Sarah was a mature sixteen-year-old the first time Phoebe met her. But the similarity of their likes and dislikes and their temperaments were such that they immediately became fast friends. And that was the start of the many crossings of the Firth of Forth as Sarah came to Baronsford and Phoebe traveled to Bellhorne, sometimes with Millie, but often alone.

As the carriage turned off the main road and started up the long drive to Bellhorne Castle, the memories tossed and churned like rushing water following the curve of a river. Phoebe recalled the conversations they shared, the stories they told, the quiet havens they escaped to.

She stared out the carriage window and remembered how often the two of them stole away and walked to the top of the highest hill on the estate, a favorite place to sit in the grass. They’d look out at the Firth of Forth for the white sails of ships and talk about their dreams of traveling to faraway places. From there, they could see the ancient oak where Sarah’s father had proposed to her mother after he returned from the colonies in America. One time, they’d seen the smoke of a cooking fire rising from a camp of Romani travelers, and she told Phoebe about a wedding the passing nomads once held there. The romantic music of the fiddles and tambourines had drifted across the fields till nearly dawn.

Their visits to the stony shore were frequent too. Phoebe recalled a wet and misty day they’d spent looking for perfectly matched shells they could each save. It was the first time she came to Bellhorne. Sarah had told her about the handsome minister in the village, and then grown somber, relating the news from Ian’s latest letters about the battles on the continent.

But when the lightning and thunder of Fife’s summer storms flashed and raged outside, they would go at night into the west tower in search of the ghost of a dashing Jacobite rebel that her friend claimed roamed through the castle in search of lost treasure.

Once he’d returned to Bellhorne from the wars, however, the only specter that interested Phoebe was Captain Bell, who might appear unexpectedly, show his handsome face, greet them sternly, and then go as suddenly as he came. A hero in the fight against Napoleon, he was now master of Bellhorne, its fishing village with the stone kirk, and the rolling lands that went on for miles and miles. But to Phoebe, he was a wounded knight errant, returned to the towers of his grey stone fortress, awaiting the arrival of his true love.

Many times when she came to see her friend, Phoebe tried to get the brother to notice her at dinner, the only time he joined the family for any extended period. On the journey home from each visit, she let herself imagine that next time, he’d discover she was witty and engaging and worthy of pursuing.

And now she was here, at Bellhorne, escorted by the only man she’d ever yearned for. She was happy about that, of course, but Bellhorne itself would never be the same. All those golden afternoons, all their adventures, all their heart-to heart talks were a thing of the past. A past she could never reclaim. Sarah was gone. Her friend was lost. Stolen away and brutally murdered. It was a fate her sweet friend did not deserve. And there was an empty space in her own life that would never be filled.

The lump in Phoebe’s chest burned painfully. But there was nothing she could do to bring Sarah back.

“Here we are,” Ian said. His eyes and his gentle tone made her think he knew where her mind had wandered. He seemed to understand the sadness that visiting Bellhorne would summon in Phoebe. He shared in that loss, and she knew Sarah’s absence haunted him.

Whatever sorrow Phoebe was feeling, however, she needed to hide it deep inside of her, for there to greet them as the carriage door opened was Mrs. Bell, her face shining with joy at the sight of the visitors. She met them with the same effusive warmth and affection she’d always greeted them with when her daughter was still alive.

“Lady Phoebe! Lady Millie! You do indeed brighten our quiet corner of the world, coming to see us here. My dears!” She sighed happily as Ian bent to kiss her cheek. “So many precious memories.”

Before the introductions and greetings could continue, the older woman faced Phoebe, thin cool fingers cradling her face. She touched her cheek, caressed her hair, showering her with the affection of a mother. “You, my dear. My sweet girl. I’m so glad you are here.”

Words struggled to emerge, apologies for not coming sooner, regrets for not writing to her. Condolences that she couldn’t voice. She bit her lip, and when her eyes burned, Phoebe hugged Mrs. Bell before she could discover the runaway tears.

When the two of them pulled apart, Ian was standing beside her. There was a tender touch on the small of her back, almost a caress, as he introduced her and Millie to his cousin, Mrs. Young, and continued on with good-natured grumbling about how he was hungry enough to eat an ox.

