Take this as a warning: if you are not able or willing to control yourself, it will be not only you who suffers the consequences, but those around you, as well.

New Oldbury, 1821

In the wake of a scandal, the Montrose family and their three daughters—Catherine, Lydia and Emeline—flee Boston for their new country home, Willow Hall.

The estate seems sleepy and idyllic. But a subtle menace creeps into the atmosphere, a remnant of a dark history that calls to Lydia, and to the youngest, Emeline.

All three daughters will be irrevocably changed by what follows, but none more than Lydia, who must draw on a power she never knew she possessed if she wants to protect those she loves. For Willow Hall’s secrets will rise, in the end…

Everyone is enchanted by The Witch of Willow Hall!

‘Beautifully written, with an intriguing plot full of suspense and mystery, The Witch of Willow Hall will cast a spell over every reader.’

Lisa Hall, bestselling author of Between You and Me

‘A wonderful debut novel.’

Linda Finlay, author of The Flower Seller

‘I hope Hester Fox goes on to write many more such novels. I for one will be buying them.’

Kathleen McGurl, author of The Girl from Ballymor

‘I love the novel, and will be looking forward to all new works by this talented author!’

Heather Graham, New York Times bestselling author

And readers have fallen under the spell too!

‘I could NOT put this thing down!’

‘The book pulls you in from the beginning with many twists and turns. I didn’t want to put it down, and could not wait to see what was going to happen next.’

‘Historical fiction with a side of romance and major helping of creepiness, this debut novel hits the mark!’

‘The ULTIMATE page turner!’

HESTER FOX comes to writing from a background in the museum field as a collections maintenance technician. This job has taken her from historic houses to fine art museums, where she has the privilege of cleaning and caring for collections that range from paintings by old masters, to ancient artefacts, to early American furniture.

She is a keen painter and has a master’s degree in historical archaeology, as well as a background in medieval studies and art history. Hester lives outside of Boston with her husband and two cats.

The Witch of Willow Hall is her debut novel.

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

Copyright © Tess Fedore 2018

Tess Fedore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9781474083737

Version: 2018-09-10

For Donna

(and Roland, too)

Not lost, but gone before.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Extract

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

1

1811

IT WAS THE Bishop boy who started it all.

He lived one house over, with his snub nose and dusting of freckles, and had a fondness for pelting stones at passing carriages. We were the same age and might have been friends, but he showed no interest in books, exploring the marshy fens of Boston, or taking paper kites to the Commons—unless of course it was the rare occasion of a public hanging. Catherine would sit in the window, watching him flee from angry coachmen, shaking her head. “That Bishop boy,” she would say. “It’s a wonder his pa doesn’t put a belt to him, the vicious little imp.”

I’d follow her gaze from the safety of the drapes, ducking back if I thought he might catch me looking at him. In my small, sheltered world the Bishop boy came to symbolize the murky edge of a larger evil of which I had no understanding. When Father lamented British aggression toward American ships, I imagined a fleet of freckled boys with sandy hair, identical in their blue coats as they drew their swords in unison. If there was news of a killer in the city, then he took on a slight frame, a shadowy figure with a snub nose protruding from his hood. The Bishop boy lurked around every dark corner, responsible for every terrible thing in the world that my young mind could not comprehend.

One day, Father—this was before he had made his fortune and he was still our “Pa”—found a little black cat under the steps at his office, and brought it home as a pet for Catherine and me with the stipulation that it wouldn’t come in the house. Catherine said she was too old to play nursemaid to a kitten, though sometimes when she thought I wasn’t looking I saw her sneak out to the stable with a bit of bread soaked in milk. This was before our little sister, Emeline, came along, so I was hungry for a companion, as Catherine and our brother, Charles, were practically joined at the hip. Every morning as soon as I could be excused from the breakfast table, I would rush out to the stable with a precariously balanced saucer of milk and a tattered hair ribbon that I had appropriated as an amusement for the cat.

It must have been spring, because I remember the heady scent of wet earth and lilacs as I emerged from the house into the garden, my heart light and happy to be free. To this day I can’t smell lilac without a pit hardening in my stomach. And it must have been a Thursday, because Mrs. Tucker who came on that day to teach us French was there; I remember later the way her severe black eyebrows shot upward, her thin lips that never did anything except press into a tight frown, thrown open forming a perfect O, emitting that awful scream.

So it was a Thursday in spring. Usually Bartholomew—I thought myself very clever for this name until Catherine pointed out that Bartholomew was, in fact, a she—squeaked in greeting before I even got to the straw-filled crate that Mother had made for her. The only sounds that greeted me that day were the gossiping swallows and soft whickering of the horses. I slowed my step, not wanting to wake Bartholomew if she was sleeping. I rounded the corner to the empty stall and peeked over into the crate.

I think I knew what I would find there before I even saw it. There was something heavy and terrible about the silence, a disturbance in the air, quivering with secrets. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw the blood-flecked straw. Something pure and loving made base, a pile of inert organs and tufts of black fur.

I don’t know how long I stood there, unable to comprehend what lay in front of me, and after this it gets hazy.

I found myself outside, storming into the street with pounding ears and a film of red behind my eyes. It’s funny, because for all the racing of my heart and the tightness of my throat, I have the recollection that I was remarkably calm. I had a sense of purpose, of what needed to be done. But for all that, I still didn’t know how I was going to do it.

The Bishop boy was there. He blinked when he saw me coming, the slow, lazy blink of someone who either doesn’t know what they’ve done, or else doesn’t care. Why, he didn’t even try to hide the fact that there was fur on his cuffs, that his brown shoe was damp with splattered blood. He just gave me that infuriating blink and then turned back to the stash of pebbles he was collecting.

There must have been at least a dozen people gathered around on the cobblestones by the time Tommy Bishop lay whimpering and crying out for his mother. That was when I came back to myself, when I realized just how many eyes were on me and what I had done. From somewhere behind the crowd Mother was calling to be let through, elbowing her way past a fainted Mrs. Tucker and snatching me up before a mob could form.

More than anything else I was frightened of what would happen to me. Would she tell Father? Would I be sent away? Catherine had told me that bad children were often sent to Australia, a desert land where they were forced to build their own prisons out of sunbaked mud bricks. The only food was rats roasted on spits, and there wasn’t a book on the whole island.

Mother installed me on a bench in the garden and I drew my knees up to my chest, willing myself to disappear. A tear welled up as I thought about the little body in the stable. Would they at least let me give her a proper burial before shipping me off to Australia? I hastily wiped the tear away and braced myself for my sentencing.

But it never came. Mother took my hand in her own, her soft brown eyes studying my face, the lines around her mouth tight with worry.

“So,” she said at last, “that answers that.”

I had no idea what the question was, or even what exactly had been resolved, but something in her tone told me I wasn’t going to be punished, and in my young mind that was all that really mattered.

She went on to tell me that I must never speak of what happened in the street again. If anyone were to ask about it, we would say only that it was a scuffle. Children get into scrapes all the time and sometimes they get out of hand.

“And Lydia,” she added before I could dart away back to the stable, “you must never show the world what it is that you have inside of you.”

So I carry it like a little locket, tucked deep down beneath my breast, never taking it out to open, but knowing that it will always be there should I choose to peep inside. We would never speak of it again after that day, but Mother made it clear that should it come bubbling out of me again, that we could find ourselves turned out of our home, or worse.

No, I never considered that we might be turned out for other reasons, and certainly not for the rumors that surround us now—which are just that: rumors.

2

1821

“IT MIGHT AS well be the edge of the world,” Catherine says with disgust. “As if being banished weren’t humiliation enough.” She huffs and throws herself back against the padded carriage seat.

Mother assures us that it is neither banishment, nor the edge of the world, and that if it hadn’t been for the horse that went lame outside Concord it would be a three-day journey from Boston. It might only be a matter of a few days, but as our new house looms into view, all I can think of is how isolated it is, how utterly cut adrift we are from everything familiar. No more rows of neat brick houses, no more cobblestone roads filled with the traffic of a bustling city, no more safe and sheltered existence.

“You’ll be real country girls now.” Mother follows my gaze out the carriage window to the jutting silhouette of our new home. Ever since that spring day ten years ago, there’s been a pooling of sadness behind Mother’s dark eyes, a heaviness to her once pretty face that has only worsened with the events of the recent months. “There’s a ballroom on the third floor, and we’ll hold parties and dinners. You’ll be surrounded by fresh air and good, simple people.” Desperation tinges her words, and Emeline stirs in my lap, looking up at me to confirm that this is something good, something that we sought out rather than were forced into. I force a thin smile for her sake.

“A ballroom?” Catherine perks up a little, craning her head to get a better look as the carriage lurches up the drive.

Willow Hall is fine, I will give Father that. Three stories of pristine white clapboard, and windows flanked with crisp green shutters. A carriage house abuts it on one side, a barn on the other. It stands in defiant contrast to the forested, sloping hill behind it. I try to imagine the windows glowing yellow in welcome, a stream of merry visitors jostling and laughing their way up the winding drive and I fail. It may be a handsome house, but this place will never be home. Yet at the same time I want to untether my heart, toss it up into the sky and let it take wing. There’s a wildness here that, if nothing else, holds promise, possibility. Who needs society? What has it ever done for us?

A cloud passes over Catherine’s face and she must be thinking the same thing, though for different reasons. She slides the little curtain closed. “There won’t be any parties though, will there? No one will come. Fifty miles from Boston is still too close. We could be in Egypt and still it would be too close. We should have at least gone to London,” she says with a wistful sigh. “If we were going to run out of town with our tail between our legs we might have at least gone there.”

Everything is London with her these days, a faraway Mecca or Xanadu where the world is bright and polished, gleaming with possibilities.

Mother doesn’t say anything, just wipes at her perspiring brow and twists the handkerchief through her hands over and over. Her ideas for painting our situation in a rosy light ended with the balls, and now she has given up. Poor Mother, who has sacrificed her prized garden and the house she called home for near on two decades. Catherine, Emeline and I are young and adaptable, but she is like an uprooted oak, and I fear she will wither and fade. And Charles...well, I’m sure Charles is fine, wherever he is.

It’s nearly dusk when the carriage comes to a stop. Apricot and coral streak the country sky, and fireflies flit across the broad lawn, blinking at us from the surrounding trees. My neck prickles under the scrutiny of a thousand eyes.

Emeline is the first to alight, throwing the door open before Joe even has a chance to come around. She’s running ahead, up to the imposing white house. I follow her, slowly, stretching my aching back and wiping the sweat from my lip.

We put our feet on the hard ground, take in the night air and look around as if this whole place has sprung up for us and us alone. Not just the house, but the ancient trees, the watching insects, the stars and even the moon. But they have all lived without us for lifetimes that make our own look like the blink of the eye. The house, with its strict walls and severe lines, is shamefully out of place, something modern dropped down somewhere as soft as feathers, as twisty and spreading as willow roots. How do the trees and the insects and the stars and the moon like it, I wonder? How do they like to have to share their secret lives with us now?

Catherine unfolds herself, complaining of a headache. It was fatigue earlier in the day, and before that nausea. She calls out to Emeline to slow down, but Emeline is already running around the side of the house, free as a colt feeling grass under its hooves for the first time, her little spaniel Snip chasing at her heels. I haven’t seen her so happy and carefree for months. Mother gives directions for the trunks to be unloaded and brought in, then sweeps up to where Catherine and I are standing. She catches Catherine’s grimace.

“Our nearest neighbor isn’t for some distance and she won’t bother anyone.” All the same Mother yells after Emeline to mind her dress.

Catherine grumbles something, and then picks up her skirts and stalks off to the front door where Father has finally emerged. He stands aside as the trunks are loaded in, and gives Mother a cursory peck on the cheek in greeting. When Catherine passes he affords her a chilly “Hello,” and then looks away.

“How lucky for us that your father had this house built as a summer home,” Mother had said last month when it became clear that the rumors were not going to abate, that Father was not going to be able to continue with his business in Boston anymore.

Luck doesn’t have much to do with our new circumstances, but it calmed her to speak of it in such terms. Father had come out to New Oldbury the week before to meet with his new business partner here and tour the mill in which he was investing. It was a mercy that he was able to furnish the house and make it all ready for Mother; I don’t think her nerves could have taken the prospect of starting over in an empty house.

Once the trunks are all inside, Father bids us good-night and disappears back into his study, leaving us to explore our new home.

“New Oldbury,” Catherine says with a grimace. “Whoever heard of such a ridiculous name?” She’s inspecting the rooms, running a gloved finger over the white mantel in the parlor. The house is more opulent, grander than I ever could have imagined. There’s even a room for the sole purpose of dining. It’s papered in a panoramic scene of people enjoying a French garden, some in boats drifting past marble ruins, others lounging on grassy banks with parasols and baskets. I imagine myself slipping into that static glimpse of paradise. Could I row the little boat out past the horizon? Or would I find that the world ends where the artist’s brush had painted a thin blue line?

Everything is the best, the newest. Father has spared no expense, and yet my heart only drops deeper as I wander through each room. All the silk drapes and woodblock wallpaper in the world can’t mask the fact that we’re here as outcasts. All this wealth, and to what purpose?

I move to the library. A stern ancestor of Mother’s on the Hale side glowers down at the finery from beneath her starched white cap. When I was little Catherine told me that the woman was hanged as a witch in Salem, and tried to frighten me by saying the eyes of the painting could see everything I did. I was never scared of the woman herself, but of her fate. Her face, to me, always held more of a grim warning than anger. “Do not make the mistakes I made,” she seemed to say. What those mistakes were, I have no idea. To this day I can’t pass under her portrait without a shiver running down my spine.

