House of Shadows (31 page)

Yet she knew it would be selfish to seek to dissuade him. Charles would need experienced soldiers and Craven’s knowledge as well as his fortune would be of immense benefit to him. If she forbade him from going he would defy her and if she tried to persuade him it would be for her own selfish reasons, because she wanted to keep him at her side.

It was her destiny to lose William Craven. He was a professional soldier. He would answer a call to arms. She was destined never to hold him, always to let him go and so it would be better not to have him in the first place.

‘You are an unusual man,’ she said. She spoke impulsively, lulled by the warmth of the sun and the heavy scent of the roses. ‘I have never met anyone quite like you before, William.’

He smiled. ‘What am I like?’

She blushed. She was twelve years older than he was, widowed, the mother of ten children. She was a Queen and yet she blushed. She could not find the words.

‘You are …’ She stumbled over it
. A soldier and yet a poet, even if your imagination manifests itself in stones and mortar rather than words or pictures or music. You are brash and yet assured. You are all hard steel and rough edges, cloaked in Cavalier lace and velvet.

She had met many men; smooth courtiers, politicians as slippery as eels, soldiers and fops, but she had never met a man like William Craven.

In the end she answered obliquely.

‘I’m glad,’ she said softly, placing her hand on his. ‘Glad you returned.’

She watched the smile ripple across his eyes again, such very beautiful eyes of the clearest hazel, honest and true. She felt a flutter of emotion beneath her breastbone. It was not the sweet, simple love she had felt for Frederick but a different sensation entirely, more complicated, edged with poignancy and yet still as strong.

‘I wish you would not go away again,’ she said, ‘but I shall not seek to stop you. I would keep you with me always if I could.’

He raised her hand to his lips. His eyes were full of emotion. At the last moment he turned her hand over and pressed his lips to her palm.

‘Madam.’ He spoke gruffly. ‘You know that I do not—’

‘I know you do not want me in the way I once wanted you. Yes.’ Her patience was at an end. There was only so much rejection a woman could take so she spoke without due consideration.

There was a short silence. Then she saw his lips curve into a smile. It was wholly masculine, the smile of a man confident in his own worth. ‘That was not,’ he said gently, ‘what I was going to say.’

‘Oh.’ She felt flustered, suddenly hot, a little dizzy and more than a little embarrassed. ‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Do not. But perhaps I should tell you what I was about to say.’

Her dizziness increased. She was not sure she could breathe properly.

‘I was about to say that I have to leave you, Your Majesty, because it torments me to stay here when I cannot have you. Why do you think I have been gone so long?’

Her ladies were so close, only just out of earshot, fluttering, curious. What could they read on her face? Or indeed from the way that their hands were now entwined? She freed herself, smoothed her skirts.

‘You have changed your mind?’

‘No. I always wanted you.’

She risked a look at his face. He looked grim, not happy at all. What did he mean – that he wanted her, but he did not want to feel that way? Why was love so difficult?

‘Yet you refused me before.’

‘Out of honour.’

‘And now?’

The self-deprecating smile touched his lips. ‘Perhaps I have no honour left for myself, though I should have more care for you.’

They were talking quickly, in snatched breaths. It felt as though the air about her was on fire. She wondered that people could not see it, that they did not guess her blazing excitement. Yet she was an accomplished dissembler. She found she could converse with lowered gaze and thoughtful expression even when that conversation was about illicit love.

‘I can take care of myself,’ she said.

‘It is my place to protect you not to put you in harm’s way. But I wanted you to know the truth, Majesty.’

‘I will come to you tonight,’ Elizabeth said.

Heat flared in his eyes, quickly banked. ‘Majesty—’

‘I have no notion how to arrange it,’ Elizabeth said honestly, ‘but I will.’

She saw tenderness in his face then and her stomach dropped. ‘You have no experience of managing a love affair.’

‘Naturally not,’ Elizabeth said, with a quick flash of returning hauteur.

‘Then perhaps you should leave it to me,’ Craven said. ‘I, alas, do.’

‘Not with any degree of discretion,’ Elizabeth said tartly.

He laughed aloud at that, with quick delight. Everything seemed so bright and brilliant about her all of a sudden, the day, her mood. She felt lighter than air, yet trembling with anticipation. She stood up.

‘Tonight,’ she said.

He touched her hand then, so fleeting no one would notice and she thought:

This time it really will happen.

The afternoon dragged. She could not concentrate. She started several letters and tore them up. She felt restless, impatient. She snapped at her ladies. She almost snapped at her dogs.

