Not Normandy itself—the lush countryside was stunning, the rich, cream-laden food magnificent—but our lodgings at his mother’s house left something to be desired. Although that, too, is not entirely precise. There was nothing wrong with the manor, a sprawling, comfortable building constructed primarily in the seventeenth century by an aristocrat whose descendents did not fare well during the revolution. Rather, it was I who was the problem. At least so far as my new mother-in-law was concerned.

I’d heard nothing but complimentary words about Mrs. Hargreaves, who had fled England after the death of her husband some ten years before. Her own father had been left a widower early, and encouraged his daughter to remain at home—not to take care of him, but because he, not much fond of society, felt she should be allowed to lead whatever sort of life she liked. His fortune ensured she would never need a husband for support. Free from the restraints of matrimony, Anne Howard passed nearly twenty years traveling the world while her girlhood friends married and had children. It was only when she reached her thirty-sixth year that, halfway up the Great Pyramid at Giza, she met Nicholas Hargreaves. By the time they were standing again on terra firma, the couple were engaged. Three days later they married, and afterwards, never spent a single night apart.

I had hoped Mrs. Hargreaves would shower me with the warmth she showed her son—that she would rejoice to see him so happily matched. But after a fortnight of her cool detachment, I determined to spend as much time as possible away from the prickling discomfort of her disapproving stare, and it was this decision that led me to the unhappy resting place of the girl sprawled beneath a tree, her blood soaking the ground.

Bile burned my throat as I looked at her, my eyes drawn from her fingers to her face, framed by hair so similar in color and style to mine we might have been taken for twins. There was no question she was dead, no need to check for any sign of life. No one could have survived the brutal gashes on her throat. The bodice of her dress was black with blood and had been ripped at the abdomen, revealing what seemed to be an empty cavity.