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  I hope you and Elsie are well, and Jo and Emma and Katherine, and do pass this on to Sabrina if you get the chance! I miss her so. Tell her that her big brother thinks about her every day. I would send something for Mum and Da, but I trust the people carrying this message about as far as I can throw them. It’s just as well that royalty doesn’t expect a common fiddler to be educated in the ways of proper letters.

  Lots of love to the entire family,

  Alan

  Chapter Six

  THE BEGINNING OF BAD THINGS

  Jessica’s life was coming to an end.

  Snow could accurately count back to this time as the final days of her happy childhood.

  One hot summer day, bored, she went to the stable to find Davey and his friend Michael, both of whom took care of the horses and, when by themselves, smoked and played cards like adults. “Do you want to go to the stream today?” she asked them.

  “Oh, aw,” Davey said, kicking some straw at his feet. “I dunno, Jess. I have t’ do some stuff with the horses.”

  She frowned and looked at the other boy. “Michael?”

  “I, uh, I dunno.” He looked up at her and blushed, then looked down. “What if we get caught?”

  “That never used to bother you!” There was something in the air, an embarrassment, a tension, that was new and undeniable. She looked hard into the faces of her old friends. They looked away.

  “Is it because I’m a duchess?” she asked bluntly. “That was never a problem before.”

  “You’re no duchess,” Davey spat, with a little of their old fierce friendship back. “Not yet, anyhow. Naw—its just, you know, others might, you know, look funny.”

  “Oh.” She had lost some strange little fight and hadn’t even known there was one. “Well,” she said nervously,“maybe another day, then?”

  “Sure—when the masters away, maybe.”

  “And his witch,” Michael added.

  “She’s not a witch!” Jessica stamped her foot, glad to have something real to argue about. “Everyone’s always saying that. She’s a scientist.”

  “No such thing as lady scientists,” Michael muttered under his breath.

  “What’s a scientist got Alan all over the countryside picking poisonous herbs for?” Davey demanded.

  “They’re not poisonous,” she tried again. “You should see her laboratory. It’s real, with tubes, and metal, and glassware—there’s no cauldron or anything witchy.”

  “All I know is I wouldn’t want her catching us together.”

  “You’re a big coward, David Allen!” Jessica stamped her foot again and stomped off. As soon as she was out of the stables she thought of something better and meaner to say, and she turned around to deliver it with the cold haughtiness of a duchess. But when she turned around she saw Gwen enter the stables from the other way. Something made Jessica hide and watch.

  She couldn’t hear what was being said but could see the three figures silhouetted against the wide stable door. Both boys leaped up when she came in—sauntered in, Jessica realized, remembering the new vocabulary word. Gwen smiled and put her hands on her hips, tossing her long blond braids over her back. She laughed easily, high and ringing. The boys took off their hats and spoke eagerly.

  Jessica wandered away, sad and confused. They like her better. But that didn’t seem quite right. They like talking to her better. She thought about the way Gwen looked; peaches-and-cream skin compared to Jessica’s freckly face, her rounded body glowing. Jessica’s was more stout and muscled, and not shaped quite right. Breasts, yes, but like mushrooms, popping out and away from each other.

  They said they would never like girls. She remembered a pact made by the stream years ago. They admitted that they didn’t think of Jessica as a girl, something she had taken as a point of pride.

  She wandered back to the estate, not caring if anyone saw her in her secret play clothes. She couldn’t even talk to Alan; the duchess had taken him to a concert at the Edgars that afternoon. It seemed as if the duchess liked Alan more than her—or at least paid more attention to him, a mere servant.

  Jessica decided to drown her sorrows in a book, something juicy and French that she probably shouldn’t have been reading. She went upstairs to change into acceptable clothes and went into the library. At least if she were caught she would be dressed properly. She pushed open the door as quietly as she could, dreaming of secret doors, which Kenigh Hall seemed to lack in prodigious numbers. She and her old friends had spent hours looking for them.