Mother hardly notices the decorations and furnishings, and bids us good-night and retreats to find her bedchamber. Dark rings hang under her eyes and her color is poor. It’s hardly surprising; the house is stifling in the July heat. Father hasn’t aired the rooms and it feels as though the gray, paneled wallpaper and golden drapes are closing in on me. I’m just about to step outside for some air when Emeline comes bounding back in, cheeks flushed, Snip bouncing at her side.

“There’s a tiny house up the hill behind the house! It doesn’t have any walls but there are benches and a little steeple. And a pond! Lydia,” she says, taking my hand in hers, “a pond. Do you think there’s mermaids in it? Can we go back and look for them?”

I’ve been reading to her from a book of poems, and one of them mentioned the mythical creatures. All she can think about since then is finding a mermaid and then no doubt exhausting it with a list of questions about life beneath the water.

“Why don’t we take a look tomorrow in the daylight? It must be well past your bedtime now. Let’s find your trunk and get you into bed.”

Catherine has thrown herself down onto one of the plush, upholstered chairs, her hand resting on her stomach. “Let Ada do it, that’s what she’s for.”

Emeline is on the floor playing with Snip, the mermaids apparently forgotten already. I lower my voice so that she can’t hear. “Do you have to be so harsh? Everything she ever knew was in Boston. I can make it easier by tending to her myself.”

Catherine rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. It’s a grand house in the country, she’ll be fine. Soon she’ll completely forget what it was like to live in the city anyway.”

A headache is coming on, and perspiration drips down my neck. All I want to do is get out of my dress and into a bed with cool, clean sheets, not argue with impossible Catherine. But I can’t help myself. “So you’ll be happy here then? In your grand house in the country?”

She bristles. “Boston was becoming tiresome. I—”

“It was tiresome because of the situation you put us in,” I snap.

There’s a tug at my skirt, Emeline is staring up at me. Catherine presses her lips and looks away. I sigh. “I’m taking her to bed. Good night, Catherine.”

Catherine nods, her shoulders slumping forward. She looks so tired, and for a moment I almost feel sorry for her. But then I remember why we’re here in the first place, and my sympathy evaporates.

* * *

The eerie stillness of this new place makes falling asleep almost impossible. I don’t know how long I lay in my new bed, my body tensed, flinching at every faraway hoot of an owl that punctuates the night like a gunshot. It feels like hours later when the owl finally grows weary of its endless mourning and takes wing. My eyes are just starting to grow heavy when a terrible sound cuts through the silence.

Sitting bolt upright, I hold my breath as it comes again. It’s a slow moan, a keening wail. The sound is so wretched that it’s the culmination of every lost soul and groan of cold wind that has ever swept the earth.

My blood goes cold despite the stifling heat. I don’t know where my parents’ bedchamber is, and although the wail comes again and sounds as if it were in every plank of wood and every pane of glass, it must be Mother. She hasn’t cried like this since Charles left, but the stress of the move must have taken its toll. I slump back into my pillows, guilty that I can’t gather the strength to go to Mother and comfort her.

Kicking off the sticky sheets, I lie back down and close my eyes, trying to block out the awful noise. At last the wail builds and crescendos, trailing off into nothing more than an echoing sob.

The first dim light of morning is breaking when I finally drift off to a fitful sleep, unsure that the cries were anything more than a dream.

3

FATHER IS OUT on business, so it’s just Catherine, Emeline, Mother and me around the breakfast table the next morning. Some of the color has returned to Mother’s face, and she’s smiling as she butters her toast, listening to Emeline chatter on about the pond and all the merpeople that are just waiting to make her acquaintance. Perhaps Mother’s crying last night was what she needed, a cathartic release of all the stress and sadness that has led up to this move. Catherine is looking less well, her face pale and drawn as she sips her tea. I’m sure I don’t look much better after my waking night.

I give Emeline’s head a light pat before slipping into my seat and reaching for the teapot.

“...and Lydia is going to take me to the pond today so I’ll probably be late for dinner if the mermaids are out and we get to talking,” Emeline finishes triumphantly.

Before I can tell her that it looks like rain, Ada inches her way to the table, clutching a letter in her trembling hands. I catch Mother’s eye. We used to have a bustling household that included five servants, a cook, a gardener, a host of rotating tutors, and drawing, painting, and dancing instructors. It was hard enough to hold on to the tutors before, but then the rumors started and one by one they all resigned. Now, we only have Joe and Ada, and I have taken Emeline’s education into my own hands.

“Ada, what do you have there?” Mother puts down her napkin and holds out her hand for the letter.

Ada is a slip of a thing, and her perpetual nervousness has only intensified since all the trouble began. Only a couple of years older than me, she’s been with us since I was Emeline’s age, and sometimes feels more like a sister than a servant. She hesitates before surrendering the envelope. “Letter from Mr. Charles, ma’am.”

Catherine’s knife clatters to her plate.

Mother’s face freezes, and she drops her hand like a lead weight. She gives a little sniff, and turns away, folding and smoothing her napkin over and over. This has been Mother’s way of dealing with everything lately; if she pretends there’s no problem then it simply doesn’t exist.

“Give it to me,” Catherine whispers.

Mother gives Ada a tight nod, and Ada slowly extends the envelope; she jumps as Catherine snatches it and runs back up to her bedchamber.

Emeline narrows her eyes. “Charlie did a bad thing,” she says.

Mother doesn’t say anything, but begins peeling an orange as if it’s responsible for all our family’s woes, juice squirting onto the tablecloth. I will her to explain everything to Emeline, to take some control. Her head is bent low, fingers digging into the pulpy flesh. I wait. But as usual she says nothing.

“Charlie didn’t do anything bad,” I say. “Those stories weren’t true. Look.” I point out the window at the gathering clouds. “It might not be the best day for the pond, but we could take the carriage into town and take a peek at the shops.” What kind of shops there are in a little village like New Oldbury I have no idea, but I want to get out of the house. We’ve been here only a day, but it already feels too full of ghosts of a happy family that might have been.

* * *

The town center proves to be that in name only. A run-down dry goods store with peeling letters advertises coffee, and a little white church sits at one end of the town green. That’s it. No theaters, no gardens and, worse yet, no bookshops. Yet there’s something charming about the simplicity of the square and the dirt roads that wind up and around it; there’s no stink of fish wafting off nearby docks, nor cobblestones caked with horse droppings. I take a deep breath and smile encouragingly to Emeline. Here’s our fresh start, not in the suffocating walls of Willow Hall with all its pretensions, but in the blue sky above it, the little town surrounding it.

It doesn’t take long for our fresh start to lose its rosy glow.

Two middle-aged women walk arm in arm, stopping to watch us unload from the carriage, Snip nipping at our dresses. They share a whispered word or two, and then creep a little closer to get a better look.

The first woman lowers her voice and leans in toward her companion. “Those are the Montrose girls, you know. The family just came from Boston.”

“Oh?” The other throws a glance back at us over her shoulder, greedily drinking us in. She remarks that Catherine is a true beauty with her auburn hair and green cat eyes. “Wasn’t there some unpleasantness, some scandal involving her?”

The first woman puffs at the chance to explain, to be the one who knows all the sordid details. “Well,” she says, “the whole business makes my stomach turn, I can hardly speak of it.” But that’s a lie, she’s thrilling at the taboo of it, reveling in the currency of a juicy story. “The middle one had to break off her engagement because of it, poor thing. She’s so plain and it was such a good match too. Not likely she’ll find anything better, not likely she’ll find anything at all now.”

My heart drops at the oblique mention of Cyrus. I’ve hardly thought about him these past weeks, except in passing flashes of anger. I don’t miss him. I don’t care what he thinks. But their words sting because they’re true; the only reason we were engaged was because our fathers were business partners. I’m not like Catherine who could have her choice of suitors.

“Yes,” the other commiserates, impatient, “but is what everyone’s saying true? It can’t possibly be.”

They’re too far away now, their voices too low for me to hear anymore, but I understand enough to know what she’s saying. She will embroider it a bit of course, make Catherine younger, more wanton. When she’s done they’ll both go home, feeling very well about themselves indeed.

My eyes bore into their backs as they walk away until Emeline tugs at my sleeve. Thunder rumbles in the distance and I put on a brave face for her, taking her by the hand. If Catherine noticed the two women and their sharp eyes, she doesn’t say anything, instead she fans herself with her gloves and looks around at the little town. “I can’t fathom why on God’s green earth Father had to choose this forsaken place over all others. There isn’t even a dress seller.”

He chose it because of the river that runs through the town, powering the mills. Father doesn’t know the first thing about milling—he made his fortune on a series of brilliant speculations—but he has a keen nose for business and knows a good investment when he sees it. The river towns up this way weren’t affected the way the city was during the war in 1812, and a quick profit can still be turned. Knowing this, he had planned to build a small office, and Willow Hall as our seasonal residence. I doubt Catherine would care, let alone understand any of this, so I just point to the little shop across the street. “Maybe they sell ribbons there. Shall we look?”

Mother had wanted to make calls on some of our new neighbors, so I give orders to Joe to return with the carriage in an hour. Joe grumbles something about rain, but there’s nothing to be done for it so I lead Emeline across the street, Snip tugging at his leash, Catherine trailing us.

Inside the shop it’s musty, a comfortable smell of old leather and dried tea leaves. Emeline leaves Snip tied up outside, and he whines as the heavy glass door swings shut, his claws scratching at the window.

“He’ll be fine,” I say, directing her attention elsewhere. “Look there.” Behind the counter a variety of silk and lace ribbons hang from spools. They’re pretty, if not a little faded, but Emeline doesn’t notice and is already running over to look for a pink one.

Catherine, who tried to feign indifference at first, is beside Emeline, unable to resist the prospect of a new trifle. I watch her running the silk through her fingers, holding different colors against her auburn hair.

The shopkeeper, an affable enough looking man with thinning brown hair, leans over the counter and gives Emeline a smile, the kind adults give children when they aren’t quite sure how to interact with them. “It’s not often I have ladies of such quality in my humble little shop,” he tells her. “I’m very flattered indeed that you and your lovely sisters have chosen to patronize me on this gray day.”

Emeline looks up at him with unmasked curiosity, studying him. I can see the wheels in her head turning as she tries to decide what he means by this. Before she can say anything, I hurry to her rescue. The shopkeeper can laud his insincere platitudes on me or Catherine, but he shouldn’t direct them to a little child.

I give him a tight smile. “We’re newly arrived in New Oldbury, and thought to explore the town today.”

Even though my tone should make it clear that I’m not looking for a conversation, he turns his smile on me. “Is that so?” He couldn’t care less if we had just dropped out of the sky, but his eyes are trained on the pearl earrings on Catherine’s earlobes, the fine weave of her shawl. “And how do you find New Oldbury? Where in town are you living?”

“Willow Hall,” I say shortly with another tight smile, trying to make it clear that the conversation is over.

He’s watching Emeline running her finger over a pink velvet ribbon, but at this he looks sharply back at me. “Is that so? Hadn’t thought that anyone was going to live there. I’d heard something about it being a summer house.” He bends over again to Emeline and dramatically raises his brows. “There are stories around here that the place is haunted. All manners of ghosties and goblins.”

I could slap him for trying to scare her. But Emeline just returns his patronizing gaze with wide, unblinking eyes. “Ghosts? What kinds of ghosts?”

“It seems that every town has its local ghost stories,” I hurry to interject, but I already know that Emeline will be demanding ghost stories now in addition to the mermaids. “It’s so very quaint.” This time I firmly turn my back on him and confer with Emeline on the different merits of the ribbons while Catherine joins in to agree or disagree with me.

Rain begins to patter on the roof, first soft and indecisive, then a steady drumming. For a moment everything is normal and right; I’m shopping for hair ribbons with my sisters. It’s cozy, and I can almost forget the two women in the street and their greedy eyes, the overly eager shopkeeper.

Emeline drops her ribbon and frowns. “We can’t leave Snip out there, he’s going to get drenched.”

Mother won’t be pleased to have a wet, smelly dog in the house so I pay for Emeline’s ribbon and we plunge out into the sticky July rain, only to find that he’s gone.

“He probably just went in search of somewhere dry. He can’t be far.” But as I look up and down the deserted street, I’m not quite sure where that would be.

Catherine frowns, pulling her fine Indian shawl—a gift from Charles before he left—up over her head to keep her hair dry. I think she’s going to say something snide about just letting him go, but instead she points to the town green where a flash of white cuts through the downpour. Without waiting for us, Emeline hitches up her skirt and takes off.

Snip thinks it’s a game. As soon as Emeline draws near, he freezes, wags his tail and then bounds off again. Catherine and I struggle to keep up with Emeline who has the speed of a gazelle, our dresses longer and heavier in the rain.

As if on cue, thunder cracks in a long, grumbling roll. A moment later the sky flashes yellow. We’re well out of the center of town now, and Catherine is breathing heavily trying to keep up. “We can’t stay out here, we have to get inside,” she says, panting.

I have no idea where we are, Snip has taken several sharp turns on his merry romp. We’re on a narrow road—really more of a dirt track—crowded with angry trees that threaten to crack in the heavy rain. Joe may be back with the carriage soon, but he won’t know where we’ve gone.

“There!” Catherine points to a little footpath that cuts through the trees and brush. I can just make out a shingled roof through the clearing.

“Emmy!” I call out after Emeline, who has lost some of her stamina and is suddenly looking overwhelmed in the unfamiliar surroundings. “Leave him for now.”

