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Prologue

Torver House, Dorset, December 1820

Serena Talbot carefully laid her lace handkerchief on the dressing table and pulled back the corners to reveal the fragile green and white sprig sitting in its soft nest How absurd it was, that her hands were shaking

When she raised her eyes to the ray depths “It’s only a silly superstition,” she whispered to the blond girl staring back at her

The blond girl in the reflection looked ready to run for her life

Around her, the huge, old house was quiet, as it wouldn’t be quiet tohter and happy chatter The guests for the Talbots’ annual Christmas house party arrived in the afternoon

But tonight held only silence and shadows and flickering candlelight Caught up in the hosts of a hundred bygone maidens crowded around her A hundred maidens who over the centuries had done just what she was about to do

Had all those other girls felt this sa that they summoned powers beyond their control?

She straightened and cast the figure in the lance “Show some backbone, Serena Frances Talbot”

With swift purpose, she lifted the h in St Lawrence’s church in the village and slipped it under her pillow She’d planned this for weeks Rattle-pated

All her life she’d loved Paul Garside, and now she enty-one, it was ti about it This Christ she could to lorious life she’d alanted

Tonight’s ritual placed the seal on her plans With the mistletoe under her pillow, she’d dream of the man she was to marry And tomorrow, she’d set out to claim her destiny as Lady Garside

Once before she’d tried this, when she was eighteen andtruth was she dreaht she hadn’t And he’d spent all Christan

Since then, Serena had recognized that theher she wasn’t yet ready But, oh, how ready she was now, three years later And Paul gave every indication that he agreed Whenever they’dattention

Sht of the handsoown and slid into bed She closed her eyes on a prayer for the

The day was sunny and warround Serena, walking alone along the path to St Lawrence’s, opened the heavy church door that squeaked in her dreams as it squeaked in life, and stepped into the cool, scented dimness of the vestibule Before her, a tall man in a hat and for the kissing bough, a large ball of old ribbon and decorated with apples and green holly