  The library appeared to be off limits: Her father was present, in a gigantic chair in front of the dead fireplace. That was unfortunate and unusual; the duke never seemed to read, unlike Anne. Jessica peeped her head in as far as she dared to see what he was doing. The duke had his hand out and was staring at some object in it. Jessica leaned a little more and caught her breath when she saw what it was: a locket identical to the one she wore around her neck, with an identical miniature of her mother in it. As she watched, a single tear formed in the middle of each of his eyes, and they coursed their way silently down his cheeks.

  Jessica watched with mixed feelings. Didn’t he love the duchess now? If he missed Mary so much, why did he marry Anne? If he loved his wife, why couldn’t he love his daughter? Why does he hide this? Closing the door quietly, she realized it was the closest she and her father had ever really been.

  I miss her too. And I never even knew her.

  Mixed emotions drained her mind and body; she spent the afternoon desultory on her bed. But when what began as a slight ache in her stomach progressed over the hours to searing, unbearable pain, Jessica was sure it wasn’t just sadness. She ran, crying with fright, to Dolly The old woman smiled when she first saw Jessica.

  “Oh, Jess-me-love, I was just going to talk to you—”

  “Dolly, its horrible—I think I’m dying!”

  The big, sweaty woman hugged her as she cried. When Jessica could finally speak she told her how sick she was, and sad and angry, trying not to double over in pain.

  Dolly laughed kindly “You’re not dying, sugar-plum. You’re just becoming a woman.”

  Becoming a woman. Jessica had heard whispered snatches and phrases here and there about such a thing, about a curse, strange mysteries. Now she finally knew the truth—and it hurt.

  Dolly gave her a raspberry tart, which Jessica consumed in three bites, still sniffling and wincing from the pain. Her appetite had been far from ladylike for the past week.

  “You just need a lie-down and sommat good, a medicine,” Dolly said soothingly. “Come now, stop crying, it’s not that bad…. It means you’re an adult!”

  The duchess swept in at that moment, still dressed from the concert earlier. “Miss Margerson, I was wondering if you believe it’s in the kitchen’s capacity to—what on earth is going on here?”

  Jessica looked miserably up at her, red-faced, sniffling, and covered in powdered sugar.

  “The little miss just …” Dolly frowned, trying to think of a high-class way of saying it. “She’s all grown up,” she finally said.

  “Oh.” The duchess looked at the cook and then at Jessica, as if both of them had suddenly revealed that they were really cats, or French. “Well, I think that a mother should take this in hand, don’t you?” she asked, a trifle nervously Then she regained composure and put out her hand. “Jessica, come with me. We have to talk about this.”

  An hour later in the duchess’s dressing room, a mug of tea cupped in her hands, still bent over from the pain, Jessica was even more confused than when the pain had started.

  “Things will have to change, Jessica,” the duchess was saying. “You are no longer a little girl. You are a young lady. A … pretty young lady. Women will begin to hate you and men will want to—men are just terrible. You have to start acting differently, Jessica. Let me inform you right now that boys and men are not your friends. They will never be your friends again. They will want to do improper things with you if you’re unluc
ky, and to own you if you are. Marriage…” Her brow furrowed and she looked distracted for a moment. “I suppose you will get married in a few years…. I should start to work on that…. A mother would….” She shook her head. “That is what you will be someday, Jessica. A mother. Society only has two uses for women, remember that. Beautiful young girls and mothers.”

  As the duchess spoke, she looked less and less at Jessica and more and more into the air between them. Her hand rose, seemingly of its own will, to touch her own cheek. “Be one or the other, or both, but not neither. No one wants an old hag. Or a trollop.”

  And then the duchess began to cry.

  Jessica had little sympathy. But I’m the one in pain. Has everyone gone mad today? Or is it just me?

  The duchess stood up abruptly. She didn’t wipe her eyes; the tears dried rapidly. Her face was white.