Reluctantly, she follows as we run toward the building, some kind of old factory or mill. Overgrown with ivy and weeds, the mortar is crumbling around the foundation and the door lintel sags with rotting wood. At the very least it doesn’t look as though we’ll be bothering anyone.

My feet are cold and slippery inside my shoes and my dress is completely plastered to my body. Catherine and Emeline haven’t fared much better, their hair undone and straggling down their necks. So much for our diverting trip to town.

We huddle under a little overhang on the side of the building, empty barrels and upturned crates with old straw the only furniture. Outside the rain comes down in sheets.

“Poor Snip,” Emeline says. “He’s probably so frightened. And how will he find his way home? We’ve only been here a day. He doesn’t know the way back.”

Seeing the way Snip was enjoying himself, I doubt he is afraid and tell Emeline as much. “He has a keen nose, I’m sure he can sniff his way back.”

“The rain will have washed all the scents away though,” Catherine unhelpfully volunteers, and I give her a sharp look over the top of Emeline’s head.

We watch in silence as the trees thrash and bow, and jump when a particularly large branch snaps to the ground. The thunder eventually rolls off into the distance, the lightning following in its wake.

“Look!”

Emeline jumps off her seat and points out into the woods, where I can just make out the outline of Snip before he disappears into the trees. “We have to go get him!”

“I’m done chasing that stupid dog. My feet are wet and blistering, and there’s no telling how much farther he’ll go.” Catherine looks to me for agreement. “Let’s wait for the rain to stop and then try to find Joe.”

The lightning and thunder might have moved off, but the rain is still drumming down fast and steady. I look between Emeline’s expectant face and Catherine, already steeling myself for what I know I have to do. “You stay here. I’ll go follow him, but if I can’t catch him right away then I’m coming back.”

Emeline pipes up to say something, but I stop her with a stern look. “Mother won’t be happy if you come back even dirtier and with a cold. Catherine, stay with her, and give me your shawl.”

4

WHY COULDN’T MOTHER have gotten her a cat, I think as I set off into the thicket behind the old building, wiping rain from my eyes. Cats don’t go romping about in downpours. Cats stay warm and dry in front of a fire, just like I wish I was right now.

Plunging farther into the woods, I give a half-hearted yell for Snip, followed by an indelicate word as my shoe catches against a slick root. There’s no time to stop myself as I go sprawling headfirst into the wet leaves and mud. A rock breaks my fall. My hand smarts, and when I struggle to my knees to inspect the damage, there’s an angry cut running down my palm. It’s no use trying to wipe the dirt from it on my soaking dress, so I gingerly heave myself up the rest of the way, only to step on my hem in the process. There’s a loud tearing noise. Just my luck. I curse again as I stumble forward, reaching for tree trunks to steady myself as I go.

The rain isn’t as heavy here under the thick canopy of trees, but each severe plop still snakes its way down my clothes, vanquishing the last few dry spots on my body.

More than once I stop in my tracks, frozen by the snap of a branch or a clump of leaves falling to the ground. My neck prickles, just like last night when we arrived to an audience of fireflies and forest creatures. I’m a city girl, an intruder, unused to the thousand little sounds of a close woods.

“You’re lucky you have such a sweet little master,” I grumble to Snip, wherever he is. If it weren’t for the fact that Emeline will be heartbroken if I come back empty-handed, I’d be tempted to leave Snip out here to fend for himself.

Something white flashes in the corner of my eye, but when I turn and look closer it’s gone. A shudder runs through my body. “Snip?”

A moment later there’s a rustle behind me and I close my eyes, letting out a sigh of relief. Maybe the end of this unpleasant day is finally in sight. “Well, you certainly took your sweet time. I hope you’re happy with your—”

I freeze at the sound of a heavier tread, my words dying in my throat. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and I don’t have to turn around to know that it’s not Snip behind me.

Do they have bears out here? Or maybe it’s a moose. I once saw a picture of a moose in a book. They’re taller than a man and they can toss you up into the air with their great antlers. But even as I curl my fingers into my skirts, preparing to turn around, I know that it’s not an animal.

I take a deep breath and spin around.

It doesn’t matter that I knew there would be someone there when I looked, I still almost jump out of my skin when my eyes land on the young man that has seemingly appeared out of thin air behind me.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, taking a tentative step forward. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He must see my heart pounding in my throat, because he stops, and his lips twitch up at the corner. “I think I failed on that account.”

My breath comes out in a hiss. “Yes, well, in the state I was in I think anything would have startled me.” I lean back against the wet bark of a tree and close my eyes, waiting for my heart to slow.

I open my eyes. He doesn’t look dangerous. Despite the rain having its way with him, his clothes are fine, and there’s something warm and familiar about his face. I probably look a good deal more suspicious in my torn and muddy dress and bedraggled hair.

He takes his hat off and rakes his fingers through his wet hair, brushing it out of his eyes. “Are you all right, miss? Are you lost?”

“Quite all right,” I lie. I’m not used to anyone—let alone a handsome young man—talking to me as if I weren’t part of the most reviled family in Boston, or an unchaperoned woman wandering the woods in a torn and muddy dress for that matter. “And it’s my dog—or rather my sister’s dog—who is lost. I’m trying to find him.”

“Ah.” He rocks back on his heels, hands in pockets. “A noble reason to be out in such conditions. Mine are much more foolish.”

He doesn’t give me a chance to ask what his reasons might be, and he doesn’t elaborate before asking, “Perhaps I could be some assistance in your search? I’m quite familiar with these woods.”

I should thank him and tell him that it’s not necessary. I should say good-day, turn around, and go find Catherine and Emeline. There is no good and proper reason for me to accept the company of a strange man I found wandering in the woods, even if the man in question looks like he just stumbled out of one of my novels with his fair good looks, a Lancelot. Yet when I open my mouth, the only words that come out are, “I think he went up that way.”

I gesture up the bank and the man’s gaze fixes on my hand. “You’re hurt.”

It isn’t a question so much as an accusation, as if I should have told this stranger the moment I set eyes on him that I had a small scrape on my palm. I open my mouth to protest, but he closes the small distance between us in three long strides.

“May I?” Before I know what’s happening, he’s taking my hand in his gloves, gently wiping away the dirt from the cut. His movements are deft and quick. “You’ll have to wash it when you get home, but this will at least keep any more dirt from it.” He takes his cravat off and I watch him wind the white linen round and round my hand until I can barely flex my fingers.

“There now, that’s better,” he says with a smile as fast and brilliant as the lightning. When he’s done he ties it off neatly. My hand lingers in his for a moment, relishing the warmth, before I remember myself and pull away.

“Thank you,” I mumble.

Perhaps realizing just how close we’re standing, the man steps back with a brisk nod. “If we’re going to find your dog we should do it now while we have a break in the rain.”

I’d hardly noticed that the rain has lightened to nothing more than a misty drizzle while his strong fingers held my hand. “Do you think you can manage...?” He trails off, looking discreetly at the ground. The cool breeze on my ankles reminds me that between my dress and the cut on my hand, I probably look like I’ve been mauled by wolves.

I tug at my bodice and adjust Catherine’s shawl in a vain attempt at modesty. “Perfectly fine,” I assure him, and, as if accepting a challenge, add, “I love a good walk in the woods.”

He inclines his head, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes, and we set off.

We crest the little embankment, the man shortening his strides so that I don’t have to run to keep up with his long legs. I chance a sidelong glance at my knight, wondering what on earth brought him to the woods in a storm at the same time as me.

“He can’t have gotten far. The river cuts through over there, and if he has any sense he’ll have stayed put on this side.”

“I’m not sure sensibility is Snip’s strong point. Chasing his tail, maybe. Or barking at shadows.”

The man’s eyes—arresting eyes, which are somehow blue and green at the same time—settle on me and he flashes me a grin before putting a light hand on my elbow and guiding me up the bank.

I’ve nearly forgotten about my sodden shoes and the stinging from my cut. The fresh, resinous smell of the woods fills me with renewed energy. We’re Lancelot and Guinevere, fleeing through the forest from a jealous King Arthur. Any moment we’ll come upon a white steed and Lancelot will swing me up upon its jeweled saddle and we’ll gallop off together.

“There!”

My dream comes to a halt as I follow Lancelot’s pointing finger down to the edge of the water. It’s not a white steed, but a muddy Snip. He’s gnawing on something, a piece of rotted wood it looks like, as we slowly approach.

Snip eyes the man suspiciously as he slowly advances with one outstretched arm, but doesn’t make any move, just pants contentedly with his tongue lolling out. “I suppose he’s had enough adventure for one day,” Lancelot says as he scoops up the unprotesting Snip and hands him to me.

I almost wish Snip did have some chase left in him so that I could prolong my adventure with this handsome stranger. But he just wriggles around in my arms and plants me with a sloppy kiss, and we head back to the old building.

* * *

“There you are! I was just about to...” Catherine’s words trail off as the man steps into the little porch behind me. Her mouth falls open as her gaze swings up to him, then narrows suspiciously on me.

“Snip!” Emeline is up in a flash, arms outstretched, receiving her wayward pet among a tangle of dirty paws and frantic licks.

“Remember your manners,” I say as I try to brush off Snip’s dirt from my already ruined dress. “Thank Mr....” I flush. The man bandaged up my hand, helped me find our dog, and escorted me back to my sisters and I never even thought to ask his name.

“Barrett,” he says with a small inclination of the head. “John Barrett.”

The name is familiar, but I can’t place it. Before I can ask him why I might know it, Catherine is sliding off her crate, her gaze fixed on Mr. Barrett. She’s regained her composure and is twirling a damp lock of hair around her finger. “Catherine,” she says with an unnecessarily deep curtsy. “We’re indebted to you for returning Lydia to us in one piece.” The sharp look she throws my way and tight tone suggest otherwise.

For some reason I color deeper when Catherine tells him my name. “And the young lady who’s so busy playing with her dog is Emeline,” I hastily pipe up to divert attention away from my flaming cheeks.

Emeline looks up from scratching Snip’s muddy belly. “We got stuck in the storm.”

“Well, I can’t say you’ve chosen the most hospitable of places to seek shelter.” He gestures to the little porch, hat in hand. “This was my father’s mill, and as you can see it’s fallen into disrepair some time ago.”

“A mill!” Catherine exclaims. “How very exciting. We’ve just come from Boston and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a proper mill before.”

Mr. Barrett raises a brow at Catherine’s enthusiasm for mills. “And what brings you to New Oldbury?”

Catherine clamps her mouth shut, so I answer. “Our father has just invested in the cotton mill here.” It’s not a lie, I’m just omitting the other reason. All the same I feel a little stab of guilt.

“You don’t mean...” His smile fades. “You’re Samuel Montrose’s daughters? And he’s brought you here?” He isn’t asking me, he’s talking to himself. “Mr. Montrose never told me that he was planning on bringing a family with him,” he says, his voice roughening at the edges.

He knows. Despite my best efforts at hemming the truth, he already knows who we are and about the scandal.

“Willow Hall was just to be a summer home,” Catherine chimes in, “but we’ll be living here permanently now.” Her voice is light and she’s twirling that damp lock of hair between her fingers like an idiot again.

“You’re to live at Willow Hall permanently,” he echoes, as if hardly processing the words.

“If you’re going to tell us it’s haunted, you’re too late,” Catherine says with a little laugh. “We quite got all the gossip on that score from the shopkeeper.”

Mr. Barrett gives her a sharp look. “What did he say?”

Before Catherine has a chance to answer, something clicks into place in my mind and I know where I’ve heard his name before. “You’re our father’s new business partner.”

He gives a tight nod. “I am.” The mood has shifted in the little porch, and the only one among us oblivious to the tension in the air is Emeline who is singing to Snip while she tries to clean the mud from his ears.

“Ghosts live in our house,” Emeline says, pausing from her ministrations to look up at Mr. Barrett with solemn eyes. “The whole place is full of ghosts. And goblins. You can’t throw a rock but hit a ghost there.”

“Emeline! He never said that.” I give Mr. Barrett an apologetic look. “She likes to embroider the truth.” Emeline starts to protest but I hush her.

But he hardly hears me anyway, and I dare not say anything else. He stands awkwardly in the silence, taking out a soaked handkerchief from his pocket and then putting it back in again. He runs a hand through his thick hair, shaking out some of the lingering wetness. It’s the same color as the golden fields of shimmering hay, which we passed yesterday on our journey.

“Well, I must go, but you’re welcome to stay and dry off as long as you need. Good day.”

“Wait!” Mr. Barrett stops at my cry, looking at me expectantly. “Your cravat,” I say, raising my bandaged hand as if he would possibly want it back, dirty and bloody as it is now.

He opens his mouth, hesitates and then says shortly, “Keep it.” He gives a brief dip of the head, and then he’s gone.

Catherine and I sit in stunned silence. “John Barrett,” she murmurs. “Why wouldn’t Father have mentioned bringing his family to New Oldbury?”

Why indeed? Father was never much for home life, and that was before the scandal. Now he probably wishes he weren’t burdened with us. No, what’s stranger to me is that Mr. Barrett should look so troubled at our arrival. It would be one thing if it had to do with the scandal, but the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it’s not that. He was surprised to learn that our father had a family at all, and that he brought us here. If he had already known about us, then it would follow that he knew about the scandal.

“Well,” says Catherine standing and briskly shaking out her damp skirts, “I can’t believe Father could be so shortsighted. He might have mentioned that his new business partner was young. And handsome.”

