Chapter One
Williamsburg, Virginia
Three months ago, Alice Chadwick had been in love, on the cusp of tenure as a history professor, and had embarked on a dazzling adventure in London. Everyone at the College of William & Mary had been cheering her on, but like Icarus flying too close to the sun, Alice endured a catastrophic fall from grace.
At least she was finally home. The taxi pulled away and she wheeled two suitcases toward her townhouse, grateful nobody was in the parking lot to witness her humiliating return to Williamsburg.
A profusion of lilacs bloomed near her front porch. Normally she would pause to sample their heavenly scent, but the urge to hurry inside, slip beneath the covers, and scrub the last three months from her mind was too strong. Once she recovered fromjet lag, she would begin planning for how to salvage her career because maybe it wasn’t too late. She was only thirty-two years old and had plenty of time to start over. Life was good, wasn’t it? She should be grateful.
Shewasgrateful, but her career as a history professor was hanging by a thread, and it would snap if word of what happened in London got out. Everything felt heavy as she trudged up her porch steps, but the sight of some climbing ivy strangling her lilacs couldn’t be ignored. She dropped to her knees and tugged the ivy away.
Once free, the lilacs seemed to quiver in relief. “Poor things,” she murmured. If she’d been here, she wouldn’t have let the ivy get out of control.
She twisted around to sit on the top step, battling the urge to weep. Strange, because she hadn’t cried once through all the trauma of the past three months, but the familiar scent of lilacs was so quintessentially American that it triggered a prickle behind her eyes. She needed to get inside before anyone saw her. Mrs. Wieland next door was a terrible gossip and Alice needed a few days before she told anyone she was home. If people at the college knew, they’d want to know why she had returned from her semester of leave so early, and it was the last thing she wanted to discuss.
She couldn’t resist a quick inhale of floral sweetness, and sighed at the soothing effect. The head of the chemistry department said that aromatherapy was “bunk” with no scientific grounding, but Alice knew better.
First of all, she would never use a tacky word likebunk, and secondly, she didn’t need proof. Women had been nurturing gardens for millennia and knew the power of herbal scents to calm a fractured spirit. She smoothed the fabric of her gingham skirt as it pooled around her legs, glad to be home despite the reason for it.
Sixteen hours of travel had left her tired and grubby. Strands of her mahogany-brown hair tugged free in the breeze, and she finger-combed them back behind her ears. A shower and clean hair would feel good, but at the moment, the thought of blow-drying hair that fell almost to her elbows was exhausting.
A clank and a muffled “Shhhhhh” sounded from somewhere nearby.
Alice shot to her feet, glancing about. Aside from the chirp of nearby sparrows, now all was still and silent. The wooden shutters on her bay window were closed, just as she’d left them to protect the antiques in the front room. She cocked her head to listen and observe.
A hint of cigar smoke lingered in the air, and speckles of ash dotted the porch railing. Had someone been smoking on her private front porch? Quite odd. Nobody in this enclave of fine townhouses smoked cigars.
Anxiety prickled across her skin. It sounded like the noise had come frominsideher townhouse. Maybe it was paranoia, but the last few months taught her to be cautious.
She hurried down the front steps, scanning the parking lot for anything out of place . . . and that was when she spotted it. In a parking lot filled with practical cars, Daisy Tucker’s alpine white Lexus looked like a swan among crows.
Daisy was the only person in all of Williamsburg who knew Alice was returning home today. And the cigar scent? Kingsley Tucker, Daisy’s father-in-law, was known for smoking fine Cuban cigars. How he managed to get cigars from Cuba despite the American embargo was a mystery, but the Tuckers had their ways.
There was no avoiding this. At least Daisy and Kingsley were friends she could count on not to pry into her humiliating expulsion from London. After a brief chat, she would plead jetlag and ask them to leave. She squared her shoulders and twisted her key in the lock, then pushed the door open.
“Surprise!” The lights flipped on and a spray of confetti flew in the air.
Countless people crammed into her front room, smiling and clapping. Daisy rushed forward to greet her in a cloud of Chanel No. 5.
“Welcome home,” Daisy said while delivering a perfect set of air kisses beside both of Alice’s cheeks.
“Oh, wow,” Alice managed to choke out. “Just . . .wow.” At least twenty people ringed her living room, all of them smiling, holding teacups of punch and looking at her in expectation. “My goodness, thank you for this homecoming. It’s so . . . unexpected.”
What a disaster. She wasn’t ready to face anyone yet, but people crowded around her. Someone opened the blinds and sunlight flooded the room, illuminating her vintage furniture and walls of shelving filled with well-thumbed books.
“How was the filming?” Kingsley Tucker asked, his grandfatherly voice booming. Chatter in the room came to a halt as everyone turned to listen.
And so it begins. Landing a plum job on a movie set packed with every high-profile British actor imaginable was bound to unleash a torrent of questions. She’d known it would happen, and already had the perfect excuse to evade the scrutiny.
“It was wonderful, but you should see the confidentiality forms I had to sign. No gossiping allowed!”
It wasn’t a lie. The attorneys in London unloaded a firestorm of threats against her and she signed dozens of forms, including an iron-clad nondisclosure agreement.
“We’re all very proud,” Kingsley said. “Once that movie comes out, there won’t be any more griping from the HistoryDepartment about granting tenure to a Jane Austen expert, right?”
Over in the corner, a few of her colleagues from the History Department frowned. Alice specialized in all aspects of nineteenth-century history, although her specialty was the world of Jane Austen.
Why did the study of Jane Austen still invite such contempt from her male colleagues? They instinctively dismissed Austen’s heroines as passive, doe-eyed ingénues with limited accomplishments. Alice’s doctoral dissertation was a flaming arrow aimed at destroying this condescending attitude. Jane Austen wrote with a sharp quill and acid wit. Her heroines used their intelligence and domestic skills to transform cold houses into havens of beauty and moral order. These women weren’t passive; they were on a crusade to tame the harshness of society and soften its sharp edges.
