed to capture the preternaturally blue eyes that had always seemed so daring, so bold. A gauzy shawl revealed ivory shoulders and a long, elegant neck. The blue silk gown revealed a small but shapely bust and a slender waist. Even rendered in paint, Violet’s beauty and glamour were unmistakable. Life and fertility and vibrancy radiated from every curve and line of her body.

And she was dead.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her. Thrown from her horse, the solicitor had said. And I hadn’t even known that she’d gotten married. And to think, there might be a portrait of another dead wife in this house . . . I shivered.

I turned to leave and found myself face to face with someone else in the dark.