Chapter One
“Lina!”
The voice that followed Lina up the windswept hill held a note of exasperation, but Lina paid her youngest “cousin” no mind, except to cast a careless glance behind to assure herself that Anna had been able to extract herself from the deadened, tangled branches of the half-dead chestnut grove without injury. Anna was slower than Lina, because she was less accustomed to adventure. Lina didn’t have the patience to wait for her, but she also wished no harm upon the girl. Anna, after all, was a staunch confidante of hers, though Lina did wish that the slight, pale child would not insist upon following her everywhere. Anna was only months younger than Lina, but she seemed like a small child sometimes.
From the shuddering, milky windows in the attic of the most improperly-named Green Grove Manor, where she had been indulging in one of her favorite pastimes, Lina had seen the carriage approaching from far off. Black against the dark gray of the road, almost invisible in the distance through the wintry drizzle against the dead brownish gray of the fields, it had first appeared to her to be a figment of her wild imagination.
No one ever came unexpectedly to Green Grove Manor.
And why would they? A sprawling estate that had fallen into disrepair, its chestnut groves consumed by disease and neglect, its fields unworked and overgrown in summer, its facade flaking away like dead skin, and the interior unspeakably in shambles, Green Grove Manor offered a visitor very little by way of comfort.
Or adventure or interest, Lina added pointedly to her thoughts.
She had stared at the moving black dot only long enough to ascertain that indeed, it was not her imagination that some unannounced visitor was in fact approaching the manor along the long, stony road that cut across a ridge between the fields and the groves. It took her only moments to creep across the attic rafters, through the corridor, and down the former servants’ stairway in the west wing of the house. The wing was not used, and left unheated in the winter, so it was precariously crumbling in upon itself and thusly deemed a danger.
Which is why Lina spent as much of her day there as she possibly could.
There had been a fine rain falling when she made a run for the chestnut grove, which was the only way to reach the road without being spotted, and it had turned to cold sleet that was only now retreating. Anna had followed her, demanding to know why she couldn’t just wait for the visitor to arrive, and expressing concern about their health, until she had fallen behind. Lina was nimble and stealthy from years of practice picking through the chestnut grove, and Anna, of course, was not.
“We will become ill if we continue in the rain!” Anna had pleaded.
“Return home, then,” Lina had retorted. “Although you know what I think of such perfect nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense,” Anna had whined. “You will catch your death from the cold.”
Lina had paused only to turn around and look at Anna pointedly, because while Lina loved adventure far more than was proper, she loved confronting unreasonable presumptions even more. And Anna—well, she had hopes for Anna learning to do the same someday.
“Anna, I am inclined to wander in the grove all winter long, rain or shine, am I not?”
Anna stopped and regarded Lina with wide eyes and uncertainty. She nodded.
“Tell me then, when have I caught my death of the cold? Or even so much as a spell?”
Unlike the elder Harlowe sister Evangeline, Lina—who Evangeline and the other members of the household insisted upon calling by her Anglicized and Christian name, Caroline—was never ill.Evangeline,who rarely went outside in the winter, was prone to passing half the season in her bed, pale and lethargic. Lina was inclined to believe that Evangeline was ill from staying indoors all the time, but this opinion, when voiced, had been very poorly regarded and earned her additional horrid chores, which only piled on, as none were ever rescinded once assigned.
She was nearly at the road, and she could hear the wheels of the carriage and the jingle of the horses’ reins. Lina would have loved nothing more than to drive a carriage herself, but that was naturally disallowed.
She peered over the embankment and decided she had time to dart across the road and behind a windbreak, where she would be able to view the oncoming visitor prior to his arrival. There was no true motive for doing this except for the sheer excitement of it: Lina was, as all the Harlowe family was wont to say, a bit feral.
The carriage was farther away than she had imagined, and so she was able to dart across the road when the carriage was at a bend in the road, and her crossing was obscured. From there, she managed to duck behind the windbreak, and settle herself in with a good view to the oncoming vehicle.
It was something to behold, and even in the adventure-seeking heart of Lina, the sight struck a chord of fear. The horses pulling the carriage were enormous and pure black. The carriage itself was shiny and black as the night, larger than most, with rich black curtains concealing the occupants from view. Only the driver, dressed in an oddly ostentatious red cloak, delineated the coach from an oversized hearse. That, and the fact that there was no carriage of this size and quality anywhere near this forsaken part of the world.
Lina enjoyed the vague thrill that stirred inside of her, even as she caught her breath. Perhaps as the carriage passed she would get a glimpse at a crest or even an inhabitant. And then she would enjoy the thrill of returning to her home without being caught, and somehow drying and remaking herself so that no one but Anna would be the wiser that she had been out in the fields.
What else was there for amusement in this dreadful place?
As the carriage approached, however, the driver craned his neck, and abruptly, just in front of her hiding place, the great beasts pulling the carriage reared and the magnificent vehicle came to a clattering stop.
Lina closed her mouth to hide her breath, and stepped back from the thicket, cringing as a branch snapped beneath her foot. Her heart beat furiously in her chest as she struggled to contain her wild breath. The top of the carriage was visible over the windbreak, so she could see the door to the compartment open. The hat of the driver peeked over the top, and if he had only sat up just a bit, he would have seen her. The crunch of the gravel on the road indicated that the occupant of the carriage had stepped out.
Whoever it was, he was dressed in black and moved slowly, saying nothing as he walked back and forth along the line of the windbreak.
The footsteps stopped.
Lina wondered at that moment, for no particular reason, where Anna was. She sincerely hoped the foolish girl was on the other side of the road still. While the Harlowes had become warily accustomed to Lina’s “wild” behavior, they were very intolerant of Anna following in Lina’s footsteps. The number of inventive chores that would be heaped upon her would be staggering, she was certain, if Anna were discovered on the side of the road in the rain by a dignified and wealthy visitor.
The pause went on so long that she could no longer hold her breath, so she let it out in a steady stream with the hope that it would dissipate in the air, though it seemed quite certain that the mysterious visitor was already aware of her position.
