Bellhorne Castle, Fife

At the top of the rise, Ian reined in his mount and looked south toward the distant Firth of Forth, glistening under the noonday sun. Taking off his hat, he breathed in the smell of the first haying as he waited for his estate manager, Mr. Raeburn, to catch up.

He’d grown up on this land. He knew every field and lane, every sparkling brook and every green glen. He knew every tenant and every fisherman in the village. Bellhorne was his home.

He’d left it for the first time during the wars. Purchasing a commission in the cavalry, Ian had served “with distinction” in Germany and Denmark and then on the Peninsula. Badly wounded and taken by the French at Talavera, he’d only learned of his father’s passing after he was released. So he’d come home to Bellhorne to recover and take over the duties that went along with running a vast estate. And that included the care of his mother and sister.

The horrors of war, however, had left deep wounds to his spirit that continued to pain him long after his body had healed. Riding through these hills and fields provided his only escape.

Day and night, through every season and every kind of weather, he’d push his horse at breakneck speeds in an effort to exhaust himself. What he’d witnessed and done in the wars, what he’d suffered in the French prison at Lille, continued to haunt his sleep. But the pain that plagued him then was nothing compared to what Sarah’s loss brought later.

After her murder, this land that had once been imbued with memories of youthful innocence became a sharp and constant reminder of his sister and how he’d failed to protect her.

And now he had only his mother left.

Ian forced his attention to the north end of the valley that led down to the fishing village. The four connected towers of Bellhorne Castle were just visible above the trees of surrounding deer park. He was sure that Fiona Bell would already be on the terrace overlooking the beloved garden, arranging roses she’d just cut to grace their dinner table.

As sweet as the roses she cherished, his mother was even more fragile in body and mind.

Ian wasn’t looking forward to dinner, but he saw it as his duty. Everything at Bellhorne was now arranged to maintain the delusional world in which his mother lived. And that included keeping her away from all but a limited number of neighbors and friends who were party to the elaborate charade.

Ian’s gaze wandered down to the meadow bordering the loch, and the painful knot in his chest grew in size. It was there that he taught Sarah to ride when she was not yet five. On so many cold, wet mornings, they’d fished that loch together, cut off from the rest of the world by Fife’s heavy mists. He expelled a long breath.

It was so difficult being home. There was no getting around it.

Raeburn spurred his sturdy mare up the hill and stopped beside him. Since Sarah’s death, the man had been carrying more than his share of responsibility for the running of Bellhorne.

Immediately, his estate manager’s attention was drawn to one of the tenant’s cottages below. A cow was standing half in the door of the place.

“Blasted old codger,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “If I’ve told the rascal once, I’ve told him a dozen times. I’ll not have him keeping that bloody cow in his cottage.”

Ian donned his hat again. “Never mind, Raeburn. The work is getting done. The farms are doing well enough. Everywhere I look, I see evidence of your hard work.”

The manager began to mutter, but he seemed satisfied with the acknowledgment he received from Ian.

“Let’s go down to the house. Dinner will be served shortly, and I don’t want to keep my mother waiting.”

As they rode down the hill, Raeburn filled him in on the progress of a new dairy barn under construction.

“Perhaps tomorrow we can ride out there, and I’ll show you what still needs to be done.”

As the farm manager finished talking about tenants and grain yield and the fine summer weather, Ian thought of what an idyllic place Bellhorne would be for a poet or a writer.

Phoebe. He guessed she’d be in Edinburgh before he returned.

The recollection of their kiss came back to him, causing a tightening in his loins. The fullness of her lips, the curve of her long body against his, the soft yearning sound in the back of her throat. Thinking about it now, he was well aware that something was happening between them. Something that caused the secure ties he kept on his control to snap.

He hadn’t followed her into the garden to kiss her. He wanted answers, and he felt she should know about the murder. She needed to understand the potential fate she had narrowly escaped. He wanted her to be frightened. He wasn’t entirely certain he’d accomplished that goal.

Phoebe Pennington enjoyed wealth and position as the fourth child of the Earl and Countess Aytoun, and Ian knew her family allowed her great latitude to do as she pleased. She was, however, upset to think they would learn about her traipsing through the Vaults. But what family wouldn’t fear for a daughter’s safety in such circumstances.

Her face took shape in his memory again, and he was astonished by the force of his own attraction. Phoebe, whom he’d seen many times while Sarah was still alive, had barely drawn his notice. He’d never appreciated her vibrant beauty, never enjoyed her quick tongue and passionate nature. He knew nothing of her adventurous nature.