The evening was worse. Time had started to run backwards. She was torn, half hope, half fear. She could not eat. Lady Douglas asked her if she had a fever, she was so flushed. She felt despairing. How had she even imagined that she could go to Craven’s rooms, the queen slipping past her attendants, down the long lamp-lit passageways to knock at
a gentleman’s door? It was impossible, ridiculous. She felt both relief and desolation.

She wondered if she should retire early. She wondered if she should retire late. She chose a most beautiful nightgown adorned with lace, taking it from the chest with a scent of lavender clinging to its folds. It felt as though everyone was watching her. She could not bear it and told them she had a headache and sent them away. Then she sat by the fire as an hour crept past and then another and the candle burned down and she knew it would not happen, that it had all been an illusion.

It was then that the loneliness, the misery, threatened to swallow her whole. She was alone, just as she had always been, just as she would always be. It had been no more than a fantasy.

There was a creak of a latch, a step in the doorway.

She turned, a hand at her throat, her heart threatening to leap from her chest, and there he was. Slowly, as though she was in a dream, she moved towards him and his arms closed about her, strong and sure. No one had touched her in so long a time; she felt starved for love. She was almost crying.

‘If you have changed your mind—’ she started to say, but he moved swiftly then, so fast she barely had time to draw breath. He swept her off her feet and onto the vast bed, following her down amongst the tumbled covers. Then he went very still, looking at her, touching her cheek gently with such reverence that she felt quite faint. She tilted up her face and he kissed her. It was a very long time since she had been kissed and it felt shocking, unfamiliar but delightful at the same time. She dug her fingers into the
muscle of his shoulders beneath the jacket and drew him closer, sliding her arms about his neck now, pressing her fingers to his nape, giddy with physical sensation. She was young again, like a girl discovering love for the first time and it was wonderful. So she let go of the grief and the struggle and the years of hardship and lost herself in the moment, and for a little while everything felt fresh and new and joyful again.

H
er grandfather was in the greenhouse when Holly arrived for Sunday lunch. She could see him through the glass as she walked down the mown path through the lines of broad beans and rhubarb; thick peppery grey hair, a little stooped as he bent over the pots of seedlings, but still broad shouldered and durable-looking. He glanced up as her shadow crossed the window and his weather-beaten face broke into a wide smile.

‘Holly!’ The door was open and he gestured her inside, wrapping her in a bear hug. The tweed of his jacket was rough against her cheek and she felt a sudden huge wash of love for him, for both her grandparents, and hugged him back tightly.

It was the night after the blaze at the mill. Over breakfast she had told Mark about everything; the pearl, the mirror, Lavinia’s diary, her visions. Mark had taken it with all the calm thoughtfulness she was starting to know very well. He
had not told her she was mad. He had told her that the pattern would resolve, that they would work it out together.

Mark had gone back to the barn to get ready for the barbecue that evening and on the way into Oxford Holly had taken the crystal mirror to a friend who was an antiques dealer and had asked her to find an expert who could confirm its provenance. She had felt lighter as soon as it was out of her hands. Espen Shurmer had given it to her and had told her it should be reunited with the Sistrin Pearl but Holly had seen for herself now the destructive power of the mirror and she felt deep down that the two should never come together. It felt too dangerous.

John held her at arm’s length and scrutinised her with his shrewd blue gaze. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ Holly said. ‘How are you? You look well. Very tanned.’

‘Don’t really need a greenhouse in this weather,’ John said. ‘I’ve grown salad leaves and Calabrese and even given melon and sweet potato a go this year. With the heat the exotic fruit has done well too …’ He waved a vague hand towards the garden, basking in the sun. The vents of the greenhouse roof were wide open but it was still hotter than a sauna in there, the air thick with a mix of herb scent and pollen that tickled Holly’s nose and made her want to sneeze.

She picked a cherry tomato from one of the plants and put it in her mouth, closing her eyes as the sweetness of it burst on her tongue.

‘Mmm. Delicious.’

Her grandfather smiled indulgently as he picked up his
watering can. ‘You can take a whole punnet of them home with you if you like.’

‘Thanks,’ Holly said. ‘I’d love to.’

John looked up from the tender line of basil plants he was watering. ‘How are you getting on? Your grandmother said you were getting lots of new commissions.’

‘A few,’ Holly allowed. ‘Things do seem to be picking up. I’ve got a contract from a business in Bristol and I’m displaying some of my work at the open house for the Ashdown renovation project for a few weeks.’

John smiled. ‘I’m so pleased, Holly.’ He hesitated. ‘I daresay we shouldn’t worry over you, but—’

‘I’d be upset if you didn’t,’ Holly said, giving him another hug. ‘Have you spoken to Tasha about Ben?’ she asked as she let him go. ‘Is that what this is about?’