I roll my eyes, and the little chill that had settled in my spine dissipates. The sun is inexplicably burning through the clouds, and the air is heavy with humidity. Steam rises from the road and the prospect of walking back in the stickiness is even more daunting than walking back in the rain. Despite that, there’s a nagging tug in my chest, a rough edge that won’t be smoothed down.

5

CATHERINE BOLTS UPSTAIRS to change, and I send Emeline up after her. I hardly care that my dress is torn, that my hand needs to be cleaned; I’m still back at the old mill, lost in the unsettling gaze of Mr. Barrett. I wander through the house, over the wood floors gleaming amber in the afternoon sun, the oriental carpets still crisp in color and soft beneath my feet. Everything is new and expectant, waiting for memories to be made, for stories to be layered down like dust.

When I come to the back hall, I find Mother on hands and knees, a soapy bucket of water beside her. She’s scrubbing the tiles over and over in vicious circles. “Snip had a romp through the house with muddy paws,” she says without looking up.

“Ada will get it.” I help her to her feet. There isn’t a trace of mud remaining, but she casts a remorseful look at the white tiles. Her hands are raw.

I install her in the parlor and fetch her workbasket and she finally notices my dress and hand. “Where on earth have you been? I was worried sick when Joe was gone so long with the carriage.”

Catherine breezes into the room, Emeline behind her, just as I’m explaining our misadventure in town and chance meeting with John Barrett.

“Mother,” I say slowly, not quite sure what I’m asking, “do you know any reason why Father’s new business partner should be unhappy to learn that he had a family, or that he had brought us here?”

“Unhappy?” Mother echoes the question, picking up her embroidery. “What makes you say that?”

“We really must invite Mr. Barrett over for dinner,” Catherine cuts in, throwing herself down on the yellow-and-pink settee. “Especially if he and Father are business partners.”

Mother watches her with wary eyes over the rim of her embroidery hoop, stabbing the needle through the linen.

“I like him. He helped bring back Snip,” Emeline adds solemnly.

I hold my breath, waiting for Mother’s answer. We used to entertain all the time in Boston. That was one of the hardest parts of the scandal, the way everyone stopped coming around. Cyrus was the last of them. I try not to think about that awful meeting with the man who would have been my husband in the front parlor of our trim brick house. The way time stood still despite the persistent ticking of the clock, him standing not more than a few feet in front of me, but separated by miles. The way he raked his fingers through his dark curls and couldn’t meet my eye. “I’m sorry, Lydia,” he said. “You know that I am. But you have to see it from my perspective, from my family’s.” All the blood rushing up to my head, my knees weak and insides hollow. “I... I wish you the best.” And then he was gone, the coward, striding out the door without so much as a backward glance. Good riddance.

“Well, yes, I suppose Mr. Barrett must come over for dinner,” Mother says.

Something like relief washes over Catherine, and I can’t figure her out. I don’t know why it bothers me so much that she should have an eye for Mr. Barrett; after all, it would be a good sign for our family if she were to become interested in someone. And her inner character notwithstanding, she’s beautiful. The man would be a fool not to notice her.

It’s agreed that an invitation will be sent out to Mr. Barrett for next week, and Mother sends for Joe to deliver it. Just as Joe is leaving, Catherine takes something from her pocket and slips it into his hand with a finger to her lips. Mother is bent over her embroidery, and Emeline is busy giving Snip a stern lecture on running away. It all happens in the space of a second, and then Catherine demurely folds her hands, smiling out the window at nothing in particular.

* * *

It’s a rare evening that Father joins us for dinner, but since we’re entertaining his business partner he’s made an exception from taking his meal in his office. In Boston we all dined together, but that was when Charles was still there, and we women outnumbered the men only four to two. Now that Charles is gone, Father doesn’t find much to draw him to our table anymore, preferring to lose himself in the safety of his ledgers where everything adds up in tidy little columns.

Ada has already helped Emeline dress, leaving Catherine and me alone to finish our toilettes together.

“Move over, Lydia. You’ve been fussing with your hair for almost an hour and I need the mirror.”

I scooch the little stool over so Catherine can lean down to see herself. “What’s gotten into you anyway? You never do anything with your hair besides the same old drab bun.”

I frown, trying to get my fine hair to hold some semblance of a curl. “That’s not true.”

When it’s clear that the limp strands won’t cooperate, I give up and sweep them up and back under a simple band. Catherine expertly puts hers in a neat row of tight little curls. Her hair is a luminous shade of auburn, alive with gold and copper. My hair by comparison is mousy brown. A warm, light shade, but brown all the same. And of course my Emmy has the prettiest hair of all of us, even more golden and vibrant than Catherine’s.

I watch as Catherine rubs color over her lips, then plucks a stray hair from her brow. She practices different expressions, first one of surprise, her mouth open in an inviting O, her brows arched, then one of wide-eyed innocence. She could have anyone—any man wrapped around her finger. I can’t help but be a little in awe of her, even if she is the vainest creature I’ve ever met. I always knew that she was different from me, above me somehow. As a child she shone so brightly, stealing the room with her perfect manners and charming smile while I struggled to keep up. She scowls when she catches me studying her.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Lyd.”

“Like what?”

She rolls her eyes. “With the disapproving, sanctimonious glower you always have.” She stands up, giving one last glance into the mirror and patting at her coif.

“You’re up to something.”

With a shrug, she grabs her shawl from the bed and heads for the door. “I know you’re up to something, Catherine!” I call after her. And I’m going to find out what it is, I add silently. This family has had enough of secrets.

* * *

Ada announces Mr. Barrett. He strides into the room, his face serious, looking like he’s come more on business than pleasure. He gives Mother a kiss on the cheek though, like an old friend, and Father a hearty handshake. He’s shined his boots, and his cravat is fresh and white, crisp. When we saw him in the rain the other day I didn’t appreciate what a fine figure he cuts, what quiet power he exudes with his serious eyes and strong jaw. Not at all the kind of person I thought we would find out here in the country. He turns to me and gives a short bow, and I mumble something inconsequential.

“I’m glad to see that you’ve recovered from your soaking the other day,” he says. His tone isn’t cold exactly, but it’s formal and doesn’t invite anything more than a polite reply.

I hardly notice the dark-haired young man in the doorway until Mr. Barrett turns to him and takes him by the shoulder. “Where are my manners? This is my good friend August Pierce. August is a bachelor too and I hope you don’t mind, but I thought he could do with a good home-cooked meal as well.”

“Of course, of course. Glad to meet you, Mr. Pierce.” Father pumps his hand, grateful for more men with whom he can talk business.

“I hope I’m not being a terrible intruder,” Mr. Pierce says with a crooked smile. Catherine all but jumps at the chance to assure him that he is no such thing, relinquishing her position next to Mr. Barrett, which she had only just taken up. I catch Mother’s eye.

With lank chestnut hair, full lips quirked at the corners and penetrating hazel eyes, he’s the antithesis of serious Mr. Barrett. He turns his smile to Catherine, and Mr. Barrett is forgotten completely. What a fool she is.

I take up Catherine’s abandoned position. “Have you lived in New Oldbury long?” I ask Mr. Barrett just as Ada creeps in to announce dinner is ready.

“I’m sorry?” He doesn’t catch what I was saying, and then everyone is moving into the dining room. Before I can repeat myself, Emeline runs up and takes his hand, leading him to sit next to her.

Catherine slips into the seat on his other side, and an extra chair is brought for Mr. Pierce. I’m between him and Mother on the opposite side of the table, Father at the head. I might as well be in the next town over.

“Mr. Pierce,” Father says, sawing away at his loin roast, “are you in the milling business too, then? I don’t believe I’ve heard your name mentioned in that circuit.”

“I’m afraid not. Barrett here is the man with a mind for business,” he says. “I’m rather useless at the moment. I finished at Harvard last spring, and now I’m something of a boat without an anchor, drifting about looking for some occupation.”

“I’ve been showing August the ropes at the mill, but I’m not sure it’s exciting enough for him,” Mr. Barrett says with a smile.

They’re so comfortable together. I can’t help but be jealous of their companionship. It’s Mr. Pierce I’m jealous of, really, to be able to talk with Mr. Barrett like that. I imagine them together, sitting relaxed in an office, Pierce with his boots up on the desk, fiddling with a pen and recounting some funny story. John—I can call him John, it’s my castle in the air after all—standing by the window, running his hand absently through that thick wave of amber-gold hair as he cracks a smile.

Mr. Pierce grins, lopsided and boyish. “Nonsense. If excitement was what I was after, I wouldn’t be in New Oldbury.”

“And what did you study at Harvard, Mr. Pierce?” Catherine is still playing her ridiculous role of gentle lady, speaking with downcast lashes and a demure tone that is anything but natural for her.

“Law. It’s the family business. My father passed away some years ago and my uncle runs the firm now. It only took me a month to know that it wasn’t for me. Too many documents and days spent in a stuffy office. Not for me,” he repeats with a wink in Catherine’s direction. “In any case, there wasn’t much to keep me in Boston. My mother is bedridden since a fever took the use of her legs some years ago.”

If Mr. Pierce is from Boston I wonder that he hasn’t heard the rumors. But he’s good-humored and warm, and doesn’t seem to have any inkling that he’s seated among the most notorious family in Boston. Perhaps Harvard kept him too occupied to engage in gossip.

Mother puts down her fork and tries to offer her sympathy, but he stops her with a casual wave of his knife. “Don’t fret on her account. Mother has thrown herself into the occupation of invalid with her characteristic vigor and dedication. She has the whole household on pins and needles. It quite suits her. So you see, when John mentioned he might show me the mill business, I jumped at the opportunity.”

“Well,” Catherine says with a coquettish smile, “how lucky for us that you did.”

Father, ever late to pick up on the social cues around him, is finally catching on to Catherine’s game. He colors slightly and hurries to steer the conversation to safer ground. Standing to pour more wine he adds, “Well, there’s value in a good lawyer, I would say.”

Mr. Barrett raises his glass in a toast, graciously saying that the law has lost a fine son in August. Catherine hangs on their every word, laughing a little too loudly when someone makes a light remark, smiling a little too eagerly when Mr. Pierce’s hazel eyes flicker in her direction.

Emeline, who had begged Mother not to make her eat with Ada in the kitchen tonight, looks as if she’s regretting winning that fight. Her eyes are heavy and she’s in danger of falling asleep in her plate. I give her a nudge under the table and she jerks back up.

“I think we’ll start seeing more mills sprouting up along the river now that the power looms have proved such a success in Waltham,” Mr. Barrett says. He cuts his meat briskly into even pieces. “As we speak, Chelmsford is expanding and breaking ground on a new venture. I see no reason why New Oldbury shouldn’t be any different. We have the unique advantage of a river unspoiled by nearby cities after all.”

Father leans back in his chair, hands resting comfortably on his paunch. “Do you see?” he asks of no one in particular. “That war with the Brits had some benefits. They blocked up our coast and inhibited the cotton trade, so by God we got to work and made our own cotton. Necessity is the mother of all invention, and nothing breeds necessity like the trials of war. It’s bright young minds like Barrett’s here that are going to ensure we continue industrialization and become a power to be reckoned with.”

Mr. Barrett colors slightly, but reaches for his wineglass and raises a brow in acknowledgment of Father’s words. Otherwise the praise rolls off his back.

“Hear, hear,” agrees Mr. Pierce.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Father says, plowing on. “We’re going to have to buy out some of those farmers with parcels that abut the river. Take Ezra Clarke for example. He’s got the fastest cut of river running through his land, and he’s squandering it, letting that sickly handful of cattle nibble away at the field. A man ought to put his land to best use or give it up, that’s what I think.”

Mr. Barrett makes a polite noise of demurral, but adds nothing else.

I think of the dilapidated mill where we met Mr. Barrett, and seize my opportunity to join in the conversation, grasping at the only thing I know about him. “Is that why your father’s mill isn’t active any longer? He started fresh with the new technology and built the new mill upriver?”

Mr. Barrett pauses, his wineglass half raised to his lips. His face darkens. “No,” he says shortly. “My father went bankrupt, and the wool mill was forced to close.”

Catherine shoots me daggers, and Mother gives me a warning look. Undeterred, I blunder on. “Well,” I say, “he’s lucky to have a son who knows so much about the cotton industry. I daresay he must be happy with your new venture.”

An unmistakable tension thickens the air and I realize I’ve somehow misstepped, said the wrong thing. Father is boiling up the color of lobster and Mr. Pierce opens his mouth to say something, but Mr. Barrett quickly silences them both.

“My father is dead, Miss Montrose,” he says without meeting my eye. “I’d like to think the advancements I’ve put in place would have made him proud though.”

“I’m sure they would,” coos Catherine. She says something about how he must take us on a tour of the mill sometime, and then moves the conversation to the subject of printed cotton in fashion this year. I don’t hear what they say as I push my food around on my plate. Mr. Barrett is equally silent. The rest of dinner drags on for an eternity, and I can’t even begrudge Catherine her winning the night; after all, she saved me from further embarrassment.

* * *

After dinner, we retire to the parlor where Ada brings in coffee and little bowls of frothy syllabub, Emeline’s favorite dessert. It’s so unbearably hot, and it’s all I can do to sit still without wiping at my brow constantly. Even Emeline, usually full of energy, is subdued, hanging over the arm of her chair, looking as if she’s about to melt away into the carpet.

Myself, I try to disappear into the corner. Everyone seems to have overlooked, or at least forgotten, my blunder at dinner. I’m making too much out of it. How was I to know that his father was dead? I couldn’t have, yet my stomach is still in knots over the way his eyes clouded when I mentioned his father, the change that passed over his face. I wish I could take it back, not for me, but to save him from any heartache and discomfort.

