Prologue
Amy Perry breathed in the green smell of a fading summer evening and watched the last of the day’s sunshine disappear behind Rowton Hall, the eighteenth-century stately home that stood tall and proud beyond the village of Rowton-in-Arden.
Shards of pinkish light bathed the building’s vast, slate-grey roof, illuminating its array of chimneys. As its picturesque sandstone front was plunged into shadow, the copse of trees beyond its lawns suddenly felt dense and dim.
Amy shivered slightly in the growing gloom, shifting the position of her back against her favoured old elm tree and realising that it probably would have been smart to head home half an hour ago. Gran would go spare if she popped her head into Amy’s room and discovered she wasn’t there.
Technically Amy shouldn’t be here at all, either with or without permission from her legal guardian. While the Ainsworth family– owners of this land, as well as pretty much everything else within a five-mile radius– were happy for people to walk through the little wood during daylight hours, the gate was closed at night and a sign warned that trespassers would be prosecuted.
Amy couldn’t help a derisive snort at this: it wasn’t like she’d done any harm by sitting here watching the sun go down, leafing through the latestNMEand putting away most of a packet of ginger nuts. Besides, how much wealth and property did one family really need exclusive access to? As someone who’d spent much of her childhood in a two-bedroom flat with no garden, Amy had little sympathy with attempts to restrict her access to this spot.
The copse was her favourite place in Rowton, partly because she knew her dad had loved it too. He’d once confessed that– unbeknown to Gran– he’d regularly sneaked out on nights when his teenage head was too full of noise to sit still. Amy found it comforting to think of them both seeking solace in the same secret routine at different times, then creeping home undetected.
They had moved in with Gran when Dad’s doctors explained that, while treatment might keep him comfortable, there was nothing more they could do for him. Though Gran’s help had been a huge relief, the culture shock had hit sixteen-year-old Amy hard. Coming to Rowton had felt like stepping into a Jane Austen novel, and weirdest of all was the presence of an actual, real-life lord of the manor: Roger Ainsworth, aka Viscount Waverley. A member of the House of Lords, he liked to be addressed by his full title, and kept a determined distance from the commoners, many of whose homes he owned.
Amy fished in her bag for a final biscuit, and a familiar voice cut through the quiet air as she closed her fingers around it.
‘Got any more of those?’
She jumped in surprise, dropping it into the dry, dusty grass.Argh.
Sam Ainsworth– owner of the voice and heir to the very ground Amy was currently sitting on– flopped down next to her. He angled his elbows behind him and slouched back to look up at the deep navy sky.
‘No, I haven’t,’ Amy said, willing herself to sound cool and unflustered by his sudden appearance. ‘That was the last one. And you shouldn’t creep up on people like that. You should wear a bell– like the ones people put around cats’ necks to stop them killing birds.’
He grinned at her, his white teeth flashing in the shadows. ‘Wellyoushouldn’t be out here by yourself,’ he retorted. ‘It’s dark. You never know who might be hanging around.’
‘Apparently not,’ said Amy. ‘I suppose you’re going to head home now and dial 999, since I’m breaking His Lordship’s rules? Or find a footman to throw me off the premises?’
Sam threw his head back and laughed, and Amy averted her eyes from his long, lightly tanned throat.
‘Seriously, though,’ he said, sitting up a little straighter. ‘Why are you on your own? Celebrating the end of exams with all your dearest friends?’
He spread his hands to indicate the clear absence of other people, and Amy stuck her tongue out at him.
Unlike Sam, she wasn’t exactly popular at college– but in fact shehadbeen invited to hang out with several of the cool girls from their English class after their papers went in earlier. She’d walked with them to the riverside park near the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and sat on the grass as a bottle of warm white wine was passed around, along with the latest gossip. The hot topic was who might pair up with who at an eighteenth birthday party that had become the big end-of-exams event that Friday– but Amy had kept quiet when it was her turn to spill.
‘Duhhh. She has her secret thing with Hari, remember?’ Amy frowned at the memory of Vicky McBride giggling, her over-plucked eyebrows raised so high they almost disappeared into her mass of brown curls. Rather than point out that there was nothingremotelyromantic between herself and her best friend, Amy had soon made her excuses and left, catching the bus back to Rowton in time for tea with Gran.
Yes, Hari was the only person in Rowton that Amy felt fully at ease with, but she’d never liked him inthatway– and she was one hundred per cent sure he didn’t fancy her either. Their friendship was based on a shared love of indie music, and a connection that transcended their superficial differences. At college and among the locals Hari was gregarious and well liked, whereas Amy– quiet, studious and fond of black clothes– had a reputation for spikiness. However, both had ‘lost a parent’, as their sympathetic neighbours might have put it. Their experience of grief bound them in a way their more fortunate peers couldn’t fathom.
‘Really, where’s Hari? Off answering a call of nature?’ Sam said, reclaiming Amy’s focus.
‘For God’ssake,’ she grumbled, trying not to laugh at Sam miming binoculars with his hands, aiming his face at an overgrown shrub as though Hari might be lurking behind it.
‘Hari and I aren’t a two-for-one special, you know,’ Amy went on. ‘We are occasionally seen separately.’
‘Veryoccasionally,’ Sam said, arching an eyebrow. He and Hari were also friends, and together the three of them– the only people in their year who lived in the village– formed a slightly strange trio: Hari the ever-affable link between the other two, whose chief form of communication was banter and sniping.
Amy’s raised voice drew the attention of Max, the Ainsworths’ chocolate Labrador. Presumably, Sam had been sent out to walk him before the family went to bed.
Max abandoned Sam to rest his warm, heavy head on Amy’s lap and, within a few short seconds, he had located her lost biscuit. She stroked his floppy ears as he munched it, loving the feel of their velvety softness between her finger and thumb.
‘Traitor,’ Sam muttered. He shook his head at the dog and then yawned, stretching his arms high above his head and lying back down on the ground, his face to the sky. Amy quickly pulled her gaze away from the sudden tightness of his T-shirt across his chest.
‘Hari has his last exam tomorrow,’ she told him, fervently hoping the dusk would obscure the ridiculous blush she could feel burning her cheeks. ‘Further Maths. I think Mrs Chauhan has him under house arrest until he’s completely done.’
‘Sounds about right,’ Sam laughed as he flipped himself onto his side to face her. ‘But tonight aside, I can’t remember the last time I saw you on your own.’