As the guests return to their champagne and the circulating trays of capons, ham, fruits, and cakes—an abundance not often seen, as rationing continues apace—they babble about “Highclere’s striking loveliness” and “the fetching view.” Securing this praise is, of course, Mama’s precise purpose. If pressed, she would maintain that, in celebrating Highclere, she’s celebrating me by drawing attention to my glorious heritage, thereby making me more attractive in the marriage market. But in these moments, I see a glimpse of Almina Wombwell, the insecure girl she must have been upon her marriage to Papa. Although Mama’s central place in English society is now firm, she’d been a wealthy heiress without a title or a station—the bastard daughter of the fabulously rich bachelor Alfred de Rothschild and his French mistress. When Mama walked down the aisle of St. Margaret’s, I am certain whispers trailed in her wake.
“I say, I thought Sir Charles Barry, architect of the Houses of Parliament, was responsible for Highclere?” Lord Stockton, one of my dance partners from the ball, calls out.
I study Mama as she searches for the right response. Watching her once again become the social creature she’d been before the war has been unsettling—nearly as peculiar as it had been to observe hermetamorphosis into a nurse and creator of hospitals for injured soldiers.How I wish she’d never transformed back, I think. If she’d remained the diligent nurse and healer, I might be left to my own devices, instead of pressed into the Season and the hunt for a husband.
Her still-lovely features brighten and her petite frame straightens as the right answer comes to her. “You are not wrong, Lord Stockton. At least not in full.” She bestows on the graying gentleman her famously disarming smile. Itnearlymakes it impossible to envision her as the Fury she’d been at the ball when she discovered me with Mr. Carter instead of with my next dance partner in the Saloon.
“How is that, Lady Carnarvon?” Lord Stockton asks, his eyes narrowing unpleasantly and his voice snapping with barely suppressed ire. This is a man who does not like to be wrong, a man who loathes being corrected, especially by a woman.
“Sir Barry designed the castle, not the grounds,” Mama says, her voice quieter than before.
“Ah,” he says, “so Iwasright in large part.”
My mother flinches, but she maintains her poise. “Yes, indeed, Lord Stockton,” she says, and I consider this unpleasant exchange a victory. Even Mama would not send me packing into the marital arms of a man such as this, had that been one of her original designs. And marrying me off is indeed her primary purpose and, as she never tires of telling me, my duty. But that “duty” would make it nearly impossible for me to pursue my own passion.
“What sheer delight it must have been to grow up in such magnificent surroundings,” Lady Milgrove exclaims. This remark is intended for me.
While I wouldn’t normally welcome this sort of banal exchange, I’m relieved to turn the conversation away from Lord Stockton. “A childhood spent exploring acres of parkland trails, follies, and the castle’s history around every corner in the castlewasmagical,” I say, presenting my youth at Highclere Castle in the most favorable light I know.
I dare not speak the more painful truths. The lonely months Porchey and I spent rattling around the castle, while my parents were in London or Egypt or the Continent, with only Nanny Moss and theservants for company. The long, dark afternoons and evenings we languished in the Nursery, listening to the clink of silver and crystal and my parents’ laughter as they entertained in the Dining Room, where we were forbidden to enter. The endless hours my mother dedicated to nursing anonymous soldiers back to health, leaving me alone to reread Porchey’s letters in a constant state of worry. Amazing how maternal she became with the soldiers, a quality that eluded her in parenthood.
My mother shoots me a rare grateful look and then directs the discussion toward the latest gossip. As the guests chuckle at the bountiful contretemps in this first Season after the Great War, I am left to my own thoughts. They automatically drift to the object in the pocket of my green silk calf-length dress.
I glance around the assortment of aristocrats, wealthy merchants, and society scions—young and old—to make certain their focus is elsewhere. I slide the scarab out of my pocket and into the light and marvel at its intricate design. Could this minute object really be the key to unlocking the mystery of Hatshepsut?
I’ve been a student of Hatshepsut since the day Mr. Carter entered my world. The narrative of her existence is one I’ve been constructing as long as I can remember. The nature of her life and the manner in which her successors were positively determined to erase her from history is a puzzle I’m determined to solve myself.
Chapter Four
JULY 21, 1919
HAMPSHIRE,ENGLAND
The guests make a merry noise as we step out of the vehicles Papa sent to fetch us from our outdoor luncheon, his way of participating from afar in an activity he dislikes. The gravel crunches as we close the doors to the Rolls-Royces, Fords, and Renaults and cross the courtyard. Once inside the cool entrance hall, we wish our guests a tranquil respite before the evening’s activities, and Mama’s eyes fix on me as the hall empties.What offense have I committed now?I think.
“You did yourself no favors at the luncheon, Eve.” She scolds me in a low voice. “Much depends on you making a prosperous match, and I find it disrespectful for you to ignore that responsibility.”
I’ve learned to brace myself for critiques after social occasions, and thus this particular comment comes as no surprise. But I must feign bewilderment, or risk being accused of intentionally thwarting her plans. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Don’t give me those doe eyes of yours. I’ve used that insincere expression far too often myself to be moved by it,” she snaps. “What I meanshould be abundantly clear. By keeping to yourself—instead of maneuvering to sit next to the only two young men in the party besides your brother—you undermined the very purpose of the ball and this weekend: to find you a suitable husband.”
I want to rail against the future she’s orchestrating for me, but I know a row will ensue and I’ll be thwarted in my afternoon plans. She neither cares nor understands that the war has changed me,making plain the fleeting nature of life. I’m determined not to waste mine on a future without meaning, one that’s easily erased like that of my female Carnarvon ancestors.
I let the mask of civility descend upon me, and say, “I’ll do better this evening.”
“You best. Now upstairs with you.”
“I think I’ll relax in the Library with a book.”
Raising her eyebrows, Mama tilts her head in judgment. “I think you’d be better served taking your rest in your bedroom, Eve. The banquet tonight will be long, and I expect you to be in your best form. Especially after the luncheon.”
While I’m no stranger to defying Mama’s orders, I typically do so quietly. But today, I have no choice other than to stand my ground. “I’ll return there soon enough. An hour with a book in the much cooler Library will do me more good than my stifling bedroom.”
Without waiting for her reply, I enter the Library and settle onto a sofa before an empty hearth. Feeling her eyes still on me, I pick up the volume sitting on the side table and pretend to be reading. It isn’t until I hear the clip of her heels marching up the entrance hall stairs that I place the book back down and scamper toward the secret door to the Music Room.
Pulling out the book that operates as a handle for the private door, I enter the Music Room, then quickly close the door behind me. The space is so bright I nearly shield my eyes. Sunlight pours into the windows offering a view of the Heaven’s Gate folly, and reflects off the gilt molding, the sixteenth-century Italian embroideries from the Malatesta Palace that cover the walls, and the glass cabinets holding my father’s renowned collection of Egyptian antiquities.
But the room’s sole occupant seems unaffected by all this honeyed illumination. In fact, he does not even seem to notice my entrance.