Catherine brushes by me and whispers, “His mother is dead too, you ought to know. Mr. Pierce told me.”

I start to say something but clamp my mouth back shut. What’s the use? I sit in penitent silence as Catherine takes up with Mr. Pierce across the room. My coffee grows tepid and undrinkable. When I look up I find that Mr. Barrett’s studying me out of the corner of his eye. I color and quickly look away. He must be wondering what to make of me, how one sister can be so charming and polite, and the other such an utter dolt.

“It’s too hot for coffee,” Emeline announces suddenly, even though she’s not allowed to have a sip of the beverage. “It’s too hot for dresses and shoes and hair and fingernails. It’s too hot for stockings and feathers and fur.”

Mr. Barrett and Father break off their conversation, and silence falls over the parlor. Mother shoots our guests an apologetic look and then a pleading one at Emeline. “I’m so sorry. It’s past her bedtime and she’s getting tired.”

But Emeline isn’t done. She’s goes over to Mr. Barrett and looks up at him. “It’s too hot,” she repeats. “And I’m not tired at all. There’s a pond behind the house, did you know? I want to go to the pond and see the mermaids.”

I should take her upstairs to bed, but I don’t move. Mr. Barrett is looking down at her with a queer expression, a crease between his brows. She takes his hand in hers. His aren’t tapered and elegant like Cyrus’s; Mr. Barrett’s hands are capable, strong, and Emeline’s hand completely disappears in his. “Please, let’s go to the pond where it’s cool and we can swim with the mermaids. I want to go play with the little boy at the pond.”

“What little boy? What on earth are you talking about, Emmy?” But Emeline ignores Mother’s question and her lip begins to tremble when it becomes clear that she isn’t going to get her way.

By this time even Catherine and Mr. Pierce have paused in their giggles and whispers and both are staring. Crimson spreads over Catherine’s face. “Really, Emeline. Leave poor Mr. Barrett alone.”

Mother gets up slowly, and I can tell she doesn’t have the energy for this. “It’s dark out, Emmy. And Mr. Pierce and Mr. Barrett have business to discuss with your father.” She reaches out to take her hand, but Emeline dives out of her grasp.

I’m mortified. I understand Emeline, but Mr. Barrett will never return to our house if she behaves like this. I try to catch her attention, but she misses the cautioning look.

“I don’t want to go to bed!” I’ve never seen Emeline in such a pout before. She must be tired beyond reason, and the heat certainly isn’t helping. Hands clenched at her sides, she looks as if she’s on the verge of bursting into tears. But instead she just stomps her little foot.

But just as her foot comes down on the carpet, the doors slam shut with a great bang.

Mother jumps, Catherine lets out a little cry and Father’s eyebrows look as if they are about to fly off his face. The room goes silent, the only movement the residual wobbling of a vase on the table.

We all look at each other. Even Emeline looks surprised, because if we didn’t know better, it was almost as if she caused the doors to fly shut with her foot.

Father is the first to speak. He clears his throat and glances around. “Must be the wind,” he mumbles. “You think you have a house built new and it wouldn’t be full of drafts and loose doors, but I suppose there’s no such thing as peace of mind in New England construction.”

Mother is quick to agree with him, and Mr. Pierce gives a dubious nod. But we all know that there was no breeze, that it’s been so still that a feather would have hardly quivered, let alone two doors slamming. No one wants to say so though at the risk of frightening Emeline.

Then, without warning, Mr. Barrett goes to Emeline and, dropping to his knee, puts his hands on her shoulders. He peers at her curiously, and when he speaks, it’s slow and gentle, so soft that I have to strain to hear him. “Your mother’s right, Miss Montrose. It’s late and I’m sure that it’s almost my bedtime as well. But perhaps you’ll be so kind to invite August and myself back soon, and then we could have the pleasure of being escorted around the grounds by yourself. And your sisters,” he adds, glancing at me. His blue-green eyes still hold a note of sadness, but there’s no trace of anger or bitterness. With Emeline’s outburst, my blunder must have been forgotten, or at the very least, forgiven.

I catch my breath. Emeline looks unsure, her bottom lip trembling. But ultimately she nods, even going so far as to brush his cheek with a kiss. He gives her a faint smile in return before standing and passing her off to Mother, who ushers her out of the parlor to Ada.

Despite Father’s assurance that it must have been the breeze, an uncomfortable pall hangs over the rest of the evening. There are a few false starts in conversation as we struggle to fill the void, but it’s eventually Father, who has looked exceedingly uncomfortable throughout this whole exchange, who picks up the conversation with Mr. Barrett again as if nothing happened. He has found a great friend in Mr. Barrett, who can rattle off figures and calculate the profit in a spool of wool or a cord of lumber just as easily as he. They’re engrossed in a debate about the merits of some new kind of waterwheel, so neither notices the very friendly tête-à-tête that has resumed in the corner.

The lamplight illuminates Catherine’s hair, giving her something of a halo. She’s laughing behind her hand, eyes sparkling. She hangs on Mr. Pierce’s every word as if he’s the most interesting person she’s ever met. I suppose it doesn’t matter if it’s Mr. Barrett or Mr. Pierce that’s paying her attention, so long as someone is.

And August Pierce is very handsome, I’ll give Catherine that. He must know he is too, judging by the way he’s always smiling, almost smirking, at nothing in particular. I doubt he takes anything very seriously in life, including himself.

I’m not the only one watching Catherine. Mother is feigning interest in her syllabub, pushing it around with her spoon, but I see her studying her eldest daughter. Why doesn’t she say something? Catherine’s behavior is bordering on the improper, and the last thing we need is more fuel for rumors and gossip. But then Mother catches my eye. I’ve never seen that expression on her before, one of trepidation, cautious optimism and, most of all, relief. Then it dawns on me: Mother thinks that perhaps Catherine might be married after all.

And if Catherine could be married, then I could as well.

6

IT MIGHT BE the heat, or that I can’t get the image of Mr. Barrett’s sad eyes gazing at me unstuck from my head, but I can’t sleep that night. When I can’t stand the scratchy feel of my eyelids anymore or the sheets sticking to the backs of my thighs, I get up from bed and pour myself a glass of water from the ewer in the corner. Opening the window, I slowly drink my water, hoping for a scrap of a breeze blowing in from the yard. But the night is still and unyielding.

I’m just about to turn from the window and go back to bed, when a movement in the yard below catches the corner of my eye.

At first it looks like a bird taking wing into the night, a pale splash of movement. But when I look harder I see that’s not a bird, but a person. A woman. I’m still drowsy, so it doesn’t seem so ridiculous that perhaps it’s Ada out in the garden, though doing what I can’t imagine. But then the clock in the hall strikes three. What on earth would she be doing out there at this time of the morning?

I put down my glass and press myself against the edge of the window frame, peering out from the side so that I can’t be seen from below. Maybe it’s a vagrant, hungry and in search of food. But the garden is barren, and they’ll find no food there. Or perhaps it’s someone with more sinister motives, here to rob us.

But the woman seems no more interested in the house than the contents of the garden. She’s wearing a billowy, pale dress, which floats about her as she slowly moves one way, then turns and moves the next. Up and down the length of the garden she goes, but every time she turns, it’s with her face away from me so that I can’t tell if she’s young or old, a stranger or someone I might know.

The longer I study her, standing there with a hand curled around the windowsill, the more something doesn’t seem right about the way she’s moving. It takes me a few more moments to place it, and when I do, I catch my breath.

She’s gliding.

She moves as if she were walking on air. It’s not a natural movement, and my skin prickles. The shopkeeper’s sensational warning about ghosts suddenly doesn’t seem so silly or impossible.

I watch her another few moments, holding my breath. That’s all she does, glides back and forth, back and forth, the pale silk of her dress billowing out behind her despite the lack of breeze.

My legs are jelly and my heart pounding, but I won’t be able to go back to bed and sleep a wink so long as I know she’s out there. I have to go out and set my mind at ease.

Silently, I tiptoe through the house and to the back door. I take a deep breath before pushing the door open. Tentatively, I step outside and peer into the thick night air.

There’s nothing there. The garden, just visible in the moonlight, with its thirsty shrubs and prickly flower stalks sits benignly in the yard, returning my vacant stare in equal measure. But there’s no woman.

My knees go weak with relief and I have to brace myself against the door. I could laugh. It was someone snooping about, and they heard me coming and fled. In the morning I’ll have to let Joe know that we might need a guard dog, or at the very least, a fence. I go back upstairs, climb into my bed and, with a body made weary with relief, drift off to sleep.

* * *

I don’t know who’s more excited to hear Mr. Barrett’s light knock at the door the next day. Snip howls in delight and skids through the hall, circling Ada’s heels as she tries to open the door, Emeline trotting close behind with her half-braided hair falling out of its ribbon.

Catherine lays aside the limp roses and lilies she’s been arranging and passes a light hand over her curls. Sitting up a little straighter, I put my book down. I wish Mother had asked me to do the flowers. I always make a mess of them, but at least it would be me looking flushed and pretty when Mr. Barrett is shown in, a white rose stem in my hand. As it is, I’m bone tired from my bad dream last night. Because that’s what it was, I’ve decided—a dream. Somewhere in that hazy margin between sleep and wakefulness, I must have thought I saw something. In the light of day and now that Mr. Barrett is here, it all seems faraway and unimportant.

He’s not hugely tall, but when Mr. Barrett walks in it feels as if the walls and ceiling fall away around him. He fills the room with his quiet force, as electrifying and still as the moment before a storm breaks. Even Snip feels it, for he stops his nervous circling and sits patiently beside Mr. Barrett’s leg, looking up and waiting to be petted.

Emeline is already prattling on about the pond and mermaids and even faeries, which are a new interest. He nods down at her politely, not saying anything.

“Emeline, for goodness sake, take a breath. Didn’t Mother ask you to help her with the blackberries in the kitchen?”

This morning I had wanted to talk to Emeline about her tantrum the night before with the slamming doors, but when it came down to it I couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say. So I settled with, “Emeline, have you been feeling quite all right lately? You like it here?”

She had looked at me as if I was asking her if the sky was blue. “Yes. I love it here, don’t you?”

I had agreed that I did, and let the subject drop. No one else has brought it up, and so even though it makes me feel uneasy every time I think of the doors slamming shut in unison with her stomping foot, I’ve pushed it to the back of my mind. Like my bad dream, it melts away in my excitement to see Mr. Barrett.

But now, at the prospect of being sent away from Mr. Barrett, Emeline pouts, looking like she might break into tears, and that’s when I realize that all of us Montrose girls are smitten with John Barrett. For a moment I’m even afraid that we might have a repeat of the other night. But the tears hold, and she shoots Catherine a reproachful look before dragging her feet back out of the parlor. Usually I would tell Catherine not to talk to her like that, except Mr. Barrett is right there, and I’m inwardly grateful that Emeline can’t monopolize his attention now.

“I’m sorry to barge in here like this,” Mr. Barrett says, “but I had a meeting with your father and it seems he’s not quite ready for me yet.”

“Oh, you aren’t barging—”

“Mr. Barrett, you are doing no such thing.” Catherine sweeps to her feet and links her arm in his. “Please, sit down and do us the favor of entertaining us while you wait.”

As he obediently seats himself Catherine arches a triumphant brow at me. The battle lines have been drawn. Let her play her game. And that’s all it is to her. She can’t possibly be interested in Mr. Barrett, not seriously. Not after the way she dropped him like a hot coal last night when she saw Mr. Pierce.

They chat a little, Catherine commenting on the weather and Mr. Barrett agreeing that the heat has been unbearable lately. If he’s suffering he doesn’t look it; his collar is crisp and his clothes pristine. I feel rumpled and stale in my dress, the straggling hair at my neck damp and unpleasant. A couple of times he directs a comment in my direction, but Catherine is quick, reeling him back in to her with a little laugh or foolish question. I arrange my book in my lap so that I can sneak a few sentences at a time; if I’m not to be included in their conversation then what’s the harm in doing a little reading?

“Miss Montrose?”

When I look up, Mr. Barrett is crouching beside my chair and I nearly drop my book in surprise. I hadn’t meant to get lost in the story and lose track of time. I dart a glance at Catherine who is scowling, but also making a great show of drawing her needle in long pulls through her embroidery.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. “That must be quite the book.”

“Oh, yes.” I don’t know where to look. Certainly not directly in his eyes because then I wouldn’t be able to think straight.

Unperturbed by my ghastly manners, Mr. Barrett tips his head to see the title. “The Monk.”

The book is well-worn with little slivers of paper marking some of my favorite passages, and the spine is as creased as a bellows. “Yes,” I say again, even though he wasn’t asking anything.

“I’m not familiar with it.”

A loud sigh escapes Catherine from the other side of the room.

“You’ve really never heard of it?”

“I confess I haven’t,” he says, rocking back on his heels. “Will you enlighten me?”

There’s a warmth in his eyes that I haven’t seen before, bolstering my confidence, and I’m relieved to have the opportunity to smooth over my careless comments from dinner last night. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m giving him a detailed summary in a breathless rush, going back when I forget certain parts, and miming the best scenes. When I finally realize how long I’ve been talking I clamp my mouth shut, the blood rushing to my face.

I think he’s going to laugh—I’m certain I heard Catherine snickering once or twice—and my cheeks burn as I study the gilded cover. But when Mr. Barrett speaks there’s no hint of ridicule in his voice, and to his credit he looks only slightly overwhelmed.

“Well,” he says at last, “I can see why it has so captured your attention.”

