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discovered at the beginning of her stay. With a slight twist of her hand, she sprang open the secret panel, revealing the hiding place for her miniature and her amethyst comb. Pulling the comb from the cubbyhole, she looked at it, knowing that she could get a fine price for it.
    Besides the death of her mother, the comb dredged up another bitter memory as well. Placing the bejeweled piece into a kerchief, she recalled the day the earl had arrived unannounced at the neat little house near London where she and her mother had first lived after their flight from Osterley. Despite her mother's precaution of refusing funds from Oliver Morrow and despite the passage of years, he had found them.
    At first, she had been enchanted with her father, who was tall and strong. Her mother's anxiety had not affected her, and she was happy to have even for a few hours what most children took for granted: a father. But after the visit wore on, her father had taken her to his lap and he had touched her— simply, at first—on her shoulders. Then he had placed a mild kiss on her cheek.
    But there had been something wrong with his affection, and soon she shared her mother's uneasiness. To her horror, his hand had begun to enclose one of her small, developing breasts. Her mother shrieked, and the earl had thrown Brienne from his lap. Then he rose from his seat and proceeded to slap her mother almost senseless.
    "You've stolen it from me. Would you exchange it for your daughter's innocence?" Oliver Morrow had demanded.
    "I haven't got it," her mother had pleaded.
    "My proof! It's my only proof!" He had slapped her mother again. In the end he had taken Grace Morrow upstairs. Brienne could sometimes still hear the quiet, desperate sobs that had come from that bedroom. She had crawled into a space behind one of the cabinets to hide. Even after the earl came down the stairs and told his driver to head back to London, she had stayed there, unwilling to move until her mother had coaxed her out. They had moved again and again until they found peace in Tenby. But a knock on the door still made Brienne's nerves jangle, and the earl's last words still rang horrifyingly in her ears: "Brienne love, someday I'll have you both."
    She was now nineteen, old enough to know about husbandly rights. However, every time she recalled that day, she thought of rape. Her mother had been raped because of the comb she now held in her hand. It was the same old-fashioned comb that she had found with the miniature so long ago in Tenby. Brienne turned it over and over again in her palm, as if by doing so, its mystical power would finally be revealed. But it was of no use. It would be worth a few pounds, especially with the seal of the Labordes stamped into its back, the initials QE, and then the crossed fasces. . But she would never understand the price her mother had paid to keep it from the earl's clutches. In many ways she felt she would be well rid of it.
    Hating these terrible memories, Brienne vehemently wrapped both articles in her embroidered kerchief and placed them carefully at the top of her bag so they would not be crushed. She then wasted no time in leaving Osterley. She was out the front doors before even a footman saw her, and she made good time down the carriage drive, hearing only the crunch of the pebbles beneath her pattens. She found it a happy sound, for it told her that she was putting Osterley and its foul past behind her.
    Already she was making plans for her new life. Perhaps once she sold the comb, she would have enough money to make her way to Bath after all. If she had any luck, she might be able to find a job at one of the booksellers. Her thoughts centered pleasantly on her new freedom. She didn't notice the two new men who manned the gatehouse. She stopped at the closed gates, eyeing both distrustfully.
    "I have need to be leaving here. Please open the gates," she called to the man nearest her. She pulled her cloak closer to her figure to ward off