As they all headed toward the house, Mrs. Bell walked between Phoebe and Millie and ordered a late luncheon to be served.

“We’ll eat in the garden by Sarah’s roses, shall we?” she suggested, pointing the way with her cane. “As we always did when the sun peeked out.”

As they strolled around the castle and entered the gardens through the archway, Phoebe detached herself from the other two and paused to look out at a distant hill, rising from a thick of oak trees. Sarah once told her the story of a relative hiding in that forest for an entire summer following Culloden.

Phoebe was recognized as a storyteller by everyone who knew her from the time she could hold a pencil to paper and string words together. Sarah took great joy in telling her the legends and ghost stories and gossip that permeated the grey stones of the thirteenth century castle. You’ll rival Mrs. Radcliffe with your stories, she’d say with a laugh, and make her sorry she ever took up a pen. She wondered what her friend would think of the new direction her writing was headed now. To create fiction or report facts. Phoebe was certain she had the answer a month ago, but now she wasn’t too sure.

Ian moved beside her. “The Rebel Oaks,” he said, following her gaze.

“I’ve always wondered if a tale Sarah told me about it was truth or legend.”

“Quite true,” he replied. “The man spent nearly two months in a burnt-out tree trunk.”

Taking her hand, he put it on his arm, and Phoebe felt the warmth of his body as they trailed after the others.

“Thank you for bringing us to Bellhorne,” she said in a low voice.

“I wanted you to see the place again. To see my mother.” He paused. “I wanted you to come.”

Phoebe blushed, not at all certain if she had any right to entertain the hope warming in her heart regarding his intentions.

The maids had already set up the luncheon before a lattice wall of flowering clematis. The gardens spread out around them.

“Shall I send a message to Dr. Thornton and Mr. Garioch, and ask them not to come to dinner tonight?” Mrs. Young asked as they arranged themselves around the table.

“Not at all. Not at all. I want them here,” Mrs. Bell told her companion before addressing the guests. “You know my doctor and the rector. It will be delightful to reunite such old friends.”

Phoebe exchanged a look with Ian. She’d heard both men’s names mentioned on her prior visits, but she had met neither of them. There was no purpose in saying so. From what she’d seen and heard so far, it wasn’t Mrs. Bell’s memory that concerned her as much as the older woman’s fragile state of health. Walking to the garden, they’d made a number of stops for her to catch her breath.

“Tell me about your dear mother,” Mrs. Bell asked as they ate lunch. “And do your parents still divide their time between the Borders and Hertfordshire?”

While Millie brought their hostess up to date with all the news of their parents and siblings and marriages and additions to their growing family, Phoebe’s mind turned again to her lost friend.

The grassy lanes and garden beds were brilliantly colored with the fondest memories. The scent of roses evoked a very different period of time in her life. Many nights during a visit, Phoebe and Sarah would sit together on the bed and share stories until dawn, while the night fragrances of the garden wafted in on the summer breeze.

Phoebe remembered her last time here. Sarah had been adamant that she was hearing footsteps in one of the spiral staircases. A fortnight before, she said, her red slippers had gone missing, only to be found two days later at the foot of the same staircase. Long before, she’d told Phoebe the tale of a young woman named Anne Erskine who lived over a century ago in the castle. The details were unclear, but somehow she fell to her death from a window at the top of the west tower, and now haunted the castle. Sarah believed the footsteps and the theft of the slippers meant the lonely spirit was trying to reach out and befriend her.

Bellhorne was already home to at least one ghost. Even though Sarah died in Edinburgh, her earthly remains had been brought back to the home she loved. Phoebe wondered if her friend’s spirit would find the way back here where she could haunt the stairwells with Anne Erskine.

Suddenly she noticed the table had grown silent. A question had been directed at her. She discreetly glanced at Millie for help, but her sister only directed her gaze toward Ian’s cousin.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Young. I was distracted for a moment. Did you ask me something?”

“I’ve found volumes of your aunt’s novels in the library and—”

Mrs. Bell held up a hand, hushing her. Her dark-eyed gaze rested gently on Phoebe’s face.

