And that was perhaps the way it must be if he was to survive, here at the end of the earth.
“Tommy,” he croaked at last. “I’m Tommy.”
“All right,” the woman whispered. “All right, Tommy. I’m Jessie Boyd. Come on now, back to the house. There’s a storm blowin’ in.”
Chapter 1
October 1458
Darlyrede House
Northumberland, England
“Is it done?”
The rasping whisper and skeletal fingertips digging through the sleeve of her gown caused the maid to gasp and freeze in her movements—she hadn’t known the lady was awake, she’d been so still, her eyelids drooping so low.
“Yes, milady. All is ready.”
“Then I am also ready,” Caris Hargrave said. She opened her hand and turned it palm up toward the maid, who took it in a firm but gentle grip and then seized the woman’s forearm, pulling her into a sitting position on the thick mattress, forested by towering piles of cushions and throws. The noblewoman dragged her thin legs from beneath the coverlet and, at first glimpse of the woman’s bare feet, the maid dropped to her knees to fit the fine, tall, calfskin slippers over the pale, blue-veined skin.
“Cordelia? No, of course that’s not right.” Lady Hargrave sighed crossly. “Forgive me; I…I haven’t been sleeping, and—”
“Think nothing of it,” the maid said, pulling the ties of the slippers tight—but not too tight—against the fragile bones of the lady’s foot. It was like fitting a songbird with armored boots. “I am called Beryl, milady. Remember?”
And that was true. The first rule was to tell the truth as much as possible.
“Beryl, of course. How could I...” Her words trailed away.
Beryl helped Lady Hargrave to stand, then held the thick robe while the woman slid her arms inside. She braced her with an arm around her waist and then, together, they turned toward the door and began a slow advance.
The maid reached out an arm to open the ornately carved door leading to the adjoining chamber.
“I remember now,” Caris Hargrave said as they entered the glowing chamber, lit by exactly fifteen candles. “The abbey.”
“That’s right, milady,” Beryl murmured, leading the woman through to the long, lead-paned window. “I will try to remind you.”
“No, no,” Caris said dismissively as she lowered herself gingerly onto the window seat. “It is only a remnant of my nightmares, Beryl.”
As soon as Lady Hargrave was settled, Beryl took a step backward and folded her hands at her waist, prepared to wait silently. She would be standing here for at least an hour, and while there would be little conversation, it was an opportunity to further observe, and Beryl would take full advantage of it.
Lady Caris Hargrave. Aged three score, if reports were averaged. Her dark brown hair contained not even one strand of silver, her face pale and lovely still, even if the skin was thin and draped over the fine bones of her face like fragile pastry over a tart. Her eyes were the same dark shade as her hair, her brows wispy and arched.
Beryl thought that this woman could have passed for her own mother, and it made her heart ache quietly in her chest.
Lady Hargrave wore no veil in such private attire as her sleeping gown and robe; none of the heavy jewels Beryl had occasionally glimpsed. But, then again, she never wore them at night when she took up the vigil in the hauntingly still apartment of rooms that was Beryl’s primary domain. The entirety of her duties at Darlyrede House took place here, and they must be done with absolute precision.
Fresh linens. A pitcher of cold milk and a plate of cheese and crisp bread. Fifteen new candles lit and kept burning as night crept across the moors toward Darlyrede House. Every night. And for the first hour of the vigil, Caris Hargrave would keep watch at the window, waiting for the return of her missing niece. Fifteen candles to mark the age Euphemia Hargrave had been when she had disappeared.
“He hasn’t touched you, has he?”
The question—both the noise of and the subject matter—startled Beryl. “Milady?”
“My husband. Lord Hargrave,” Lady Caris clarified in her soft, vulnerable tone. “Has he touched you in any way?”
Beryl stared at the woman, her heart pounding, her mouth dumb.
Lady Hargrave tucked her chin, and her deep brown gaze bore into Beryl’s. “Be not afraid to tell me, child. You would not be punished.”
“Nay, milady,” Beryl answered, dismayed at her raspy whisper. “He has not. I swear it.”
And that too was, thankfully, true.
Caris held her gaze an instant longer before turning back to the black window that showed only the woman’s specterly reflection. “Good,” she said. “Sometimes he…takes liberties beyond what he is entitled to. I don’t like it when he touches my girls. I wonder sometimes…”
Beryl forced herself to swallow past her constricted throat.
“You will tell me, won’t you?” Lady Hargrave said abruptly, her gaze still fixed upon the nothing through the window. “If he is…untoward?”
“Of course, milady,” Beryl said. “If you wish it.”
“I do wish it,” Caris Hargrave murmured to her reflection. “I wish it very much.”
The woman was quiet for a long time, and so Beryl thought that her mistress had reverted to the silence that had marked these nightly rituals for the six months of Beryl’s employment at Darlyrede House. Six months of watching, waiting; of rebuffing the offers of friendship from the other maids, rejecting the advances of the male servants of the estate. She was known as the cold French girl now. Airs, they said.
Perhaps that was also true.
But then Caris Hargrave whispered again, and this time Beryl did actually jump.
“She’s dead, isn’t she? Fifteen years with no word, no sign. She must be dead. Out there, somewhere.”
Beryl swallowed forcibly. “We must have faith, milady.”
“‘Faith’?” The noblewoman repeated the word as
