Page 9 of The Last Heir to Blackwood Library

The nightmares were always the same.

A ditch, dirt pouring down from above her, unable to grasp the fingers that desperately reached out from the soil. Muffled voices begging for help. A London hospital, the floors slick with blood, each sickbed occupied by a skeleton eternally waiting for a nurse that would never come. Searching for the face of her brother, a telegraph clutched in her sweating hands.Missing in action,it says. But every time she leans over a bed, the sheet falls away to reveal a tangle of disembodied limbs, blood everywhere. Then she awakens with a gasp, sweat trickling down her neck.

From somewhere just beyond Ivy’s consciousness a clock struck the hour, and she was released from her nocturnal torments. Any moment Susan would flounce in and jump on the bed, tickling Ivy awake and demanding that she get up and read the morning gossip pages with her.

A rooster crowed.Why was there a rooster?When Ivy cracked her eye open, it wasn’t the water-stained walls of their room that greeted her, but the mahogany posts of a grand bed, and walls with decadent blue wallpaper. A seam of dim light shone through the gaps in the heavy velvet drapes.

She sat up. She was in Blackwood Abbey, and she was no longer Ivy Radcliffe, but Lady Hayworth.

Her head felt fuzzy, as if she’d had too much to drink. Swinging her legs out of bed and going to the window, she drew back one of the heavy curtains. A gray, blustery day greeted her, the shrubs and trees surrounding the estate swaying in the wind, white sheep dotting the rocky green landscape beyond. The pressing sense of dread from her nightmare lingered, like a heavy weight sitting in her stomach.

A knock at the door brought her back into the present, and a moment later Agnes was wheeling in a cart with silver-domed trays. “Good mornin’ m’lady,” she said as she brought the cart to the foot of the bed. “Cook ’as sent up some nice hot breakfast for thee.”

Removing the silver lids, Agnes revealed plates of kippers, eggs, porridge, and thick slices of country toast. Ivy’s mouth watered. No more breakfasts of thin oats and tinned herrings for her.

“Thank you, Agnes,” she said as she pulled on a cardigan over her nightgown and helped herself to a plate. Agnes bobbed a curtsy and turned to leave. “Wait.” Ivy stopped her. “Will you stay a little? Have some tea with me?”

Surprise and unease warred on the girl’s face, but she took a tentative seat on the edge of a chair, and accepted the cup that Ivy held out to her. Ivy desperately wanted to tell her about the hairbrush and how it had flown across the room, but she didn’t want Agnes to think her foolish. Instead, she said, “I was thinking of going into town today. I don’t suppose there are any bookshops?”

Ivy wasn’t exactly clear how her new finances operated, but she still had her pension and, if nothing else, now that she didn’t need to worry about room and board she could use that money for books and other luxuries that she had thus long gone without.

“Oh, no, m’lady. We don’t have anything like that here.” Agnes tilted her head in consideration. “Munson, two towns over, now I ’appen they might have one.”

Of course, a little town like Blackwood wouldn’t have a bookshop. “Well, no matter,” Ivy said brightly. “I’d still like to explore the village.” She turned her attention back to the toast, slathering it with butter and trying not to eat too fast in front of her maid.

“If that will be all, m’lady?”

“Oh, yes, thank you, Agnes,” Ivy said. “There’s no need for this ‘my lady’ business,” she added. “Between you and me, I’d much rather just be called Ivy.” Agnes couldn’t have been that much younger than her, and aside from an unbelievable stroke of good fortune, not much separated them.

Agnes looked uncomfortable at the request, but nodded. “If you insist, m’lady. I mean, Ivy.”

Ivy offered her an encouraging smile. “I’d like that, thank you, Agnes.”

With a hurried curtsy, Agnes hastily collected the dishes and disappeared with the cart.

After washing and dressing, Ivy made her way downstairs. She had kicked the hairbrush under the bed, unable to bring herself to handle it after what she’d witnessed. Her hair was short enough that she could run her fingers through it, pin it back without too much fuss.

The house was quiet. It must have been a lonely existence for Lord Hayworth when he was living here. An old man with dementia and a skeleton staff that seemed more concerned with keeping to themselves than anything else. She wondered how he had passed his time, if he had moved with ease through his aristocratic life, or if he had been cowed by the legacy that he carried.

Mrs. Hewitt had said that she thought there was a gramophone somewhere, so Ivy made her way to the north wing where most of the rooms were used for storage. The sheer scale of the abbey still astounded her. It must once have been a dynamic home, bustling with servants and families full of children and governesses. And before that it would have been busy in a different sort of way, with monks gliding silently down the halls, bells chiming, hymns drifting across the lawn.

After a few minutes of trial and error, Ivy found the old ballroom. Aside from the mysterious double door downstairs, few rooms in the abbey were locked. The door creaked open, and she tiptoed in, as if she might be interrupting some ghostly soiree. The ancient curtains were mercifully pulled back, allowing in what little daylight there was. Like most of the other rooms, the ballroom was largely empty, with its remaining furniture pushed to the sides and draped in sheets.

The air was stale and heavy with dust as Ivy carefully navigated the shrouded shapes. Snagging her stocking on a protruding nail, she cursed; stockings weren’t cheap, and she only had three pairs to her name. She was just bending to inspect the damage when behind her the door swung closed, and there was the soft patter of footsteps.

Ivy spun around. “Hello? Mrs. Hewitt?”

No one answered; the room was just as empty as it had been when she’d come in. She shuddered. She wouldn’t have been surprised if there were rats or something even bigger like feral cats in an old wing of a house like this.

But there was no scurrying of paws, no animal squeaks. The hairs along her arms stood up, and the story Agnes had told her about the monk that supposedly haunted the abbey came back to her. Here, in this distant wing of the house with the moaning wind outside and stillness pressing around her, it was easy to imagine herself in the company of ghosts.

She stood frozen, waiting for something though she didn’t know what. Her breath came in deep, even measures, her ear trained on the door. Gradually, when her legs were starting to grow stiff and numb, the sensation faded. She was on edge, jittery from the hairbrush, and now she was imagining things that weren’t there. The more she thought about it, the more she wasn’t even certain it hadn’t been a dream.

Returning to her search, Ivy gently lifted the cloth from a hulking shape and was rewarded with an old gramophone. It was dusty and needed a good polishing, but it looked to be in working order. She would have to enlist Ralph or Hewitt to help her move it into the other wing, but already she was in a better mood, anticipating being able to listen to some music.

Wiping her dusty hands on her skirt, Ivy retraced her steps back to the door and gave it a good yank. God only knew how it had managed to swing itself closed in the first place.

Turning down the hall, Ivy nearly collided with Mrs. Hewitt.

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