John’s eyes clouded. ‘It’s over a month now.’ He moved the pots of basil around a little randomly, avoiding her eyes. ‘Some nights I can’t sleep. Others I sleep like a baby and wake feeling guilty because I
should
have lain awake all night. I wonder where he’s gone, if he’s dead.’ He turned to face her and Holly saw the deep lines of grief in his face and the tiredness in his eyes. ‘I never say it to your grandmother,’ John said. ‘I shouldn’t say it to you.’

Holly could feel a lump in her throat. ‘You’ve been strong for us all for years. It’s not a weakness to admit to feeling like this.’

John closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Tasha’s so practical,’ he said. ‘She says Ben’s gone for good and we have to move on.’

‘It’s her way of coping,’ Holly said. She felt a rush of
sympathy for her sister-in-law. She had thought Tasha was cold and unloving but she could see now with time that they each had to deal with Ben’s disappearance in their own ways. There was no right or wrong.

‘I know,’ John said. He blinked rapidly. ‘She’s just hard to comfort, you know? We can’t get close.’ He rubbed a hand over his face leaving a smear of soil on his cheek. ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ he said. ‘How have you got on with your research into Miss Flyte’s diary – and the Winter Queen?’

‘I’d hardly dignify it by calling it research,’ Holly said. ‘I have finished Lavinia’s diary and I have discovered a few interesting things …’ She paused. She wanted John’s opinion on her discoveries but at the same time she knew she had become both possessive and protective of Lavinia. She did not really want to share her. She wanted to keep all her secrets safe. It felt as though it was a precious part of herself that she was hugging close.

‘Lavinia was quite fascinating,’ she said now. ‘I believe she had a child, a daughter called Kitty who married into a merchant family in Marlborough. I saw her portrait last week.’

She flicked open her phone and showed her grandfather the photograph she had taken of Kitty Flyte’s portrait. Kitty could not have been more than eighteen or nineteen in the picture, she thought, the same age her mother had been when she had gone to Ashdown Park. Yet their two fates were very different: Lavinia, the courtesan; Kitty marrying into the rich respectability of the merchant classes.

‘I don’t know for sure who her father was,’ she said now,
‘but the timing fits with Kitty being conceived at Ashdown Park.’

‘Then surely it would be Evershot,’ John said. ‘He was Lavinia Flyte’s protector, wasn’t he?’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Holly said, thinking how inappropriate the word protector was to describe Evershot’s treatment of Lavinia. ‘Lavinia was having an affair with Evershot’s surveyor,’ she said. ‘He was called Robert Verity. Verity was supposed to be descended from the illegitimate line of William Craven.’

‘Ah,’ John said. ‘So there was an illegitimate descent, just as I imagined.’

‘Yes,’ Holly said tentatively. ‘Ben may have traced the connection too but I can’t see that it’s linked to our family tree in any way. There’s no one called Verity in our ancestry, or Flyte for that matter.’

‘Keep searching,’ John said. ‘In my limited experience these things are tricky. Family relationships, even names, are not always as they seem.’

Holly nodded. ‘There’s certainly something odd afoot because Lavinia’s handwritten diary –
my
diary – is completely different from the published version. I think someone stole the idea of the memoir, and Lavinia’s identity, and published a fictitious version.’

She had John’s full attention now, basil plants forgotten. ‘Extraordinary,’ he said. ‘I must talk to the English Faculty. Are you sure? I mean you’ve read both versions?’

‘Rather too much of them,’ Holly said, thinking of the erotic cavorting of the published diary.

John rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, if you don’t mind lending me the original diary I’d like to look into this,’ he
said. ‘It sounds rather fascinating, a historical and literary mystery.’

‘I’m very happy to lend it to you,’ Holly said. ‘But I’d like to work with you on whatever piece of research comes out if it.’ She saw her grandfather’s look of astonishment and spoke in a rush. ‘I know history isn’t my subject, nor English for that matter but I’ve become rather fond of Lavinia and I want to be the one to tell the truth about her.’

John’s eyes twinkled. ‘A personal crusade?’

‘Something like that,’ Holly admitted. ‘And whilst we’re on the subject …’

John raised his brows.

‘I know it sounds melodramatic,’ Holly said, ‘but the memoir mentioned lost treasure.’

‘The lost treasure of the Order of the Rosy Cross,’ John said.

Holly gaped at him. ‘You mean you
know
about it?’

‘I know that both Frederick and Elizabeth of Bohemia were patrons of the Order,’ John said. ‘Their court in Heidelberg was a centre for Rosicrucian learning. I hadn’t thought of it before but I suppose the Rosicrucian treasure could have been hidden at Ashdown Park, given Elizabeth’s connection to William Craven.’

