They’d said their goodbyes ten years earlier. Then they met again in the summer. It felt as if they’d never parted … at least for her. Then, one July day, he’d followed her to Quarr. He tracked her through the trees, across the field, and caught her in his arms in the sheltered glade by the holy well.Not here,she’d said on that still afternoon, summoning all her strength.
Lizzie’s footsteps scattered leaves along the path to the well. Water bubbled and murmured from a source deep underground. Someone had surrounded the spring with a stone wall and hacked a primitive bench out of the trunk of an ancient oak. Lizzie sat and fumbled in her pocket, extracting a single stone. She closed her eyes and rubbed her thumb in circles across its flat surface. She kissed it and then crossed herself, praying,Forgive us our trespasses, knowing it was wrong to harbor a sinful yearning, longing for something that couldn’t be. Tears soaked her lashes. She let them fall.
Lizzie sat longer than she intended. She stood in the fading light, looking for the pile of stones she’d left on her last visit. She spotted them, and her heart lifted. Sometimes, she’d find them knocked away, but they were there, a good sign, perhaps. Then she performed the ritual as her grandmother taught her. She fell to her knees, praying, “Hail holy Queen, Mother of mercy …” Lizzie moved three times around the well, stopping each time to repeat her prayer, adding a stone to the pile. For the final reverent act, she got to her feet and placed her left hand on the stone wall. She leaned forward, cupping her right to scoop water for the sign of the cross, looking down, reaching, never noticing the shadow that moved behind her.
CHAPTER 2
Susan Styles pulled gently on the reins, and her pony cart rolled to a stop at Osborne House’s stables. The head groom pushed the double doors open and offered his hand to help her down from the driving platform.
“A pleasant drive, Lady Styles?” He signaled to a stable boy who led the trap away.
“Yes, thank you.” She tucked back strands of fair hair loosened by the breeze. “Am I the last to return?” Susan nodded to the pair of young groomsmen watering a horse and picking out its hooves.
“Not quite. Captain Montgomery is back.” He looked over her shoulder. “And here’s the major.”
Peter FitzGerald, equerry to Queen Victoria, dismounted, tossed the reins to a stable boy, and removed his hat, raking his dark, tangled hair. “Well met, Lady Styles, but I thought you’d been out driving with Princess Louise.”
“Her head ached, so I dropped her at the house.”
“Shall we walk there together?”
“Of course.”
Susan had been surprised to find Peter at Osborne House while Her Majesty was absent. But he had stayed behind to supervise the renovation of the queen’s stables, returning for a final inspection. For her part, Lady Styles had arrived at Osborne with the Prince and Princess of Wales. As Princess Alexandra’s “lady of the wardrobe,” Susan was her senior lady in waiting. Some in the royal household thought her twenty-nine years made her too young for the job. Mature duchesses usually held such posts. But the princess liked her, and the formal role had warmed into a friendship.
“Princess Alexandra tells me you are leaving us,” Susan said.
“Next week,” FitzGerald said, rolling his eyes. “For the delightful trip to Balmoral and back.”
Susan smiled in sympathy; few of the queen’s courtiers relished the five-hundred-mile journey to her castle in Scotland.
The head groom asked, “Any last instructions, Major?”
He frowned, stroking the scar that ran from his right ear to his chin. It was a Crimean War “souvenir,” he’d once told her, “courtesy of a Russian saber.” It hadn’t made him less attractive, and time had tamped its fire to dusty pink. Susan first traced its line years ago, her breath coming quicker.
“I spotted a decayed section of fencing in the north paddock,” FitzGerald told the head groom. “Get Merriweather and Sons to do the fence repairs.”
“Not Gibney’s? They built the original paddock.”
“The house steward thinks they’re padding the bills.” FitzGerald shrugged. “But Michael Bolger might be wrong, so the less said, the better.”
“I’ll see to it, Major.”
“Good man.” FitzGerald nodded to an empty stall. “I see the grooms haven’t stabled the prince’s mount.”
Susan, too, had noticed the vacant stall for the horse belonging to the Prince of Wales.
“Still out and about,” the groom said. “Fine afternoon for a gallop.”
FitzGerald looked at the darkening sky. “He shouldn’t leave it too late. Night falls earlier these days.”
“Hunter’s Moon tonight, Major. That will light his way.”
Three hours later, Susan fiddled with the brooch pinned to her bodice as she walked along the Grand Corridor of Osborne House, looking for a mirror. She found one and checked to see that the jewel was secure, sighing at her reflection. Susan had worn the black silk gown once too often. Widowhood had required an entirely new mourning wardrobe, followed by “half-mourning” dresses in mauves and grays. Both were expenses she could ill afford.
Susan turned left at the hallway’s end, passing the dining hall and surprising a pair of whispering, white-gloved servants setting the table.
“Her half day off, and Lizzie’s not back.”
