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at the back, I ran quickly through the lists of halls and abbeys and courts until I found it. There was only a single page reference, as if the author felt it should be included but was unable to dredge up much about it. I leafed through the pages, missing the right one twice, until finally there it was: just a couple of paragraphs in relation to another, better-known house in the same part of the county.
    Of course the English seat of the Fitzmorris family is not the only estate in the vicinity. Just a few miles to the west in the neighbouring valley, hidden to all but the most prying eyes, is the Fiercombe estate. A place of uncertain origin and mixed fortunes, it has lately shunned attention, withdrawing quietly into the deepest recesses of the silent valley as if to blot out painful memories and to sink, gratefully, into a healing slumber. The trees that cloak and obscure the valley floor so well are a rare remnant of an ancient wood much reduced elsewhere but surviving here even as the people who own it come and go.
    The estate’s golden era ended as the last century dwindled away. It enjoyed a brief flicker of local fame under the stewardship of the sixth baron, Edward Stanton, and his wife, Elizabeth, a renowned beauty, but those halcyon days turned out to be fewindeed. Today, the springtime rambler is not encouraged to walk the paths that meander down through the trees and bluebells towards a manor house completed when another Elizabeth was on the throne and now all but forgotten.
    Elizabeth. That was the first time I saw her name. What did I think, if anything? I’m sure I traced the letters with my finger; perhaps I even whispered it under my breath, the hiss of the second syllable, the sigh of the last. But that was all. My interest in her and the estate’s history was fleeting then—a faint glimmer of intrigue that glowed and then dimmed again, though not before it had lodged itself at the back of my mind, ready to be brought out later. There, in the library close to home, close to everything that was familiar, she was not yet able to drown out the clamour of my own thoughts. It was later that she would come alive to me, when I was in the place that had once been hers.
    I looked up from the book to see that it had started to rain outside, heavy gouts of it spattering the glass unevenly as the wind flung it about. My eyes went back to the stark black type on the page. Fiercombe. Tomorrow I would be there, amongst those ancient trees. I put my hand to my stomach and felt again the now-familiar jolt of disbelief and fear.
    The day I was due to depart London for the west dawned mild and bright, a pink blush colouring the sky. I didn’t need to leave for Paddington until after nine, but I woke at five and was unable to get back to sleep, staring instead at the faded roses of my bedroom wallpaper, my insides tightly strung with nerves.
    When it was finally time to go, my mother announced that I didn’t need both of them to accompany me to the station and that she would stay behind. At the door, she pulled me back inside so none of the neighbours would hear her.
    â€œMind you don’t get yourself into any more trouble,” she said as she squeezed my arm. She was unwilling to show me any other sign of affection, but her face was drawn and her eyes looked puffy. “You don’t know how fortunate you are to be going there.”
    She bent to straighten the hem of the light summer coat I had bought with the last of my wages, the generous cut almost successful in hiding my altered figure.
    â€œWrite and tell us how you find it,” she said. “You know I won’t be able to come until you’re ready to have it, don’t you? We can’t possibly afford the expense of a visit before then.”
    I tried to think about how things would be for me beyond the labour and the giving away of the baby in London’s anonymous heart, but found I couldn’t. It seemed as remote