I want to insist that he borrow it. How it would thrill me to know that his eyes passed over the same lines of text as me, to know that his soul is stirred as mine is by the passionate love of Alphonso and Agnes.

“Are you a reader, Mr. Barrett?”

“I’m confess I’m not much for books,” he says.

Catherine seizes her chance. “Of course not, you’re much too busy running the mill, I expect.”

“Business does have a large claim on my time, yes.”

“Oh,” I say, disappointed that I’ve lost a chance to make a connection with him, my imaginings of shared stories quickly destroyed. “Of course.”

“In my spare time I do rather enjoy birds though,” he adds.

“Ah,” says Catherine, pleased. “You shoot then.”

“I enjoy the study of birds, I mean.” He turns his attention back to me. “I’m afraid most of the books you would find in my library would be on that subject.”

A naturalist at heart! And I’ve just had the nerve to think him a bore. We could take walks through the woods, Mr. Barrett guiding Emmy and me, pointing out the different songbirds of New Oldbury. Emeline would love that. Afterward he would take us back to his house, spreading out his volumes of richly illustrated books, quizzing Emmy on the birds we’d just seen. He would smile at me over her head while she puzzled out the answers, a secret smile just between him and me.

“I think,” he says, his voice low, hesitant, “I think that, Miss Montrose, you are something of a lover of nature too? I seem to recall you mentioning the day we met that you enjoyed a good stroll through the woods.”

It’s the first time he’s referenced that day, and I can’t believe he remembered so small a detail that I had all but forgotten myself. My heart beats faster as I think of the way he smiled at me then, an unguarded, genuine smile. Perhaps he isn’t so disgusted with our family. Perhaps there’s a chance he’ll smile at me again like that.

But before I can say anything, Father wanders into the room, spectacles jammed up to his eyes, a stack of ledgers in his arms.

“Ah, John, my boy. Forgive me for keeping you waiting.” He looks up long enough to glance at Catherine and then me. “I hope my daughters weren’t being a bother.”

Mr. Barrett unfolds himself and stands up, disturbing the air next to me with his clean scent of soap and something deeper, something woodsy. “No. On the contrary, I was intruding upon their time and they graciously thought to keep me occupied.”

Father doesn’t look convinced, narrowing his eyes at my burning cheeks, but business is calling and he hasn’t the fortitude to get involved in our womanly affairs.

Before Mr. Barrett disappears through the door, he turns and gives us a nod. Father would have to be blind not to see the way Catherine looks at Mr. Barrett now. “Thank you, ladies, and again, I hope I haven’t taken up too much of your time.”

I’m too flustered to say anything, but Catherine has no problem assuring him again that it wasn’t the case. She gives him a breezy smile, and as he turns to leave, that’s when I see it. I don’t know why a sour lump in my throat rises, or why I suddenly want to flee the room, but when I see the single white rose bloom tucked into his buttonhole, I feel sick.

* * *

“I hate baths.”

Emeline is standing wrapped in a towel, glaring at the tub that Ada has filled with steaming water. She’s still mad at me about being sent away this morning when Mr. Barrett was here.

“I know you do,” I say, “but you’re filthy and haven’t had a proper bath in too long.” The longer she stalls, the cooler it will become, and by the time it’s my turn I’ll be bathing in tepid water.

Emeline is unmoved, refusing even to look at the tub.

“You can pretend you’re a mermaid,” I offer, my voice rising in desperation.

She considers this, and, finding it acceptable, puts out her hand so that I may help her in. She’s just settling into the water and complaining that it’s too hot when Catherine pauses at the doorway to frown in at us.

I’ve successfully avoided Catherine since Mr. Barrett left, unable to look her in the eye after her triumph. But as the day has worn on, the effort at being mad at her has become too much, and I’m willing to extend an olive branch. “Do you want a bath? If you go change, you can go after me.” Good graces or not, I’m not giving up position as second in line for the hot water.

Catherine crosses her arms. “I’m not sharing water with you two. If I want a bath I’ll have Ada draw one for me later.”

I give her a dubious look. With this unbearably hot and humid weather, we would all benefit from a bath, her included. Catherine is usually the first among us to whine that Mother doesn’t let us have enough water for hot baths, and demand that a tub be filled whenever the whim strikes her.

“You’d make Ada heat more water and carry it all the way upstairs again? Don’t be silly, just wait a few minutes and have one now.”

Something like fear flickers across Catherine’s face. But in the time it takes me to blink, she’s scowling again, and turning on her heel back to her room.

I don’t have the energy or the inclination to persuade her, so after Emeline is done with her bath and tucked upstairs in bed, I slip into the tub and luxuriate, taking as much time as I want.

I close my eyes, letting the warm water loosen my knotted muscles and wash away my tension from the past few days.

But just as my shoulders are starting to sink beneath the surface, the air around me turns frigid. I shiver, my teeth chattering despite the warm bath. The lamp gutters as a gusty breeze kicks through the window.

Cursing the sudden change in the weather, I hoist myself out of the tub and reach for the towel I left draped on my vanity. That’s when I see it.

My heart stops in my chest and my arms break into gooseflesh.

“Catherine?” I yell over my shoulder, unable to tear my gaze from the mirror on my vanity. “Catherine, get in here!”

Catherine appears in the doorway, brow puckered and lips in a pout. “What do you want? You can’t just call me from across the house like a dog and—”

I don’t let her finish. “Did you do this?” My voice is shaking.

She heaves a sigh, but comes into the room and looks around. “Did I do what? What are you talking about?”

I gesture to the mirror, my throat too narrow to choke out even a word.

Catherine cranes her neck past me to see the mirror and gives an impatient huff. “Is this some sort of game? Don’t you think I have better things to do than drop everything and come look at your mirror for some whim of yours?”

Angry, I spin around and point at the mirror, ready to chastise Catherine for being willfully obtuse. But I drop my hand. The words that were just there, written as clear as day in the steam, are gone.

My mouth opens and closes, unable to produce any words while my mind sluggishly works to comprehend what I’m seeing. Then, “No! I don’t understand. I... There was writing on the fog on the mirror. It was just here...”

Catherine flicks her glance to the tub. “The water isn’t even steaming...how on earth could the mirror be fogged?” She shakes her head. “You need to get some sleep. You’re seeing things.”

But I know what I saw. The only thing I don’t know is what it meant.

With one last suspicious look at me, Catherine leaves me dripping there, the image of the fogged words burned into my mind.

You attract them. Some mean you harm. Prepare for what lies ahead.

7

MY HANDS ARE stained and scratched, my back aching, but when I stand to stretch from weeding I feel better than I have in a long time about our new life in the middle of nowhere. The garden at Willow Hall is small, a scorched vegetable patch that hasn’t yielded much except a handful of misshapen tomatoes and some resilient squashes, but I’m determined to see it productive and beautiful. I wonder if my dream about the pale lady the other night wasn’t my mind’s way of telling me that I ought to pay more attention to the garden. I haven’t dared breathe a word about it to Emeline because I don’t want to scare her, or to Catherine because she would just laugh at me. It’s bad enough that Catherine saw me flustered and in a panic about the words in the mirror. The more I thought about it as I lay in bed last night, the more I’m convinced that, like the pale lady who has not reappeared, the words were nothing more than a figment of my imagination. Otherwise, how do I explain it?

Our flower garden with the lilacs used to be Mother’s pride and joy, but here she hasn’t shown any interest in the plot behind the house. When I told her I wanted to clean it up and start an herb garden—something she had forbidden in Boston—she had looked pained and told me she didn’t think it was a good idea, but in the end, she had not fought it.

I never understood Mother’s aversion to having a nice herb garden. I have vague memories of my grandmother’s house in Cambridge with an ambling garden behind it, full of every herb and healing plant imaginable. When I was little I used to love to rub my fingers into the bergamot flowers, releasing their spicy scent, and chewing on the leaves of lemon balm. But one day when I had brought Mother a remedy I’d concocted from some of the herbs for her chronic headaches, she had blanched and recoiled from me, telling me that I must never dabble with herbs. Apparently it wasn’t ladylike, or proper for young girls. I can’t remember now.

But now Mother has given up on that, I suppose, not having the energy or inclination to ensure that I’m a proper lady. My hands move automatically, pruning back the plants like mint and chamomile that like to spread, and encouraging the shier plants like hyssop and parsley. For all that I am lousy at arranging flowers and don’t know the first thing about wildlife, it’s almost as if herbs speak to me, telling me what they need. I wipe the sweat from my eyes and survey my progress with pride. Despite the scorching weather, the plot is lush and already teeming with eager plants. It’s miraculous really, like they sprang up overnight. I wonder that the vegetable patch and the flower garden are so withered and decayed, while my little herbs have grown and thrived so quickly.

The back door bangs open, shattering the peace. Emeline cuts directly toward me, little fists balled at her side, brow furrowed in distress. Snip bounds at her heels, wagging his tail furiously as she barrels on.

“It’s not fair!” she shouts before she’s even halfway to the garden.

I quickly wipe off the dirt on my apron and crouch down to receive her, but she stops short and glares at me.

“What’s not fair?”

Before she has a chance to enlighten me, Catherine comes out, throwing up her hands when she sees us. “Get back inside this instant, Emeline!”

“I will not! Lydia, tell her that it’s not fair.”

“Someone is going to have to tell me what’s going on, because—”

They start talking over each other, both acting like eight-year-old children, even though only one of them is, and the other a young woman of twenty-two.

Emeline gets her words out first in a triumphant rush. “Mr. Barrett sent a note along saying he and Mr. Pierce are coming over for a picnic and Cath says that I can’t come because it will be an uneven number and it has to be two men and two ladies but I don’t think it’s fair because I don’t know any other—”

“Mr. Barrett is coming today?”

Emeline stops, and they both look at me as if I have two heads.

“It doesn’t matter anyway, you’re too young,” Catherine says. Turning to me, she lowers her voice. “She’ll say something dreadful, I just know she will.”

She means that Emeline will say something about Boston, and then all the trouble Catherine has gone to with both Mr. Pierce and Mr. Barrett will be lost. “Emeline knows what’s appropriate conversation for company and what’s not. Don’t you, Emmy?”

Emeline glowers at us and then looks down, scuffing her shoe in the dirt. “Yes, I know.”

“There,” I say brightly. I’m already taking off my apron and trying to remember if Ada was able to get the stain out of my favorite cream silk dress. “When will they be here?”

“After lunch,” Catherine says. Crossing her arms, she juts her chin over my shoulder. “What are you doing out here anyway? I don’t remember there being plants there.”

I follow her gaze, having already forgotten the gardening in which just moments ago I was so absorbed. “Just doing a little weeding.”

Emeline is hopping from foot to foot, her patience quickly running out. “So can I come?”

“Oh, just come, what do I care.” Catherine turns to leave. “But it’s your job, Lydia, to keep her out of trouble.”

* * *

I’m pulled from the dark romance of Mathilda by the sound of men’s voices carrying down the road. I put my book down and close my eyes. My stomach has felt light and fluttery all day, and now that Mr. Barrett is here I’m afraid I won’t even be able to sit still or have a level conversation. Mother is sleeping upstairs with a headache, and Father is who knows where on business. It will just be us today. A delicious shiver runs down my spine.

Taking a moment in front of the big gilded mirror in the hall, I smooth out my dress and cast a critical eye over my reflection. I wish I had Catherine’s clear eyes, playful and bright, that make men love her. Mine are dark and serious, just as she always accuses me of being. I test my smile the way she always does in the mirror, but the result is strained, and instead of looking pretty and lighthearted, I look like a bee just flew up my skirt.

Emeline is the first to the door, pulling on it with all her weight. It finally creaks open, swollen in the humidity. I feel the same—sluggish and heavy. Catherine sweeps down the stairs, and though her dress is still crisp and white, there’s a pallor to her complexion, and I know she’s suffering just as the rest of us are in this awful heat. But that’s not what gives me pause. “Catherine, you can’t possibly be wearing that.”

She stops, hand on the railing, and snorts. “And you can’t possibly think I’m about to take fashion advice from you of all people.” Nevertheless, doubt flickers across her face and she rolls her eyes. “Go on then. What’s wrong with it?”

I glance at the door where Emeline is standing, waiting for Mr. Barrett and Mr. Pierce to come up the drive, and lower my voice. “You’re all but spilling out the top.” She’s always been more endowed than me in that area, but this is immodest even by her standards. I imagine her sitting upstairs, plumping and padding, just another feather in her hook to snare Mr. Barrett. Or Pierce. Whoever it is that she feels like playing with today. “That button is near bursting off.”

She gives me a look of utter disdain, and then breezes past to welcome Mr. Barrett and Mr. Pierce.

Emeline is already chattering excitedly, leading Mr. Barrett by the hand straight through the hall and to the back door. I intercept them.

“Let’s offer our guests something to drink first, shall we? I’m sure they’re parched.”

Mr. Pierce’s waistcoat is partially unbuttoned and his lank hair rakishly slicked forward. He barely bobs his head at me before his eyes alight on Catherine, taking her hand with a wolfish grin. I send Emeline with instructions for Ada to bring refreshments to the parlor, and then fall into step beside Mr. Barrett.

He’s watching Catherine and Mr. Pierce with a little frown, his eyes melancholy. I want to say something to him, to have him say something back. I want him to turn those blue-green eyes on me and look at me the same way Mr. Pierce is looking at my sister right now. But all my words get tangled up in my head and the only thing I can think to say is, “They make a handsome couple, don’t they?”