  “What was I …?” She cast about, eyes flicking like a bird’s, as if she really couldn’t remember.“No matter. No more hanging out with the servants, or with boys, Jessica, Don’t think I haven’t been watching you. I just haven’t had time to do anything about it. You are a woman now, and have to obey me and your father. Now go to your room and think about it.”

  “It hurts,” Jessica complained feebly.

  “What does?”

  The duchess really seemed to have forgotten everything they had just talked about—as if she had had a fit, Jessica pointed to her belly and rocked back and forth to show her. The older woman’s eyes widened, then narrowed.

  “In some ways you are such a silly little girl,” the duchess snapped. She went to her vanity and took out a little blue glass bottle, putting some droplets in her mug of tea. “Here. This will stop the pain. Go to sleep and think about what I’ve said.” The duchess called a maid—not Gwen—to help Jessica to bed. Halfway to her room Jessica felt a wall of weariness and sleep slam her abused body; the maid almost had to carry her. Still afraid she was dying, Jessica fought it until she could do so no more, and blackness hit her like a rock.

  Chapter Seven

  A PAUSE BEFORE THE STORM

  When Jessica woke up, she wished she hadn’t.

  Her head ached. Her whole body ached. Her throat was parched as if she hadn’t drunk anything in days. She felt like vomiting, and the room spun.

  A look outside the window confirmed her fear—somehow she had slept from the rest of the afternoon through the next morning. Late morning. Breakfast was brought to her in bed, which was a rare treat. Although she was sick Jessica found herself eating everything in sight.

  She glared at the two maids who served her, indistinguishable from each other. They were new hires of the duchess.

  “Where is Gwen?”

  “Off to visit her mother, My Lady. She returns in a fortnight.”

  “Hmmmph.”

  For all the other pains she was experiencing, Jessica had to admit that the ones in her stomach had lessened some. Not a great trade-off, but at least she felt she could walk. “You may go. I will go see Dolly.” Who, she suspected, might have less angry answers to some of her questions, and who wasn’t likely to break down and cry in the middle of her explanations.

  “You aren’t to bother the kitchen staff today, My Lady’s orders,” one of the maids—the very slightly taller one—said promptly. Jessica could tell they would be no help. Now that she was a woman, she couldn’t even have the sort of confidante maid and friend that she read about in books. Not until Gwen came back, at least. Even assuming she liked giggling and talking about men, which she didn’t.

  Men …

  “Send me the fiddler boy,” she announced, in her best grown-up voice. “Some music would improve my constitution.”

  The two maids looked at each other and laughed. “My Lady can’t have a boy in her room. ’Twould be most unseemly”

  Jessica was right on the point of telling them to go do something she had heard Davey describe once, but she decided to be a lady for the moment.

  “Yes, of course.”

  She stuffed some more toast in her mouth and pondered escape.

  “Is My Lady still feeling ill? Would she like some more medicine?” One of the maids held up the evil little blue bottle.

  “Feed that stuff to me ever again and you’ll both be on the streets before you can say scat,” Jessica promised—as high and haughty a thing as she had ever said.

  The few times throughout the day she tried to leave the room there was always someone to stop her and tell her that she needed to rest, that she shouldn’t be up, and that they would bring her whatever she wanted. That she was sick. That everyone would understand if she wasn’t at dinner, because she was having a “spell.”

  Bored quickly with her immobility and the maids’ automatic responses, Jessica read books until they were gently but firmly taken away from her “because they strained her eyes.”

  The two maids didn’t think sewing would damage her eyesight, however. Three days passed in confinement and misery.

  “This is what being a grown-up lady is like,” Jessica murmured to herself. “This is what the rest of my life is going to be like.”

  There was worse yet to come.

  Jessica finally managed to sneak down to the kitchen by sending her new maids to find a book in the library whose title and author she made up. She stole a pastry, ate the whole thing, then took another and was just sneaking out, past the library, when she heard the maids gossiping.

