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appointment with one prickled me with tiny doubts. Was this really the only way to get a good night’s sleep while I adjusted to marriage limbo? Was I going to have to spill every secret of my soul to this person to get it? Maybe pills would be easier …
    In front of me, the ancient prayer book and rosary rested next to the vase where I left them. I reached for the beads and rubbed the smooth stones. They felt like they held a million secrets and wishes. My fingers slid down to the tiny silver form of Christ, stretched and bowed.
    “What am I supposed to do?” I whispered half to myself and half to the quiet Savior.
    Brad had said we needed time to figure out where our marriage was headed. In the eight weeks Brad had been gone, my only observation was it wasn’t headed anywhere. There was no momentum to evaluate. I was in Manhattan. He was in New Hampshire.
    “What am I supposed to do?” I whispered again, and I felt hot tears forming in the corners of my eyes. I blinked them back. With my other hand, I reached for the prayer book and let it fall open. The faint but legible words in the middle of the book called to me:
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy, defend us from all Perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen
. I pulled the text closer. The knobby bump underneath the lining and beneath my fingers was suddenly an annoying interruption. Withoutstopping to consider the consequences, I grabbed a letter opener from the breakfast bar next to me and slid its point under the top edge of the fragile leather lining. I was amazed at how easily it came away—as if it had been waiting for that moment for centuries.
    I slipped the blade gently inside and probed the knobby bump, turning the book upside down.
    Threads that had at one time been woven together fell out like confetti. And then a circle with a flash of blue landed on the table with a tender tinkling.
    A ring.
    I set the book and the opener down and reached for it. The band, though dulled with age, was gold. The single blue stone in the middle was flanked on both sides by two red stones and clusters of tiny white ones. I didn’t know a lot about gemstones, but I was fairly certain the stones were a sapphire, rubies, and diamonds. In the light of the single bulb glowing above the table, I could see the stones’ brilliance, even with the fog of deep sleep that still seemed to cling to them.
    I turned the ring over in my hands, breathless with surprise and curiosity. Emma surely had no idea this ring had been encased inside the box with melted hinges and no key. The previous owner probably hadn’t known either.
    As I turned the ring, I noticed tiny etchings on the band’s underside. The markings were too small and faint to make out. I hunted for a magnifying glass in my desk just off the kitchen. It seemed to take far too long to find it.
    When I did, I flipped on my desk lamp and leaned in to peer through the lens. My eyes struggled to focus on the tiny script, and when I finally made out the words, I whispered them.
“Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea, sponsa.”
They meant nothing to me.
    But then I could see that something else had been inscribed just after the Latin words. I centered the glass on the other set of etched letters.
    My breath caught in my throat. This word I knew.
    Jane.

 

Six
     

     
    J ane waited for me at the window, her wee head bowed as if something lay beyond the glass that she could not bear to look upon. Her small hands rested on the sill, folded one over the other in the relaxed pose of someone who has no appointment to keep. Beneath her line of vision, I could see the sweeping lawn at Sudeley Castle and the tracks in the dirt my carriage made. A faint swirl of dust caught up against a bit of black as the carriage disappeared from our view, on its way back to Bradgate.
    I should have made my presence known, but I stood at the threshold as one struck