Honestly, of all the things to say. I burn as Mr. Barrett glances down at me, but the look is fleeting and he returns his attention back to them. He’s standing very close and, despite the heat, a little flutter runs through me when his sleeve brushes my arm.

“Yes,” he says. “They do.”

We sit in the parlor, Mr. Pierce and Catherine whispering to one another. Mr. Pierce leans in close to her, and Catherine sweeps her lashes down, occasionally tilting her head back and laughing. Her color is high; she must be feeling better. Emeline monopolizes Mr. Barrett, lecturing him on the habits of mermaids and asking if he thinks there might be one in the pond.

“There might be, I’m not sure.”

He’s distracted. Emeline doesn’t notice, but he keeps glancing up at Mr. Pierce and Catherine, and he doesn’t look pleased. His fair brow is clouded, his jaw tense. How is it that Catherine can have not one, but two men vying for her attention? I might as well be invisible.

Ada presses a glass of something cold into my hand and I sip it automatically as I study him. He has the face of a classical statue, all strong angles rendered soft and beautiful as if by a practiced sculptor. His eyes are the misty green of shipwreck glass, and indeed I fear they could lure me to a stormy fate. Because if I’m understanding the look he keeps throwing in Mr. Pierce’s direction, he’s jealous of his friend. The light fluttery feeling in my stomach hardens and sours.

Damn Catherine. Damn her and her beauty and her cunning and the way she always comes out on top. And damn John Barrett too. I hardly know him, yet I would have thought someone so grounded, so sober, would be impervious to her charms.

The drinks are finished and Emeline is near to bouncing out of her skin. I clear my throat, bringing Mr. Barrett out of his reverie, and Catherine and Mr. Pierce out of their private conversation. “Should we go for a walk?”

* * *

Outside, the thickness of the air hits me like a wall, and I immediately wish I had finished that drink. Emeline skips ahead. Where does she get that endless energy? It’s a labor just to breathe in this heat and humidity. We’re barely out of the yard when Catherine stops in her tracks, her arm laced through Mr. Pierce’s.

“Mr. Pierce wishes to see...” She trails off, giggling into his shoulder. “What was it you wanted to see, Mr. Pierce?”

“Rumor has it you have the finest...roses...in New Oldbury,” Mr. Pierce declares with good humor, “and your sister has graciously offered to show me.”

They head off in the opposite direction.

“Your sister is rather fond of roses,” Mr. Barrett observes.

I look up at him, surprised. But then, of course he would remember that she was arranging roses the other day, and he probably saved the one she gave him as a keepsake.

“I suppose so.” I don’t care what flowers Catherine likes. I don’t care what little tricks and pretty things she says to get her way.

“And you, what’s your favorite flower?”

He’s either trying to be polite, or mask the fact that he’s interested in Catherine’s preferences. I shrug, hardly attempting to keep the irritation from my voice. “Foxglove, I suppose,” I say offhandedly. “Or poppies.”

Emeline is growing restless. “We can look at flowers on the way,” she says, before Mr. Barrett can respond. Then she’s dragging him by the hand down the path.

“In the poem the mermaids ride dolphins and wear crowns of seaweed and pearls. Catherine says they aren’t real but she’s never looked so how can she know for sure?”

Mr. Barrett slowly brings his attention back to us and looks down at her. “Well, she may be right. You probably won’t find any mermaids in the pond.”

Emeline’s face falls. I’m torn between scooping her up and hugging her or giving Mr. Barrett a harsh word.

But before I can do either, he’s crouching down and squinting off in the direction of the pond. Then he shakes his head. “No, this isn’t the right weather for mermaids,” he says solemnly.

Emeline studies his face, not sure if he’s putting her on or not. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he says, frowning as if in deep thought, “mermaids usually keep to the ocean. That’s where all the dolphins and pearls are after all. No, I shouldn’t think the mermaids would trouble themselves with a little pond.” Seeing her face, he quickly amends, “Unless perhaps they are at the deepest part, where humans can’t find them. Quite shy, are mermaids.”

She stares at him, enraptured. Then she turns to me, hands on hips. “We just came from the ocean and I never thought to look for a mermaid in the harbor.” Exasperated, she heaves a sigh and tramps on ahead of us.

I can’t help smiling, and I almost forgive Mr. Barrett his weakness for falling under Catherine’s sway. Almost.

8

I’M WALKING A few steps behind them. Mr. Barrett has stripped down to his waistcoat, his riding coat slung over his arm, white sleeves rolled up revealing tanned arms taut with lean muscles. Perhaps there are some benefits to this heat after all.

Snip bounces at Emeline’s and Mr. Barrett’s ankles, then doubles back to make sure I’m coming before bounding off again. I can’t help but think of the day I met Mr. Barrett in the woods and how different he had been then, smiling and warm and eager. And then he had found out who we were and the door slammed shut.

We climb the little hill behind the house, past the summerhouse and back down into the woods. Sunlight filters in through the glass-green canopy above. It’s cooler here, but only just, and the air is thicker with moisture. I wipe the sweat from my brow and wish I hadn’t done my laces so tightly this morning.

The air is quiet and still, charged with an uneasy energy. It’s an alive thing, prickly and filled with restless spirits. Cicadas and crickets grind away, and bullfrogs hold their breath until we pass, then join the chorus. If I stand still and listen closely it almost sounds like whispers. Yet for all the oppressive heat, the farther away from the house we get, the lighter I feel, as if a weight is gradually being lifted from my shoulders. I run to catch up with Emeline and Mr. Barrett.

A bird calls out above us, and a moment later a streak of yellow flashes between the branches. “Oh! That looks like a golden thrush, doesn’t it, Mr. Barrett? A male, I believe.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. A golden thrush,” he agrees. For a moment he doesn’t say anything else and I wonder if he’s even paying attention. But then he slants a glance down at me, the corner of his lips quirking up ever so slightly. “You know your birds, Miss Montrose.”

I quickly look away, trying to keep my smile from growing too broad under his gaze. “Some. I’m sure I would love to learn more about them, if only I had a teacher.”

Where did that come from? I sound like Catherine. I hazard a quick peek up at him but he’s already looking away, scanning the trees for other birds, presumably.

The truth is, I don’t really know anything about any species of birds, aside from the most common ones. We had gulls and sparrows in Boston, some doves I think. Here, I might be able to point out a cardinal or jay, but that’s where my knowledge ends. That might not even have been a golden thrush for all I know. As soon as I had learned Mr. Barrett was coming over today, I pulled out all the volumes of Histoire Naturelle in our library and pored over the colorful plates, trying to memorize as much as I could. After hours of study all I had to show for it was an aching back and dried-out eyes. Who would have thought there were so many species of the creatures?

Mr. Barrett and Emeline are a little way ahead. His hand is light at Emeline’s elbow as he helps her navigate a tangle of roots, the graceful line of his broad shoulders bent endearingly close to her. For a moment I consider pretending to stumble so that he’ll come back and take my elbow, but as soon as the thought forms, I dismiss it. I won’t stoop to Catherine’s level of tricks and deceits.

When the trees clear I catch my breath. The little patch of shimmering green gives way to a full view of the pond. It’s beautiful, and I can see why it has captured Emeline’s imagination. Rocks edge the water, green and slick, and a weeping willow’s tendrils dip into the glassy surface. It would be the perfect place for a mermaid to emerge and lounge in the sun.

“Be careful, Emmy,” I call to her as she bolts ahead, stick in hand, eager to stir at the water and find her aquatic friends. Snip yelps happily as he tries to steal her stick away.

“I am being careful!” she yells back, her voice equal measures of irritation at being parented and excitement to finally be here. “After the mermaids I’m going to find the boy and we’ll all play together.”

I shrug; it’s impossible to keep up with all her fancies and play stories. “Just don’t go so close to the edge.”

Mr. Barrett stands rigid as he watches her go, squinting against the sun. He looks uncomfortable, as if he wants to say something.

“She’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ll make sure she minds herself.” It’s sweet that he’s concerned for her, but with Emeline busy she won’t be able to let anything slip like Catherine was so worried she would.

With a wary eye still trained on her, he lays his coat beneath the willow and extends his hand. I press my own into his and he guides me down. It’s the first time we’ve touched like that, skin to skin, our fingers twined. That day in the woods when we met he had been wearing gloves, and I’ve been waiting since then to feel his touch again. A tingle runs through my arm and blooms in my stomach. I catch my breath and carefully look out the corner of my eye to see if he felt it too. But his face betrays nothing as he settles down beside me.

I make sure that Emeline is still in my line of sight before I allow myself to enjoy his company. He’s so close that I can see the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, the way the sun catches and filters through his thick, golden lashes. Maybe he wishes that it was him inspecting Catherine’s roses right now instead of Mr. Pierce, but he’s here all the same, with me. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I feel safe when he’s nearby. Not that there’s any reason I should be afraid. It’s more like finding something you never knew you were missing. The bad dreams, the unsettling occurrences of the past weeks all melt away when I’m with him. Even if he doesn’t feel the same way, sitting here beside him watching the pond is enough. This moment is enough.

“How do you like your new home of Willow Hall, Miss Montrose?” He’s not looking at me, and his question startles me out of my thoughts.

“Well enough,” I say. I don’t tell him that I abhor the house with its heavy, watching walls, nor that I can feel the displeasure of the woods for having been felled for such a creation. I don’t tell him that since coming I haven’t had a full night’s sleep, and what sleep I’ve had is filled with disturbing dreams. I certainly don’t tell him about Mother’s wails or the woman in the garden, the writing in the mirror.

“I’m glad to hear it.” His voice is distant, almost wistful. I want to ask him why he was so surprised, so unsettled when we first met him and he learned that we were his business partner’s daughters. Why do his beautiful eyes hold so much sadness? Why does he never smile in my presence like he did that first day?

He has his knees drawn up, arms casually crossed over them as he squints off across the pond. “See that line of pine trees there? No, a bit to the right.” He points. “There. That’s where my property edges yours.”

“Oh,” I say, a bit taken aback. “I didn’t know we were neighbors.”

“Yes,” he says. “Though when I sold this parcel to your father, I was under the impression it would be used only for a small office, perhaps a summer home.” He lapses back into silence before adding, “I know you like to explore, but you should have a care when wandering around the woods by yourself.”

Maybe that’s why he was so surprised to meet us, why he’s so reserved around us still. He had sold his land under one pretense, only to see it used for another. And now he’s afraid that I’ll trespass on his property.

“I hope I don’t come to regret it,” he says. It’s not clear if he’s speaking to me; he’s still watching Emeline, tensing when she gets too close to the water. She’s having a time of it, dancing under the feathery willow boughs, making a little crown for herself out of daisy stems. I’m too taken aback at his frankness to return her smile.

He stops when he realizes that I’m watching him. Seeing my expression he hastily adds, “It’s only that the land is so wild, it’s not a comfortable place for a family.”

It’s a lie. He doesn’t want us here. Our conversation trails off, I have no clue what to say next and Mr. Barrett won’t even look at me. I’m not upset, not really. It’s so beautiful here, wild woods or not, yet I can’t help but feel uncomfortable, as if there’s an undefinable wrongness about the place. The trees and creatures here have no need of my family, and they watch us with wary, slightly accusatory eyes, the way Mr. Barrett must.

There’s something comforting about knowing that Mr. Barrett lives nearby though, just out of sight. I want to make him glad that he did sell the land and that we’re neighbors now. I want to say that whatever he heard about Boston, the things that happened there weren’t true.

But he’s distracted, peering off into the woods and fiddling with a loose button on his discarded coat. The heat prickles and I’m having trouble concentrating because I know he’s thinking about Catherine with Mr. Pierce. Is that what today was supposed to be? Some sort of wager laid down between the two men to see who could win Catherine? Suddenly sitting here beside him is not enough. The empty place that I didn’t even know I contained is aching with want, trembling with fear that it may never be filled.

Abruptly, Mr. Barrett springs up, disrupting the still air and peering off into the woods behind us.

“What is it? Is everything all right?”

“Er...yes.” He drops his gaze from the woods, a hint of color creeping up from his collar. “I thought I saw something,” he mumbles as he sits back down. “It was nothing.”

We sit in silence. Is he looking for Catherine and Mr. Pierce? Did he think he saw them, and was eager to join them after all? If sitting here beside him is not enough for me, it seems it is certainly not enough for him either.

Cyrus taught me that no man would ever want me for anything other than my family’s money, and this was something that I always accepted about myself. But with Mr. Barrett I saw a brief glimmer of hope, that maybe, just maybe, there was more for me. A heaviness presses against my chest.

“Miss Montrose, are you all right?” His gaze has been darting about, ever watchful, as if at any moment he expects someone to materialize from the trees. But now it lands on me.

“What?” His eyes have lost some of their distance. I color, sure that he could read my thoughts as I stared at him. “Oh, yes. Fine. I’m fine.” But I’m not. There’s something wrong, I can feel it. I’ve been jealous before, angry, but this is more than just a passing melancholy mood. It’s as if a dark mist is creeping at the edge of my mind, curling gnarled fingers around me, fogging my thoughts with terrible and ugly feelings. I take a shaky breath, trying to ignore the sensation.

He doesn’t look convinced. “You’re very pale. Are you sure?”

“Am I?” I attempt a careless laugh but it comes out in a choke. “It’s just the heat. I think maybe I need to lie down.”

Mr. Barrett is already on his feet offering me his arm, and I shakily accept it. “Let me walk you back,” he says, peering down into my face. “I’m afraid that I’ve said something to upset you.” He looks genuinely remorseful.