He was fascinated by her.

Then, there were the words she’d spoken to him in the garden about the day of Sarah’s funeral. Seeing how you suffered.

“I hope you won’t be offended, Captain,” Raeburn said, breaking into his thoughts. “But my wife and I have been entertaining a cousin of hers for the past few days, so we’ll need to excuse ourselves from dinner today. But the old bore is leaving for Edinburgh in the morning, praise the Lord, and I told your mother that we’d be honored to join the family tomorrow instead.”

Ian nodded. He was tremendously grateful for the people who visited Fiona, even when he was away. Raeburn’s wife was an especially kind and stalwart supporter.

“Would you happen to know Mrs. Raeburn’s opinion on how my mother is faring?”

“Aye, sir. We were speaking of it just the other day,” the manager told him. “She says, more so than before, Mrs. Bell’s humor reflects the manner of those around her. When the housekeeper grumbles at a servant, your mother gets the grumbles, as well. And Dr. Thornton, with his blunt words and gruff ways, can agitate her. But the minister, Mr. Garioch, can always put a smile on her lips. And of course, there’s your cousin, Mrs. Young. An angel she is, that woman. She couldn’t be kinder if she were Mrs. Bell’s own flesh and blood, and she cheers your mother to no end. The woman is a godsend.”

One of the best things Ian had done after Sarah’s disappearance was to invite his widowed cousin Alice back from Baltimore to live at Bellhorne and serve as his mother’s companion. As for the doctor, the minister, and the rest of them, he could not imagine a more trustworthy group to help him protect his mother from the horror of Sarah’s death.

Leaving his horse at the stables, Ian was greeted at the house by the butler.

“Has Dr. Thornton arrived?” he asked.

“Just so, Captain. All the guests are in the garden with Mrs. Bell and Mrs. Young. Eight will be dining, sir.”

“Very good. If my mother asks, tell her I’ll be down shortly.”

Lucas had his dinner attire ready for him upstairs. As Ian cleaned up and dressed, he reminded himself that he needed to find a private moment with the doctor. Last month, Thornton spoke of a physician he planned to visit in Edinburgh. The man was an expert in pathologies affecting the heart. He hoped to find out if there was a correlation between the occasional bouts of dizziness afflicting Ian’s mother and her weakened heart.

Ian paused a moment in the stone archway leading into the garden before making his presence known. A couple from the village and their daughter comprised the additional members of the party. Right now the guests looked like a small flock of sheep following the bellwether. They were making their way out of a lane of late flowering azaleas.

His mother took great pride in these grounds. Before he was born, she’d overseen the planting of the endless rows of flowers, herbaceous plants, and even vegetables. On the wide grassy lanes that separated the beds, Ian and the other estate children had run footraces past sweetly scented summer flowers—a blur of red and yellow, blue and white. Even now, he could recall his mother on her knees amongst the flora, laughing and waving as they sailed past.

But of all the plants in that magical garden, what she prized most dearly were her roses.

“One planted for every year of my daughter’s life,” Fiona would tell her visitors. Even now, he could see her leaning on her ivory-headed cane, gesturing to individual roses, white and pink and red, as the group meandered along a garden wall. Talking incessantly, she was pointing out the colors and no doubt sharing a wealth of information about each bush.

Ian noted the shawl around her shoulders. It was thicker and warmer than the ones she usually wore this time of the year. Alice walked just behind, occasionally putting out a hand to assist her.

Sorrow formed a clenched fist in his chest. Fiona Bell was only in her fifties, but grey hair and a stooped back and uncertain steps suggested someone much older. It was as if each of the three years since Sarah’s death had aged her a decade. And whenever Ian returned to Bellhorne, which was at least once or twice a month, it seemed to him that his mother failed even more.

The group was near enough for him to hear now.

“Did I ever mention that I lost two children between my son and Sarah?” she asked of her audience. She didn’t wait for an answer but continued. “Twin boys.”

It was an oft told story, one that those in attendance had surely heard numerous times. Ian was obliged to the guests for their attention and show of sympathy as they allowed the older woman to repeat her tale.

His brothers. Ian had been only three years old, and his vague memories were more from the retelling of the difficult six months from the boys’ birth to their deaths. They’d battled one ailment after the other until a fever had taken them. And then seven years had passed before Sarah was born.