  “… hasn’t told her yet.”

  “My Lady is bound to have herself a fit!”

  “Still, if Dolly can find herself a husband and move to her own house in Swansea, I suppose it means there’s luck and love for anyone”

  “Did you not hear? The duke himself is paying for part of the house as her wedding present for long years of service. It was the duchess’s idea….”

  “What did she say the name of the author was?”

  Servants and maids alike fell out of her way as Jessica ran through the house. She leaped up the back stairs to the wing with the bedrooms. Didn’t it all sound a little too convenient? Dolly never mentioned a gentleman friend before…. And the weirdly acting, wicked duchess just happened to suggest that she move away?

  But when Jessica knocked loudly and meanly on the laboratory door there was no response. She leaned her head on the wall in frustration, then screamed with fear and disgust.

  A stream of black blood issued slowly from underneath the door.

  Jessica turned and ran until she slammed into someone. She looked up, preparing either to excuse herself or to yell, when she saw who it was.

  “Alan!”

  “What’s wrong, Jess?”

  “Alan!” she cried in relief. She began sobbing again. Alan looked around quickly and pulled her into a nearby pantry. He held her as she sobbed, making soothing noises at her until she calmed down. Finally she spoke.

  “Dolly—Dolly’s gone away and it’s all my fault. Everything changes. Anne was right. And there are these new maids, and they’re horrible, like prison guards, and it’s all because … because …”

  “Because of what?”

  She just kept sobbing.

  “Oh! Is that what it is.” Alan laughed gently and hugged her. She looked at him, shocked and surprised. “Jess, I have six sisters. There are few secrets in a house with four rooms. Dolly getting married, those two ‘horrible’ maids—those things have nothing to do with you, or with growing up. Dolly getting married is a good thing. She has a right to be happy, like everyone. Or don’t you want that?”

  Jessica sniffled, but nodded. “I just don’t want her going away,” she whispered.

  “I know.” Alan gave her a hug. “But you still have me.”

  “Barely,” Jessica spat, thinking of the duchess. “What with you and the duchess, and concerts …”

  “Jessica Abigail Danvers Kenigh, daughter of the duke!” Alan gave her a playful slap on the shoulder. “Lady Anne says that with practice I could join a symphony, maybe go to Euro
pe and play—” His eyes shone. “Things are not so easy for those of us who aren’t born duchesses, Jess. Even those two horrible maids—remember, they work because they have to and take orders because they are paid to.”

  “It just seems like everything bad happens when you grow up,” Jessica sighed. “What are the advantages?”

  The advantages, at least for a young duchess, were revealed soon enough. She was summoned to the drawing room and presented formally to her father and Anne—later she would suspect some conspiracy among Alan, Dolly, and the duchess.

  “You’re a young lady now,” her father began without preamble. “And you look … you look a lot like your mother.” Jessica caught a quick frown on the duchess’s face, an iciness that came and went in an instant. “It’s time we started treating you like a young lady.”

  “Jessica, your father and I would like to throw a party for you. Not a—not a coming-out party, but a sort of introduction to the country gentry,” the duchess said. “We shall hire some musicians, have a tea dance, invite some people your age…. How would you like that?”

  Later Jessica would reflect that a party wouldn’t really make up for being forced to abandon most of her childhood acquaintances, but at that moment the thought of a glamorous affair thrown for her, with guests and boys and food and drink and dresses—for her—well, it seemed wonderful.

  She nodded mutely.

  “Excellent,” the duchess said, pleased. “We’ll make a real lady out of you yet.”

  Jessica was sure she had heard those words somewhere before.

  INTERLUDE: MIRROR, MIRROR

  The duchess turned this way and that in front of the mirror that Alan held. She was wearing one of three possible dresses she had bought for the party. This one pushed her bust up very high, and cinched her waist so tightly she could barely breathe.

  “So, Mirror,” she said lightly, admiring herself. “When the people talk, who do they say is the fairest in the country?”