The dark mist curls further into my mind—I can’t think straight. My temple throbs. I must get away from this place, this man. I don’t like the dark turn my thoughts have taken sitting out here with him. I don’t like the jealousy and anger that’s simmering beneath my breast. My heart beats hard, every palpitation a threatening command of Just go. Just go. Just go. Deep within me I know that if I don’t leave, all of that anger and frustration will come erupting out of me in a way I can’t control. Just like that day with Tommy Bishop, a singsong voice says in my mind. Just go. Just go.

But what do I have to be so angry about? I try to shake the fog from my mind, to remember what we were speaking about even a few moments ago. All I know is that I can’t be here right now. I have to leave.

“No, no. Please, stay with Emeline.” I wave off his polite concern. “I just need to get out of this heat and rest.”

Mr. Barrett takes a sharp breath, and I follow his line of sight. Emeline. Emeline is gone.

In the midst of my jealousy and anger, I forgot to watch her, to make sure she was all right. The dark thoughts dissipate, a hundred snakes slithering back from whence they came, as a knot of unease settles in my chest.

She must have gotten bored while Mr. Barrett and I were talking, ignoring her. “She can’t have gotten far,” I say, though my voice trembles, belying my misgivings.

Mr. Barrett is already snatching up his coat, his jaw clenched tight and eyes scanning the surrounding trees. He heads off back into the woods, and I have to jog just to catch up with him. His tense silence compounds my uneasiness and I start to feel real panic. What if she got lost in the woods going back to the house? What if someone, some malicious vagabond wandering through our property stole her away? My blood goes cold. What if those words in the mirror weren’t my imagination at all, but some sort of warning? I hike my skirts to my knees, running as Mr. Barrett increases his pace.

We are just coming up the hill toward the summerhouse, when a crashing in the trees stops us. My heart leaps to my throat and Mr. Barrett comes to an abrupt halt, putting out a hand to keep me back.

The brush rustles with movement, and then a moment later out tumbles a giggling Catherine, Mr. Pierce on her heels.

I let out a deflated breath, relieved that it wasn’t something malevolent, but irritated that we’re losing time looking for Emeline when it’s only Catherine making a spectacle out of herself.

Mr. Barrett parts his lips as if he wants to ask his friend what they were doing, but one look between them tells the whole story; Catherine’s hair is unkempt, her color high and Mr. Pierce’s collar is undone. But there’s no time to chastise her for her careless, lewd, behavior.

“Lydia!” Catherine looks up at me in surprise, a tipsy smile lingering at her lips. “What are you doing here?”

“Emeline is missing,” I snap at her.

The smile fades as Catherine’s gaze flicks between Mr. Barrett and me. She looks more annoyed than worried. “I thought you said you were going to watch her.”

I bite my tongue and resist the urge to take her by the shoulders and shake her. She’s right, but there’s no time to bicker about it.

Mr. Barrett takes charge. “August and I will go back out to the road. Miss Montrose, you and your sister go back to Willow Hall. Send word if you find her before us, and we’ll do likewise.” His tone is commanding, and I’m too sick with worry to do anything other than obey.

9

MY KNEES GO weak with relief when we come back down the hill and around the front of the house to see Snip dozing in the sun on the lawn. A little ways away a horse has been carelessly hitched to the fence; Mother must have a caller, and Emeline has joined them. My heart rate slows. All that worry was for nothing after all. Emeline is safe and sound.

“There,” says Catherine in a grumble. “She just went back to the house. You needn’t have made such a fuss and driven Mr. Pierce away.”

I grit my teeth. “Why don’t you go find Mr. Barrett and Mr. Pierce and let them know that Emeline is safe? They can’t have gotten far.”

Catherine looks as if she wants to argue, but then clamps her mouth shut. An opportunity to have both Mr. Pierce and Mr. Barrett to herself is simply too good for her to pass up, so she turns on her heel and stalks off to the road.

I take a deep breath, watching her go before I square my shoulders and go inside. I hate having to be the one to discipline Emeline, but someday she’ll get herself into real trouble if she doesn’t learn to listen, and God knows Mother won’t be the one to do it. I only hope that Emeline isn’t pestering Mother’s caller.

But when I step into the parlor, it’s not one of Mother’s callers that Emeline is bombarding with questions.

“Cyrus?” At the sound of my voice the young man that had been lounging by the window with a bored expression springs up. What on earth is he doing in New Oldbury, in our parlor? It’s almost as outlandish as if Napoleon had stormed in for a cup of tea. But here he is standing before me in his fine double-breasted coat, his short black hair usually so trim and precise, sticking up at odd angles.

“Lydia,” he says, with his honey-smooth voice. “Forgive me for intruding, but Miss Emeline was kind enough to invite me inside.” He runs a hand through his ruffled hair and flashes me an apologetic smile. “I’ve just arrived from Boston and haven’t even gone to my inn yet. I wanted to see you first.”

I don’t even know how to respond to him. Is this the same Cyrus Thompson who said he could never see me again? The same Cyrus Thompson who sealed my family’s fate in society when he severed our engagement? I take a deep breath. One thing at a time. Turning to Emeline, I try to plaster a stern expression on my face. “You gave us an awful fright running off like that without a word,” I say, conscious that Cyrus is watching us with his sharp brown eyes. “Go up to your room to clean up and we’ll talk later.”

Emeline shrugs, giving me a sly look. “If you hadn’t been so busy with Mr. Barrett you’d have heard me say I was going back to the house.”

My gaze involuntarily flickers to Cyrus at this, and one of his dark brows rises in interest.

“We’ll discuss this later,” I hiss at her, and with a reproachful “hmph” she leaves me alone in the parlor with my ex-fiancé.

“She’s gotten so tall,” Cyrus muses, his gaze following her to the door. When it shuts, his eyes land back on me. “You two used to have such adventures together, I remember. Always coming home muddy from tramping all over Boston, full of fantastic stories.”

I’m surprised he remembers anything about our time in Boston. I’ve hardly spared a thought for Cyrus these past months, and I figured he would have done the same with me. We might have been engaged once, but we rarely saw each other, and after he broke it off I was more upset for my family’s sake than any idea that he might have loved me. When he showed up in Boston to let me know the engagement was off, I was taken aback that he delivered the news in person rather than with a note. Now here he is in our parlor on the other side of the state, fondly remembering little details about our old life.

But I’m in no mood for small talk and I gloss over his pleasantries. “What brings you to New Oldbury?” I ask coolly.

He gestures that I should sit, but when I remain standing he shrugs and seats himself on one of the chairs. “I’m in town on business for my father.”

“You came to New Oldbury on business?” My disbelief must show on my face, because he cocks his head and breaks into one of his dazzling smiles.

“Your father isn’t the only one who sees that New Oldbury is a ripe plum for the picking when it comes to mills. Or that mills are where the real money is to be made these days.”

I open and close my mouth a few times, trying to find the words to address him. Cyrus is a relic of a terrible time in our lives, and he belongs in Boston, in the past. “And you came to find me to tell me this?”

In an instant he’s up out of the chair, dark gaze locked on me. He moves a step closer, his expression fervent and amused. “Business isn’t the only reason I came, Lydia.”

I take an awkward step back. He’s not saying what I think he’s saying, is he? “I...what? You can’t be serious.”

Ignoring my incredulous tone, he launches into his appeal. “I had to see you. I...” He places his hat on the chair and closes the distance between us, taking my hands in his. He’s looking right into me with his dark eyes. “Everything that happened in Boston, it was a mistake. I told my father that I don’t care about the scandal. I made him understand that I’ll have you or nobody. I want you as my wife, Lydia.”

The wind goes out of me, and I reach back to steady myself against a chair. Closing my eyes, I rock back on my heels, letting the implication of what he’s telling me sink in. I can feel him looking down at me, the firm set of his lips softened with my name still lingering on them.

Ours was an engagement settled by our parents years ago, a business partnership between our fathers that would benefit our entire family. Even at the age of fourteen I knew that I would never be a beauty like Catherine. It didn’t hurt that Cyrus was tall with dark good looks, and he was always polite. But I never made the mistake of thinking that he loved me, or even that I might love him. Love would come later, Mother had said with forced cheeriness. That was often the way with these kinds of matches. Knowing that I would probably never have the kind of chances Catherine would have—and that Catherine would never allow herself to be used as currency in a business transaction—I agreed. Besides, it made Mother happy to know that I’d be settled and taken care of, and after a few years I’d grown more comfortable with the idea—and with Cyrus. Until I met Mr. Barrett, I had thought that I could be happy with a life like that.

From somewhere in the house I hear the back door open and then close; Catherine must have taken the back stairs to avoid who she thinks is a caller of Mother’s in the front parlor. Thank God she doesn’t realize that it’s Cyrus, or she would never let me hear the end of it.

“Why now?”

His hands are around my waist. How many times did I lie awake at night, imagining what this would feel like? Not with Cyrus, but some adoring man, his features obscured by darkness, fingertips warm with love as he trailed them down my body. But the reality is nothing like my naive fantasies and I feel uncomfortable, not enraptured.

“Because I can’t stop thinking about you.” He’s nuzzling my neck, the tender spot behind my ear. “I’ve missed you every day since you left.”

I stiffen as he combs his fingers up through my hair at the nape of my neck, and when he searches for my lips with his, I evade him.

“Stop, Cyrus.” I push myself back and he looks at me from under his refined brows, his dark eyes making a show of hurt feelings. “Why are you really here?”

“I just told you. I—”

“Please, don’t lie to me.”

His expression loses some of its vulnerability and he drops his hand. “I was going to come anyway.”

I don’t say anything. My heart rate slows, and the flush of confusion dies.

Then the ridiculous happens. He drops to one knee, my hand in his as he looks up at me, pleading. “Don’t be this way. Lydia—”

“Get up this instant!” I hiss, darting a glance over my shoulder, sure that I heard a footstep in the hall. I yank back my hand, throwing his balance. Cursing, he lands hard on his backside, crumpling his carefully pressed coattails.

This seems to snap him out of it. “Oh, all right. Just don’t look at me like that, would you?” He huffs to his feet, brushing off the crumbs of indignity. “The business has not survived since your father left. We...we’re in a very bad way, Lyd,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “My father asked me to call on you and see if you would be amenable to renewing our engagement, but I wanted to see you anyway,” he adds hastily. “You have to believe me on that score.”

I’m not inclined to believe him about anything at the moment. My expression must say as much, because he’s pacing about the room, loosening his cravat and running his hand through his hair.

I bite the inside of my mouth, trying not to smile. So there is some justice in the world after all. I speak as levelly as I can. “Your father was the one who demanded that mine leave. He said he wouldn’t be in business with a man whose children’s names were always in the papers. If the business is failing, then it’s your fault. Not ours.”

He stops short, running a finger over one of the green bottles on the table, mementos of our fathers’ shared glass venture in Boston, now used as vases for wildflowers. He glowers at me, those dark eyes no longer beautiful and soft, but calculating and angry. “We were going to be married anyway. What do you care why I came back? What other chances do you think you’ll have? I can save you from the cloud of scandal and a life of loneliness, and you can save me from poverty.”

The smile fades inside my mouth. He thinks I’m a puppet. I don’t know why I thought that someday maybe he would have looked at me the way other men look at Catherine. The way Mr. Barrett and Mr. Pierce look at Catherine. I feel cheap, used at his words. He’s right, which makes it hurt all the more.

“You came all the way here with the intention of charming your way into my good graces, into my family’s money. Go home, Cyrus.”

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath, but I let it out now as he snatches his hat up. He stalks to the door, turning around and thrusting an accusing finger in my direction. “You’re a fool, Lydia. As if I would want anything to do with you or your sick family.” His look drips with contempt, but there’s a break in his voice, and I know that for the right price, he would change his tone in a heartbeat.

* * *

I can’t sleep that night. If I fall asleep the bad dreams will come again. Even when I’m awake there are footsteps, cold stares from invisible eyes, figures in the woods and in the garden. I’ve even hung a linen over the mirror, lest new words appear and stare back at me. I kick off the blankets and turn over trying to find a comfortable position, but no matter what I do my dry eyelids won’t stay shut. My skin is still crawling from where Cyrus touched me, and I can’t get his words out of my head. What other chances do you think you’ll have?

I punch my pillow down to make it fluffier, but punching it feels good so I do it a few more times. I imagine that it’s Cyrus’s smug face, his aquiline nose crooked and bloody. Shameless little opportunist. But suddenly the dark hair shifts to amber, the sharp chin broadens and the face becomes John Barrett, his melancholy, clear eyes looking at me from beneath gold lashes. I stop my fist in the air and slump back. Unlike Cyrus, he’s a good person. I saw it in the way he spoke to Emeline as if she were an adult, his equal. I saw it when he crouched down beside me and took an interest in what I was reading, even though Catherine was right there, watching him. But most of all, it’s just a feeling I get, a warmth he exudes despite his serious, sad demeanor. And if he notices Catherine’s beauty and sparkle, well, I can hardly fault him for that, can I?

When sleep finally comes, it’s hot and fitful. I drift between shallow dreams. An owl’s echoing question hangs on the night air. The footsteps and laughter of a child. Not Emeline’s carefree laugh, but that of a boy. The way Tommy Bishop used to laugh when he was pulling the wings off flies, mirthless and unsettling. I’m running, the laughter inescapable, following me at every turn. A chorus of You attract them! Are you ready? Prepare! Prepare! rings out. And then the willow from the pond comes, with its rustle of papery leaves, growing and growing until it’s a hurricane of swirling branches grabbing at me, pulling me down. I have no choice but to succumb to the blackness of its deafening roar.

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