“Not too loud!” Imogen ordered, looking over her shoulder.
The air in the garden was crisp, smelling of damp earth and soot, but the boys hardly seemed to notice as they scrambled through the dirt near the garden wall.
“Aha! Look at this one, Philip,” Arthur cried, holding a pebble aloft as if it were a crown jewel. “It’s as white as marble from the Parthenon. Surely that’s the prize for the afternoon.”
Philip didn’t even look up from his patch of mud. “A common bit of limestone? Pish posh! I’ve found a piece of flint over here by the trellis, and it looks exactly like a hawk’s beak!”
“A hawk with a broken nose,” Arthur snorted, leaning over his brother’s shoulder with a squint to take a closer look. “Mine has a proper sheen to it. Yours looks like it fell off a chimney stack during the last gale!”
Philip gave him a playful shove, his eyes darting back to the roots of the ivy. “You wouldn’t know a fossil if it bit you on the thumb. Move your boot. You’re hovering over a prime specimen!”
Imogen smiled for a moment, her heart warm at the sight of the boys enjoying each other’s company and the outdoors. She especially loved hearing Philip be so outspoken with his brother. She looked from the boys over the fence toward Presholm House as a shiver raced down her spine in the cool wind.
“Let’s stroll around a bit, boys,” Imogen said, wanting to distract her thoughts from next door as she turned her back to it.
“I shall find a piece of Roman marble next,” Arthur declared, swinging his small walking stick. “And I shall claim it for the King of France!”
“You can’t name a rock, Arthur,” Philip sighed, though he was grinning as he pulled his scarf tight around his neck to fight the wind.
Imogen smiled at them, her hand resting gently on Philip’s shoulder as they walked. “I think the King of France would be honored by such a tribute,” she said softly. “It is a noble gesture, Lord Philip.”
The wind picked up, whipping a strand of hair across Imogen’s face. She tucked it behind her ear, her gaze drifting involuntarily back toward the iron boundary fence once more.
As long as she lived next door, the specter of her haunted past would follow her. She could not help it.
Beyond the manicured edge of the Duke’s estate sat Presholm House, its grey stone walls looking particularly bleak against the bruised purple of the autumn clouds.
Suddenly, movement caught her eye.
Near the edge of the neighboring gardens, a small, pale figure stood perfectly still. Imogen knew the shape.
It was Julia. The woman wore a heavy velvet cloak of deep emerald, her dark hair tangled by the whipping wind, looking less like a lady and more like a ghost haunting the very ground she stood upon.
A coldness that had nothing to do with the weather settled in Imogen’s marrow. Julia did not acknowledge her presence. She simply watched them with a hollow intensity that made the boys’ joyful shouting feel suddenly fragile.
Imogen froze in her steps.
“Miss Lewis? Look! The King of France!” Arthur cried out, hoisting a jagged piece of wood into the air like a scepter.
The sound of his voice broke the spell. Imogen saw a shadow move behind Julia. It was that of a tall, thin man in a dark frock coat. Lord Presholm. He placed a hand on her shoulder, not in a gesture of affection, but with a firm, controlling grip that steered her back toward the gloom of the house.
Imogen shivered violently.
“Into the house, boys,” she said, her voice snapping with a sudden, sharp urgency. “Now. The wind is turning bitter.”
“But we just got outside, Miss Lewis!” Philip protested.
“Inside, Lord Philip. Lord Arthur, you as well,” Imogen insisted, ushering them toward the side entrance with her hands on their backs. She didn’t look back at Presholm House, but she could feel the weight of those distant windows watching them. “We shall have hot cocoa and finish our Virgil. Move along, quickly.”
“Ooh, hot cocoa!” They said in unison, clearly pleased at the offering.
As they returned to the house and rounded the corner toward the grand staircase, the heavy oak door of the library swung open. The Duke stepped out, a sheaf of papers in one hand and his coat half-donned. He stilled at the sight of them, his posture instantly turning rigid.
The air in the corridor suddenly felt thin. Imogen’s heart hammered against her ribs, a rhythm she hadn’t been able to quiet since he had stood so close to her in the schoolroom.
“Your Grace,” Imogen said, her voice a practiced, flat monotone as she dropped into a deep, perfectly executed curtsey.
Keep your head down, just like you always did,she told herself.
