The soft but protective arms of Ivy Fenwick’s two younger sisters dragged her across the threshold. The door slammed in the stone archway on the face that Ivy had not even seen. His persistence told her all she needed to know about his character. He had shouted to the world what he wanted. Every man who braved the garden had one objective in mind: taking possession of Fenwick Manor.
“Who was that?” her youngest sister, Lilac, whispered. Lilac’s light hair shone in the darkness of the hall. Heavy drapes covered the belowstairs windows. It was too early in the day to waste a candle. The housekeeper kept them on a strict allowance.
The sisters hadn’t always scurried into the house like mice at the approach of male callers. Once the clip-clop of horses paraded across the bridge by hopeful gentlemen had added a measure of excitement to their afternoon tea. With their father the Earl of Arthur’s approval, a young gallant might stroll through the enchanting gardens with one of his lordship’s daughters. All four Fenwick girls had been well dowered and never lacked for company, even though Rosemary tended to sneak off with a book half the time and Lilac had walked with a limp ever since her accident.
But Lilac was fair and intrepid and laughed when her gait slowed her pace. She had fallen in love with a neighborhood boy when she was fifteen. He had never come back from the war; three years ago his parents had died. She insisted that she would be with Terence one day and that she didn’t need a courtship until then.
“Who was that?” Lilac asked now, her voice low with dread. Even Lilac recognized danger when it stood at the door.
“I didn’t stop to ask his name,” Ivy said, disengaging herself from her sisters’ custody. “It’s obvious he came to put a lien on the property.”
“But you said we paid the last of our debts.” Rue Fenwick hadn’t taken her dark blue eyes from the door. She had coal black hair and fair skin, and was bitter to Lilac’s sweet.
“I thought we had,” Ivy said. She bent to put down the puppy squirming against her neck. “Go, you morsel of trouble. You don’t know how close you came to being snatched up by that hawk. Quigley has to fix that hole under the gate.”
Rosemary, the second eldest of the Fenwick sisters, trudged down the stairs. “What is all this commotion?” she asked with a resentful frown.
Ivy assumed Rosemary had been at her desk. Ink stains of various shades smudged her sleeves. Her hair hung in a messy plait over her shoulder. But then the sisters never received callers these days. Why should they dress for company that never appeared?
“I assume it was another land agent hoping we’d sell the house at a pittance to pay off one of Papa’s debts that has just come to notice. I don’t think he was a bailiff.”
Rosemary leaned against the heavily carved balustrade. “He arrived in an expensive carriage for a debt collector.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it parked on the bridge from the hall upstairs.”
Ivy ran toward the staircase, Lilac at her heels. Rue stayed below to guard the door, although what her delicately boned sister thought she could do to ward off a man of such a determined nature, Ivy didn’t want to speculate.
At the top of the stairs, she and Lilac followed Rosemary through a dark bedchamber into a narrow hall. The watchful stares of ancestors, Welsh and English, followed their progress to a window where the drapes tumbled to the floor in fragile condition. No one dared touch them. The last maid to do so had mummified herself in moldering silk.
Ivy glimpsed a large black carriage disappearing down the road from the bridge.
“That was not a creditor,” Rosemary said. “But he might have been something worse. What did he look like?”
Ivy sighed. “For the last time, I didn’t dare stop to find out. He missed capturing me by mere inches. Details might be important to a writer, but a woman running for her life doesn’t care whether the man chasing her has blue eyes or brown.”
Lilac rubbed a smudge of dust from the windowpane. “He had gray eyes, I believe, and a noble face, although it looked not overly pleased when Rue and I slammed the door on it.”
“The jackdaws took off from the chimney as if the house were on fire.” Rosemary was studying Ivy now in concern. She usually needed a good hour after writing to return to the world. “And I haven’t heard Quigley threaten anyone to stay away from the gate in years. How did you outrun the man, Ivy?”
Ivy guided the others away from the window. “I didn’t. The garden slowed his chase. I knew the pitfalls and thorny places. He came up against every one.”
“You shouldn’t have gone outside in view of the road.” Rosemary pulled a foxglove blossom from Ivy’s hair. “I’m almost finished with the story. Can we hold out for three more months?”
Ivy stared through a chink in one of the windows to the back gardens of Fenwick Manor. The front of the house might deceive the unwanted visitor into believing that chaos ruled. But behind the back walls, the land was immaculately maintained by her sisters and Quigley, the gardener, and displayed geometric beds, fruit orchards, and knot parterres that remained true to their original Tudor design.
As did the manor house, for all it was crumbling into decay. Time held its breath within the walls. Few structural changes had been made since the first Earl of Arthur had built the house over three centuries before.
Rue’s voice startled her from her musings. Her sister had climbed the stairs so quietly that Ivy hadn’t heard her approach. “Didn’t you say that most of our bills have been paid?”
“I thought they had. Even so, the roof can’t hold up through another barrage of storms. And I won’t make our only footman clean the flue again and get stuck in the chimney. We have to do something besides hide.”
“But what?” Rue asked. Her hair was blacker than Ivy’s, her nature more secretive than her eldest sister’s intense sensibility.
“We’ll decide after supper,” Ivy said.
“After Rosemary reads her latest chapter,” Lilac added, bending to pick up the foxglove bloom from the bare floor. “These are poisonous, as you know. I wonder we shan’t have a sick puppy on our hands tonight.”
“Or an unwanted visitor,” Ivy thought aloud. She felt vulnerable after that man’s pursuit, caught outside with only herself and Quigley to blame. “To be truthful I don’t care that society believes living in seclusion has turned us into spinsters, or that it has forgotten we even exist. It rarely crosses my mind what others think of us.”
“It seems hard to believe that we were once popular and had our dance cards filled at a masquerade ball in London,” Rosemary said, not truly wistful, either.
“I’ve never been to a ball,” Lilac offered. “I’ve forgotten how to dance. Besides, I was never good at it.”
“You play the virginal beautifully,” Ivy said, smiling at her. “That’s worth more than being able to dance.”
“Except that we sold the virginal last year,” Rue reminded her. “I do miss listening to Lilac’s music before going to bed. One can play an instrument by oneself. You don’t need a partner to accompany you.”
Lilac frowned. “But you need someone to appreciate what you play.”
“And that’s why you have sisters,” Ivy said, hoping a little cheer would counteract their ominous mood.
For the first time in years a persistent stranger had stolen a glimpse into their secret world. Her sisters might not have admitted it aloud, but Ivy knew they must have been feeling as shaken up by the intrusion as she did. Then and there Ivy took a silent oath to do whatever was necessary to keep possession of Fenwick Manor.