“I know she’s not here with us, but you feel her presence too, don’t you?”

Phoebe tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat. Sarah was indeed with them, in memory, in spirit, in the brush of the breeze over the leaves and the flower petals. She struggled. No answer she could give came to her. The conversation she had with Ian on the ferry about his mother not knowing of Sarah’s death, the promise she’d made to him of not destroying the pretense, all rushed back. But at this very moment, looking into the clear, intelligent eyes of their hostess, Phoebe could not help but wonder if she knew.

“How can we not think of Sarah while we sit here breathing in the sweet fragrance of all those roses that were planted in her honor?” Ian asked, putting an end to the prolonged silence. He laid his napkin on the table. “Unfortunately, I need to meet with Mr. Raeburn this afternoon, if you ladies can do without me for a few hours. Mother, do you want to rest before dinner?”

Thin fingers stretched out toward the son. “Indeed. Indeed, I should. And Alice, would you be kind enough to make sure Lady Phoebe and Lady Millie are settled in their room? Have Mrs. Hume assign maids to see to each of them.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

As the servants cleared away the luncheon, Ian escorted his mother to her rooms while Phoebe and Millie were ushered in by his cousin.

“I’m sure it must be very difficult—as old friends of Sarah’s—to carry on this pretense,” Mrs. Young said in a low voice once they were out of hearing range of their hostess.

Phoebe watched the woman lead them across the great hall toward the stairs. From the information Ian offered on their journey here, she gathered Mrs. Bell’s companion was in her mid-thirties. She’d been married to a clergyman in Maryland and widowed about a year before coming at Ian’s request to Bellhorne.

Maybe it was because she’d read so many novels in her youth, or because she herself had strong feelings for Captain Bell, but the thought had crossed Phoebe’s mind that perhaps Mrs. Young entertained a romantic interest toward her cousin. But meeting her in person now, she perceived no such attraction. Kind, reserved, and matter-of-fact, Ian’s cousin appeared to be a person grounded in the practicalities of life. And her attention was focused entirely on Mrs. Bell.

“Did you and Sarah ever meet?” Millie asked the woman as they walked through the upper-floor gallery. Family portraits covered the high walls.

“Sadly, I never had the chance. She was born in Fife, and I in Baltimore. We’re cousins through her father and my mother,” she explained. “I only knew her through our letters. But the way this house has been maintained, Sarah’s presence is—as Mrs. Bell mentioned at the table—undeniable.”

Midday light spilling through the windows illuminated the handsome Persian rugs and the huge paintings of family members and stern-faced ancestors. Phoebe had walked through this gallery many times, and she now paused by one of her favorite portraits. Ian and Sarah. She was an adorable seven-year-old, and he was a fresh-faced version of the handsome man he was today. Dressed in his military uniform of the Coldstream Guards, the young man stared ahead with eagerness at the adventures lying before him. But Sarah’s eyes were on their joined hands. Small fingers held her brother’s larger ones. She wasn’t ready to let him go.

Phoebe thought of her conversation with Ian about continually returning to the Vaults. Three years after Sarah was taken, he was not ready to let her go. And she understood the sentiment.

They were waiting for her in the doorway at the end of the gallery, and she hurried to catch up.

“I was told to put you in the room across from Sarah’s,” Mrs. Young said as they reached their destination. “I hope that suits you.”

“It’s perfect,” Millie assured her. “We often stayed in this room when we visited Bellhorne.”

As soon as Ian’s cousin left, Phoebe walked to the windows and pushed them open wide. From the first moment they’d arrived, her emotions had been working like a riptide, draining the sandy foundation from beneath her feet. Little by little, she was sinking deeper and becoming less secure. The timing of Ian’s interruption at lunch was perfect. She wouldn’t have been able to answer his mother’s question rationally.

“What do you think is worse?” Millie asked softly. “To know your child is dead, or to believe she’s become estranged because of some injury you’ve inflicted but can’t recall?”

Phoebe turned to her sister. Millie was not waiting for a maid. She already had their traveling trunk open and dresses laid out on the bed.

“What makes you think Mrs. Bell believes Sarah’s absence is the result of something she did?”