“My first daughter. Only daughter,” Fiona said happily, touching the delicate pink flowers on a rose bush. “My husband brought me a single rose right after he first laid eyes on our beautiful child. And that started our ritual. One a year we’ve planted ever since, on Sarah’s birthday.”

The wife of the couple from the village praised the garden and asked about the work that went into caring for it. Ian’s mother was more than happy to elaborate. They continued down the row of roses, and a moment later they were out of earshot.

The visits, these dinners, the moments when Fiona retold stories of her life and showed the guests her precious rose garden all meant a great deal to her. These were now the only times she showed a hint of the lively woman she once was.

Ian moved into the garden, and Mr. Garioch was the first to see him. The minister was standing with Dr. Thornton, who was gesturing with his customary animation as he spoke. Garioch pointed out Ian’s arrival, and the two men crossed the grassy lanes to join him.

“Quite happy you’ve returned in time for some socializing before dinner, Captain,” the minister said, turning his back to the small group following Ian’s mother.

“Mr. Garioch arrived a wee bit early this afternoon,” Dr. Thornton clarified. “And the man has already had his fill of the attentions of the ladies. Particularly the lass there. She persists in asking his opinion on every insignificant matter she can think of.”

Ian saw the young woman cast a forlorn look in their direction, and her mother nudged her to pay attention to Mrs. Bell. For as long as Ian’s family had known the minister, he’d always had that effect on women. Extremely handsome to the point of being occasionally referred to as “beautiful” by the ladies, Peter Garioch commanded the interest of the female members of the parish with his bright blue eyes, golden hair, and soft, pleasant manner. Dr. Thornton, on the other hand, stood in sharp contrast with his craggy, battle-scarred face and curt, gruff ways. The man suffered no fools and was known to give vent to his volatile temper when he thought a patient was wasting his time.

The girl was even now attempting to break free and come in their direction, but the firm hand of the mother kept her where she was.

“But if you don’t wish their adulation,” the doctor advised brusquely, “then don’t treat them as you do. You only encourage it. So gentle and understanding, even when the silly chit was complaining about trifles.”

“It is my duty, Thornton, to treat all the Lord’s creatures in the same kindly manner, regardless of their gender. And that includes you.”

“And you think I give a tinker’s da—a moment’s pause to how you speak to me!” the doctor grouched indignantly.

Ian knew the two bachelors were capable of arguing about this topic, and any other, for hours, but right now he had no interest in knowing what Garioch’s sermon pertained to last Sunday. Nor was he particularly interested in the fact that every female patient the doctor attended to this week insisted on telling him all about the minister’s scriptural observations. He glanced toward his mother and her companions. They’d be completing their tour of the gardens shortly, and Ian wanted to speak to the doctor before dinner.

“Your visit to Edinburgh,” he broke in, addressing Thornton. “Did you have the opportunity of speaking with your colleague at the medical college about my mother?”

“I didn’t. An urgent matter came up while I was there, and I didn’t have time to see him.” Thornton did not provide any further details but turned his gaze toward his patient. “But I did write to him two days ago and invited him to come to Fife for a visit. It would be better if your mother were seen by him personally.”

Fiona Bell had been diagnosed with angina a decade ago, and Ian had been encouraging her to let him arrange for a trip to Edinburgh or London. He wanted her to be regularly examined by an expert, as she had been in the years preceding Sarah’s disappearance. But since then, she refused to leave Bellhorne and scoffed at the idea of seeing any other doctor besides Thornton. And although Ian trusted the man’s medical capabilities, he also agreed with the doctor that a second opinion by an expert was a necessity.

“As you know,” Ian said, “she may be resistant.”

“I’ll help the doctor to persuade her, Captain,” the minister put in.

“I should hear back from Edinburgh soon enough,” Thornton assured him as Fiona’s voice reached them. The group appeared to have completed their turn in the garden. “I’ll make the arrangements.”

“Ah, Ian. You’re back,” his mother cried out upon seeing him. He couldn’t ignore the note of relief in her tone as well as the shadow that had crept over the older woman’s demeanor. He hadn’t noticed it when he watched her from the garden arch.

Ian went to his mother and kissed her on the cheek. As he welcomed the guests from the village, Fiona said nothing but held his arm tightly against her. He sent his cousin a questioning look, but she simply shook her head and gestured toward the gardens.

The guests lined up to proceed into the dining room, and Alice accepted the arms of both the minister and the doctor while the young lady from the village looked on peevishly at the arrangement.

As Ian escorted his mother toward the house, she sighed heavily and looked over her shoulder at the gardens.

“What’s wrong, Mother?”

