Excerpt
ONE
Christchurch, Hampshire
Morning
Saturday June 12, 1897
Sneaking into an eleventh-century priory was decidedly more challenging when one wore an alarmingly pink dress.
Eleanora Mallory crouched behind a tomb, wearing a gown made in an extremely potent fuchsia—a color that did not exist in nature. The borrowed dress was precisely the sort of hue that Ellie, as a professional archivist and university-educated scholar of ancient history, normally wouldn't be caught dead wearing—but then, she was attending a wedding, and weddings compelled people to do all manner of ridiculous things.
A matching hat with an assortment of offensively bright flowers sat on top of Ellie's otherwise staid brown hair, shading her freckled nose from the sun as she huddled behind the last mortal resting place of Sir Tory Burch-Richardson and tried not to be noticed.
The morning was a perfect example of the June type—sunny and warm, with the sky displaying a rare shade of blue, which nicely complimented the elegant tour of Christchurch Priory. The old church rose before Ellie in a graceful pile of ancient stones and glittering windows. The architecture was mostly Norman, interspersed with some Early English and Perpendicular Gothic features. Ellie was easily able to pick out the difference thanks to her extensive study of medieval and early modern building techniques during her years at University College, London.
Beyond the church sprawled the village, a postcard-perfect assortment of houses and shops in old timber-frame buildings. Boats bobbed nearby at anchor in the mouth of the River Avon while gulls wheeled lazily overhead.
One of the birds landed with an unsettling flutter atop Sir Tory's tomb. The gull eyed Ellie's hat as though it suspected some part of the millinery might be edible.
Ellie shooed at it. The gesture wasn't sufficient to remove the gull entirely—little short of military ordinance would be capable of that feat—but the creature did at least scoot to a slightly less alarmingly close perch.
With the gull at a safer distance, Ellie risked a peek around the corner of her hiding place. The path to the priory door was busy with workers from the village who were carrying boxes of ribbons, candles, greenhouse flowers, and who-knew-what other festive paraphernalia into the church.
"How much more of that nonsense are they going to bring in?" Ellie grumbled.
Ellie's friend Constance darted from the neighboring tomb in a bundle of golden silk and tucked into place beside her. The yellow of Constance's dress was just as bright as Ellie's pink, but the color complimented Constance's warmer complexion perfectly.
"It's a wedding, Eleanora," Constance replied neatly. "Weddings require decor."
The gull that was perched on Sir Tory's stone box made a considering assessment of Constance's hat, which sported several fluffy feathers. Constance shot the bird a glare.
"Shove off," she ordered threateningly.
The gull took flight, clearly sensing what was better for it.
"It makes little sense to me why women will invest so much money and energy into flowers and gowns to celebrate being marched into a life of economic exclusion and servitude," Ellie declared stoutly.
"Because flowers are pretty," Constance returned. "Though for our own sakes, I do wish there weren't quite so many of them. How are we supposed to sneak into the church without Mum spotting us if she's out here watching them unload another ten stone of gladiolas?"
Constance's mother, Sabita—otherwise known as Lady Tyrrell—had volunteered to oversee the decorating of the church for today's ceremony, which would see Constance's neighbor, Mr. Walford Eversleigh, married to the daughter of an obscure northern baron.
Society was all up in a buzz about it—not that Ellie gave a fig for society. Weddings were a celebration of the removal of the vast majority of a woman's legal and financial rights. Ellie would never have agreed to attend this one, even though she was on holiday with Constance and her family at their summer house in Hampshire… only within the gray stones of the priory lay a prize that no self-respecting lady scholar could possibly resist.
Only the promise of getting her hands on that marvelous item—that very unique and fascinating book—had convinced Ellie to don her borrowed, absurdly-hued dress and come out for the day instead of sensibly hiding in the Tyrrells' library.