Millie shook her head. “During the luncheon, I know you weren’t paying attention to much of what was being said.”

“What did she say?”

“Mrs. Bell said twice that all the news of her daughter comes from her son,” Millie explained. “And just like a mother, she immediately made excuses about her eyesight and how Sarah knows she needs help to read or write her own letters. And how happy she is that the brother and sister are so close.”

“None of what you say makes me think she blames herself for Sarah’s absence.”

“Mothers always take the blame for their children’s actions,” her sister told her. “And for their bad temperaments and their sicknesses and their ill-conceived marriages and whatever else there is to take responsibility for.”

Wrapping her arms around her middle, Phoebe considered her sister’s words and thought about their own mother. From what she recalled, every troubled day Millicent Pennington endured could be traced to some worry or some real catastrophe pertaining to her children.

Motherhood. She knew next to nothing about it. She couldn’t even imagine what kind of mother she’d be herself.

Phoebe hung their dresses in the wardrobe and wandered to the window as her thoughts drifted in another direction. To the same place they’d been since the night she’d met him again.

Ian.

At least it seemed she hadn’t lost his good opinion of her. Their conversation in the carriage drifted back to her. His attention, the words he’d spoken, every touch was cherished and etched in her mind.

The kiss they’d shared in the garden at Baronsford felt as if it happened an eon ago, but it was still very alive in her memory. She touched her lips.

Phoebe worried about him. About where he went and what danger he was putting himself in with his nocturnal trips into the city’s netherworld.

Strength, confidence, and training where meaningless when a knife came out of the darkness. The man she’d fought with was committing murder. She’d escaped death, as had young Jock Rokeby. But thinking of Ian as a potential victim of this killer sent a shaft of hot steel straight into her heart.

Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. Voices came at her. Faces. Sarah’s. Jock’s. A dark-cloaked man running through the passages of the Vaults.

The greenery and the sunlight outside their window called to her. Phoebe turned toward the door. She needed room to move and air to breathe if she were ever going to clear her mind and be a tolerable companion to their host for the limited time they were visiting.

“I’m going for a walk.”

“Give me a few moments to arrange our things and I’ll come with you.”

She couldn’t wait. She didn’t want company. She needed to think.

“Look for me in the rose garden,” she told her sister, picking up her bonnet and going out.

The hallway was empty, and Phoebe paused and stared at Sarah’s door. Ian’s words came to her of how the rooms had been kept ready for his sister’s imminent arrival. She couldn’t go in there. She needed no reminders. Her friend was already with her in spirit.

“Sarah,” she whispered, pressing her palm against the door before hurrying down the corridor.

Passing through the gallery, Phoebe felt the eyes of Ian’s predecessors staring down at her. Hurrying down the steps, she heard the ordinary sounds of the household, and it occurred to her that they should have been more comforting. But beyond the familiar, she felt a strange presence. She couldn’t identify it. A ghost, witnessing her every move. She paused on a step and looked up at the landing leading to the gallery. A shadow moved behind a column. She stood perfectly still for a dozen heartbeats, waiting, but there was nothing.

She made her way down the great hall. Weapons arranged on the walls between tapestries gleamed dully. The uneasiness that had edged under her skin caused her to shiver as she walked, and then ran, and then walked again toward the sunshine outdoors.

No one was in the rose garden, and that suited Phoebe perfectly. She moved along the row of roses, and the sweet scent filled her head. Ian and Sarah had both grown up here. This was as much home to them as Baronsford was to her.

She touched a white flower on a rose bush. The petals shivered and fell at her feet.

Sarah. Beautiful Sarah. Intelligent and wise Sarah, who complained about her brother’s rigidity, not knowing he’d never lost his confidence in her. Sarah, who for all her talk of rebellion, was the most cautious of people.

Phoebe followed the well-trodden paths of the garden to the old wall. The smell of newly cut hay lying in the fields drenched her senses. She passed through a gate beneath an arch and kept walking, trying to empty her mind of sadness and recall the happier times at Bellhorne. Perhaps this was how Mrs. Bell had come to terms with her daughter’s absence.

She followed the lane past the meadows, dotted with bundles of hay that had been gathered and stacked.