She was twisting the carved handle of her cane with thin, pale hands. “Sarah’s roses.”

“What about them?”

She sighed again unhappily.

“The twentieth. The rose we planted for Sarah’s twentieth birthday. Do you remember it?” she asked, her voice quavering. “She wanted to plant it herself. She got right down on her hands and knees. My sweet girl was covered in dirt; she ruined a dress that day. But she didn’t care. Do you . . . do you . . . ?”

“I remember clearly,” he said. “She wanted to plant a Scots Rose, a double-bloom white rose, different from the others.”

“‘My rose will have a halo of perfume and produce everlasting points of beauty,’ she’d said,” Fiona whispered. “And she was right. Year after year, that one plant has continued to put the rest of the garden to shame.”

She brought a fist to her mouth.

“Did someone cut flowers without your permission?”

She shook her head, her aging eyes brimming with tears.

“Please, tell me what’s gone wrong?” he asked, ready to go back into the garden to correct whatever was amiss. He hated seeing her upset. It was contrary to everything he was trying to do.

When he’d gone to war, Fiona had wept bitterly at the thought of losing him. Sarah told him later how grievously their mother had suffered. With every passing week and month and year, she’d grown physically frailer. Worse, something in her spirit had weakened, as if a thin blade had punctured her soul, allowing her very essence to bleed out slowly, steadily.

All the stories about the terrible months when they thought he’d died on the battlefield still tore at him. His father had been morose, inconsolable, and the tiny rend in Fiona’s soul had become a gaping fissure. Having no news of how he’d died or where he was buried only compounded their suffering. Finally, the strain had been too much, and his father fell, struck down with apoplexy as he wandered alone through the fields one evening.

Only a fortnight later, word arrived at Bellhorne that Ian was alive in a French prison. But it was too late.

Upon Ian’s return, his mother recovered. Her attachment to her children helped Fiona to get through the loss of her husband, though her health would never be the same.

Ian knew losing a daughter would be the final blow, however. She would never survive.

As much as it nearly killed him to live in a world of lies and fabrications, he would do anything to spare her even a moment’s sorrow. He’d failed in his duty of protecting his sister. He’d be damned if he let his mother suffer any more.

“Her white rose is dying,” Fiona said in a pained voice. “The flowers budded but have struggled to open, and now the leaves are turning brown. It’s the only one that is dying, and nothing I do is helping.”

The twentieth. Three more roses had been added since, each on her birthday, each of them planted under the false pretense that his sister was alive and living in America. But the one that had to die, of course, was the rose Sarah had planted with her very own hands.

His sweet, lost sister. The one constant breath of happiness and life in this family.

Ian brought his mother’s hand to his lips. “This autumn, on her birthday, we can plant two shrubs. One new and one to replace the twentieth.”

A tear rolled down the pale, lined face. “It won’t be the same.”

He didn’t know what to say, what to offer to make her forget about the roses. For three years, reading letters of his own invention, filled with tales of Sarah’s adventures in America had been enough. But no more.

“I want her to come back,” she said, waving her walking stick at him. “And before you object and tell me all the things my daughter is involved in with your father’s estate in Baltimore, tell her I’m only asking for a visit. A visit. That’s not much to ask, is it?”

Ian looked into the teary eyes of the woman who meant the world to him and was lost for words.

“She listens to you, Ian. You two have a bond stronger than most brothers and sisters. If you ask, she’ll not deny you. So please, ask her for me. Make it happen.”

It was agony for him to lie, and Ian had done plenty of it until now. Make it happen.

“Please, bring my Sarah back for one visit before I die.”

The final words were a dagger driven into his chest. He didn’t want to think about her dying. She was his mother. He was connected to her, flesh and blood and heart and soul. He could never see her suffer.

“I’ll try to make it happen. I’ll ask her in my next letter,” he said. He was lying yet again, but for her, he would take eternal damnation and never flinch.

Fiona looked up at him in surprise. Then there was a smile, followed by her rippling laugh that had been absent from Bellhorne since Sarah’s disappearance.

“She’s coming home. Back from America,” she cheered, turning to their guests.

Ian looked over her head at the startled faces of his cousin, Garioch, and Thornton.

Another lie. Another brick in the wall of falsehoods he’d constructed.

But where would it end? How long would he allow his mother to cling to hopes he himself had been building in her? How long could he protect her from the truth?

The time was coming nearer when he would need to tell her that no letters, no pleas, and no miracles would ever bring Sarah back home again.