The ground sloped away as she followed the incline, pushing through brambles, past the silvery tangle of undergrowth, until the trees yawned open, the forest yielding a secret in plain sight.
A lake lay before her, glassy and vast, its mirrored surface reflecting sun and cloud. On its far shore, surely, impossibly,rose a castle. Not a kitschy, Disneyfied tourist trap. This was stone and shadow, turrets and battlements bristling above the waterline, banners trembling in the sultry breeze. She could almost taste its history. Somewhere, a bell tolled.
“England.” Beth pressed her fist to her chest to slow her heartbeat. “The Lake District,” she breathed, mind grabbing for sense, any sense. It looked like the view from her school field trip two years ago, except that then there’d been cameras, shivering tourists in pastel jackets, and little boats shaped like swans. Here, nothing moved but gulls and sunlight.
No signs. No paved paths. Not even the echo of a far-off bus or car.
Her hair clung to her neck, a hot trickle working its way between her shoulder blades. Insects buzzed, bold and unafraid. Beth squinted, fighting the sense of being watched, not by security guards, but by the trees themselves.
“This is … not real,” she insisted, the words ringing false.
She pressed her fingers into the bark of a tree older than her country and whispered, “Okay. No more blind dates. Ever.”
CHAPTER 2
Glenhaven Castle
1468
May
The sun shonehigh and hot over Glenhaven Castle, turning the lake below to a band of hammered silver. From the battlements, Baldwin could see the shimmer of fish breaking the surface. Lazy, content, unbothered. Unlike him.
Inside the solar, the air was thick with the scent of parchment, beeswax, and the faint trace of lavender from the rushes strewn across the floor. The window stood open to the breeze, but it did little to soothe the heat crawling under his collar. A scroll lay unrolled on his desk, ink drying in the margins, the latest missive from court. He had read it thrice and still it rattled his teeth.
The queen had grown bolder. Jacquetta’s influence, once a whisper behind embroidered veils, had swelled into a gale that stirred every corner of the court. Baldwin did not trust it. Her daughter, Elizabeth, now Queen of England, had risen from widowhood and obscurity to a throne meant for the highborn,and though Baldwin was sworn to King Edward IV, a loyal Yorkist from the first clash of steel at Towton, he did not share his liege’s blind admiration for the Woodville women. Jacquetta, cloaked in piety and silk, moved through the court like a chessmaster, her hand behind every new title, every sudden elevation. She spoke in prayer, but her ambition gleamed sharper than any sword. The White Queen may have been born common, but she held the king’s ear like a blade to the throat, and Baldwin had seen too many good men fall to ambition masked as devotion.
He rubbed at the scar along his jaw, the skin tight in the heat, and leaned back in his chair, its wood groaning in protest. A knock came at the door. Not urgent, but anxious.
“Enter.”
Lady Agnes, his younger sister’s appointed companion, slipped inside, fingers twisting in the folds of her gown. Her lips trembled, and her eyes darted to the hearth, as if hoping it might swallow her whole.
“My lord,” she began, voice breathy, “I—I cannot find Lady Eleanor.”
Baldwin’s jaw flexed. He didn’t sigh. He was above sighing, but the urge was there. Eleanor had vanished before, usually in search of trouble or adventure. Or both.
“She was to be stitching altar cloths,” Lady Agnes continued, wringing her hands now in earnest. “But I’ve checked the chapel, the garden, the kitchens…”
“And the training yard?” Baldwin asked dryly.
Lady Agnes flinched. “Yes, my lord. Sir Roland said she was not there either.”
Of course she wasn’t. That would have been too easy. He rose, the movement smooth despite the weight of the sword belted at his hip. “Fetch Sir Alric. We ride.”
Lady Agnes curtsied and fled, skirts whispering behind her.
Baldwin strode from the solar, his tread echoing over the flagstones. Servants scattered like pigeons. He felt the hum of tension settle into his spine, the way it always did when Eleanor vanished. She was headstrong, yes, but clever. Too clever. And these were dangerous times, even in Glenhaven. Especially in Glenhaven.
He met Sir Alric by the stables, already mounted, a warhorse snorting beneath him. Baldwin swung into the saddle, his own destrier eager to move. The gates creaked open, and they rode into the woods, hooves muffled by moss and pine needles.
“She’s taken your second-best bow again,” Alric said after a time, deadpan.
Baldwin exhaled sharply through his nose, the sound nearer a growl than a sigh. “She’ll not like what she gets in return.”
Alric chuckled. “She never does.”
His gaze drifted toward the tree line, jaw tight. “She was but ten when our father died. A child with too much grief and too little guidance.”