She wandered on for a while, and suddenly she knew where her feet were taking her.

Nobody from Bellhorne went there, Sarah said, but on summer days when Phoebe was visiting and the weather was particularly fine, the two of them would steal away past the high walls that contained Mrs. Bell’s beautiful gardens. Running through the fields and the empty nomads’ camp and along the burbling brook above the loch, they’d come to the Auld Grove, a wild forested park that Sarah loved dearly.

Phoebe followed the path now, cutting across the fields until she reached the track that led along the bracken-lined brook. She knew this way so well, and soon the cool shade of the ancient grove enclosed her.

A rustle of branches behind her drew Phoebe’s attention. Still carrying her hat, she shielded her eyes with her hand and looked back. She startled when a half-dozen birds took flight noisily a few yards away. She waited, expecting to find someone emerge from the undergrowth. But no one appeared. There were no more sounds.

“Druids,” she whispered.

Phoebe recalled exploring the woods and ruins of ancient buildings and the stone circle in the glen by the waterfall. Sarah told her the standing stones were still visited by witches and sorcerers who performed ancient rituals on moonlit nights, and they came from all over Scotland. Phoebe never saw any, but she believed her friend.

She reached the waterfall and stopped on a grassy spot. Patches of bluebells nodded their heads in the breeze. One sunny day, the two of them sat right here amid the purple-blue flowers, looking up at the passing clouds, and Sarah told her she had a scandalous secret to share. One of the lads from the village had kissed her under the oak tree where her parents had agreed to marry. He was handsome and strong. He smelled of salt and sea winds, adding with her mischievous laugh, and herring.

Phoebe smiled at the recollection. The family referred to the rose garden as Sarah’s, but this grove of wildflowers was the place her friend loved the most.

The path soon brought her to another clearing. Phoebe recognized the ruins of several huts that were being overtaken by the encroaching woods.

A summer afternoon, not much different from this one, edged into her memory. Sarah shared stories of Ian since he’d returned from war. She worried about her brother. He was hurting. And her friend told her that she knew Phoebe was carrying a torch for him.

Phoebe moved through the high grass toward the crumbling buildings, and her throat tightened as she recalled all they’d talked about. Love. Marriage. Family. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Things Sarah wanted but would never know. Never have.

Pushing through a clump of bushes, Phoebe suddenly found herself standing at the edge of a well. She stared down into the black void and thought of the Vaults in Edinburgh.

“Why did you go down there, Sarah? What happened to you?”

Phoebe heard no footsteps, no warning that she wasn’t alone. But the hand that shoved her from behind belonged to no ghostly presence. And before she could turn, or grab for a branch, or even cry out, she was falling through the darkness, tumbling like a stone toward the center of the earth.

* * *

He stared down into the hole. Silence.

She’d fallen for some time. That was good, though the dull, hard splash at the end surprised him. But no sound followed. Also, good. She was gone.

Her hat lay like a downed wood pigeon in the tall grass. He picked it up and tossed it in the well.

He’d stalked her from the moment she came down the stairs, looking for his chance. And she led him here. It was perfect. So isolated. So silent.

This was his home. His lair. He’d never before hunted here. Bellhorne was his home. He hunted in the city. It was clean. The prey was plentiful. And it was safer.

This one, though, this Phoebe Pennington, had come face-to-face with him. That was enough reason for her to die.

But more, she’d struck him, attacked him. And in meddling, she’d caused him to lose his chosen prey. She started this blood feud, and she had to pay the price.

And she had paid. If they ever found her body, they would never suspect foul play. He was a skilled hunter. Gifted. He’d made the clean kill.

It was done. She would bear no witness against him.

No one would hinder him now. No one would interfere with his pursuit of destiny. No one would stop him from doing what he was chosen to accomplish. He could hear the whispers beginning. The voices growing louder and more insistent. He’d feel their fingers scraping along his skin, and then pressing until, finally, they delved into his flesh and reached into his soul.

The time was nearly upon him. A few days. A week. He knew the hour was almost here. He would go to Edinburgh. Destiny awaited. The power awaited. The reward awaited.

Nothing was going to stop him.