“The heartless bastards!” Chrystabel would be fined herself if the Dragoons heard her using that kind of language, but right now she didn’t care. “How dare they!”
Matthew shrugged. “Our family dared to fight against them. Now they’ll confiscate our estate for their own gain. They need funds to run the new government—if the king had won, he’d have robbed the other side just the same. We are but the spoils of war.”
Matthew was a very levelheaded fellow, always good in a crisis. Unlike Chrystabel, who couldn’t seem to think straight. “But what will we do? Where will we go?”
“Grosmont Castle.” On his walk from the front door to her room, he’d obviously thought this through. “My seat. It’s supported us ever since Father died. And it’s the only place we can go, isn’t it?” he added reasonably.
“We’re to live in Wales?” Chrystabel shrieked, her volume not reasonable at all.
“My, that is far away,” Arabel murmured.
“Yes, and what about all our friends?” Being a sociable sort, Chrystabel had many friends. “We won’t make new ones—Wales is nothing but wilderness! And we don’t even know their language! Their words have all those L’s!”
“I’d wager there are no Dragoons there,” Arabel pointed out, looking on the bright side as always. “We won’t need to worry about Cromwell coming after that drafty old castle.”
“We can be thankful for that,” Matthew agreed. “I imagine we should instruct the servants to begin packing our things.”
Chrystabel shook her head, amazed that her brother could be so calm and practical. She remained silent a moment, struggling to resign herself to this dire fate.
Wales.
Wales!
She slipped a hand into her pocket and played with the silver pendant she kept there, which always made her feel better. Father had given it to her right before he left to go fight in the war, when she’d been inconsolable. It was a family heirloom, a rendering of the Grosmont crest with its lion, passed down the generations from father to son…and now to Chrystabel. Tradition said the lion pendant ought to be Matthew’s, but Chrystabel only paid heed to traditions that suited her. And losing her dearest keepsake of the man she’d loved most in all the world would not suit her one bit.
Her heart constricted at the thought of everything else she was about to lose. Her ancient tester bed, where she’d spent most every night of her nineteen years. The harpsichord her mother used to play when they had company to supper. The little rose garden her father had planted for her…
“I’m taking my roses,” she said suddenly, surprising even herself.
Matthew’s dark brows knitted together. “What?”
“I’m taking my roses. I need them for essential oils to make perfume, and I haven’t any idea whether there will be roses in Wales at all, let alone my roses.”
Arabel shook her head. “They’re planted, Chrystabel. You cannot take roses.”
“What did Cromwell say?” Chrystabel marched over to snatch the letter from Matthew’s hand and quote from it. “‘You shall have liberty to take one day to gather and carry off your goods, and such other necessaries as you have.’” She looked up. “I’m a perfumer. I consider my roses necessary.”
“You cannot take them,” Arabel repeated. “There’s no point. They’ll die.”
“It’s winter. They’re dormant.” Chrystabel hoped that meant they wouldn’t die.
“You cannot take them,” Arabel insisted.
“You think not?” The look Chrystabel sent her sister was a challenge. “Watch me.”
TWO
Tremayne Castle
December 22
JOSEPH ASHCROFT, the Viscount Tremayne, was puttering around in his—well, he liked to call it his conservatory, even though it really wasn’t one—when he heard the old wooden door rattling, making quite a racket.
A shout forced its way through the cracks. “Please, let me in!”
“You cannot go in there, Mistress,” one of Tremayne’s groundsmen hollered as the door rattled some more—to no avail, since it was barred from the inside. “This wing is unfinished and uninhabited. You must go around the castle and through the gatehouse.”
“I cannot—it’s urgent!”
“That door won’t open from out here. You really must go around, Mistress…?”
“Creath Moore—my name is Creath Moore.” The groundsman must have looked confused, because she added, “Creath—it rhymes with breath. And I must get inside now!”
Joseph was already unbolting the door. When he lifted the bar and pulled it open, Creath fell into his arms.
And immediately began sobbing on his shoulder.
“I’ve got her, thanks,” Joseph told the groundsman, who was standing there looking astonished to find anyone in the roofless building.
A new hire. Otherwise he would have known that Joseph used this half-built wing of the castle for his winter gardening—and the man would also have known Creath. She lived on the nearest estate, and she and Joseph had been friends for nearly ten years, ever since his family had moved here to Tremayne to wait out the Civil War in relative safety. He and Creath had grown up together. All of the old retainers knew her.
In ten years, Joseph couldn’t remember Creath ever sobbing this hard. Not even when her parents and little brother all died of smallpox last year. She wasn’t a short girl, but he was tall, and she felt slight and fragile shuddering against him. He couldn’t imagine what was so wrong, but his heart went out to her.
“Close the door,” she managed through her sobs. “And bar it. Please.”
Joseph disentangled himself from her to do that, shutting the door in the groundsman’s surprised face.
“Will you be all right?” he asked Creath once they were free from prying eyes.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Choking back more tears, she staggered over to his potting bench and dropped to one of the stools he kept nearby. Her gaze darted around the huge open space to all the glassless windows, which Joseph had covered in oiled parchment that let in light but blocked any view. “Will you look outside and see if anyone is approaching?”
Joseph blinked. “You just asked me to bar