‘I wondered if Ben had found some clue to trace it,’ Holly said. ‘Mark said he had been looking at maps of the estate and stuff like that, and an expert on the Bohemian court said Ben had contacted him for information.’ She paused but her grandfather simply waited, sharp interest in his eyes. ‘Then there’s the fact that there is a standing stone called the
Pearlstone on the edge of the Ashdown woods.’ Holly said. ‘It might be named for the Sistrin pearl, which was one of the treasures.’ Her face fell. ‘Except that the stone would predate the house and couldn’t have been named after the pearl. Damn!’

‘That could be easily explained,’ John said. His blue eyes now had the abstracted gaze he assumed when he was thinking.

Holly’s heart did a crazy leap. ‘How?’

‘There are plenty of places where a name is adopted later,’ John said. ‘There’s an example near Ashdown itself, for that matter, Alfred’s Castle. It’s a hill fort named to commemorate the fact that King Alfred’s battle of Ashdown against the Vikings took place nearby. But the name came later than the battle. It was only called Alfred’s Castle in the eighteenth century.’ His blue eyes were bright. ‘Do you see what I mean?’

‘You mean that the Pearlstone might have been deliberately named to connect it to the pearl,’ Holly said. ‘The names might have been given relatively recently. Perhaps … at the time the house was built? As a clue?’

‘Exactly,’ John said, smiling.

‘Wow,’ Holly said.

‘It seems to me you’ve been very busy,’ John observed. ‘Is there anything else you have to tell me?’

‘Only that the same expert Ben consulted gave me one of the Rosicrucian treasures,’ Holly said. ‘A crystal mirror.’

John’s eyebrows shot up into his hair. ‘Where is this mirror now?’ he asked, with commendable restraint.

‘I’ve lodged it with an antiques collector for authentication,’ Holly said.

John released his breath. ‘Very wise.’ He checked his watch. ‘I think you had better tell me all about this so-called expert and his crystal mirror over lunch.’

Holly’s lips twitched. ‘Yes, Granddad. I expected you to be a great deal more sceptical about the treasure,’ she added.

‘I haven’t lived for seventy-five years without coming across plenty of things I can’t explain,’ John said mildly. ‘The Knights of the Rosy Cross was an odd sect. The members held all sorts of arcane beliefs.’

‘Prophecy.’ Holly nodded. ‘And reincarnation.’

‘Reincarnation is a fascinating theory,’ John said, ‘the rebirth of the soul in another body.’

‘It sounds exhausting to me,’ Holly said, ‘living and reliving a life over and over again.’

‘You have a very practical mind,’ John said affectionately. ‘There are different variations on the idea. One is that within your destiny there are different roads you can choose to travel, and that if you fail in some way the first time the pattern repeats in future generations. They inherit your spirit and your quest.’

A ripple of wind seemed to run through the thick air of the greenhouse, shaking the tender stems of the tomato plants. It felt to Holly as though the sky had darkened and yet when she looked outside the sun was as bright as ever and the sky a hard, blistering blue.

‘Within your destiny there are different roads you can choose to travel …’

She thought of Lavinia then and the choices she had
made. Had she and Robert Verity been following a pattern set centuries before by Elizabeth and William Craven? Had the Winter Queen and her cavalier failed in a quest that had been passed down to their future heirs? Not many weeks ago she would have dismissed such an idea as fantasy but so many things had happened to shake her understanding of her world, so many links and connections had been revealed.

She watched her grandfather, his fingers stained with earth and pollen, as he laid each tiny tomato under the cloche and she thought about the complications of family and inheritance and love and destiny.

‘Speaking of the Winter Queen and the Earl of Craven,’ John said, ‘I have something to show you.’ He adjusted the lid of the cloche carefully. ‘There. They should ripen nicely in there.’ He dusted his hands down the front of his trousers. ‘Come inside.’

Holly followed him up the gravel path, between the fruit trees and in at the garden door. The house was cool and dark after the heat outside. A delicious smell of roast beef wafted from the kitchen. Holly could hear her grandmother clattering around with pots and pans and talking to someone at the same time.

‘She’s Skyping a friend in America, I think,’ John murmured. ‘Excuse me a moment whilst I wash the soil off my hands. I’ll see you in the study.’

He went down the passage towards the cloakroom whilst Holly turned right and went through the open door into the study, a square high-ceilinged room lined with bookcases. She loved this room, from the threadbare striped rug
on the floor to the tattered volumes piled up in the shelves in tumbling disorder. It was astonishing John could ever find anything at all.