I saw again the girl who had been called the prettiest girl in Bath. In my sadness for my mama, and my loneliness, in my mistrust of my body which had so betrayed me with its fertility, I had forgotten that I was a beautiful girl. But in this hard autumn I had become a beautiful woman.

The curves of my breasts were a sensual promise; even the shifting sliding hints of the prow of my belly were a proof of sweet fertility. The dark mysterious silk accentuated the slimness of my back and the creaminess of my skin, and put shadows in my grey eyes. I smiled at my reflection in genuine surprise. The fine clear lines of my cheek-bones, the lilting upturned corners of my mouth were familiar, but the shadows in the eyes were new, and it was these which had transformed me from a promising girl into a beautiful and desirable woman.

‘You do pay dressing,’ Jenny said. ‘Shall I do your hair?’

‘Yes, please,’ I said, and I sat down at my mama’s dressing-table and watched my face in the glass as she brushed out my light curling hair in long sweeps from the top of my head down almost to my waist, and then started to pile it up in gentle folds.

Behind her, in the darkness of the room, reflected in the glass, I saw the door open and Richard come in. He did not realize I had seen him, for he was watching Jenny carefully brushing and lifting one swath of thick hair after another. There was an expression on his face which made me give a little shiver, although the room was warm. I wondered, even as the hairs all down the nape of my neck lifted in a shuddery life of their own, what imaginary shadow had crossed my mind.

He moved, and Jenny jumped and gave a little squeak. ‘Oh! I beg your pardon, sir, I did not know you had come in!’

I heard a note in her voice I had never heard before, and I said nothing for a moment while I considered it. Then I recognized that slightly too quick speech, that slightly too high pitch. She was afraid of Richard. The whole household, the village and the estate were afraid of Richard. And I – his wife, his dependant -I was afraid of him too.

He smiled. ‘You can go now, Jenny, if your mistress is finished with you.’

I nodded my head, not turning from my place before the mirror, and Jenny bobbed a curtsy with her hand held to her neck in an odd gesture, strangely protective of her throat. Then she took herself out of the room. Richard walked towards me and stood behind me, where Jenny had stood brushing my hair. I met his eyes in the mirror, and I wondered what he wanted of me.

‘I like that gown,’ he said. His fingers brushed my neck, the smooth sloping naked line from my shoulder up to the exposed lobe of my ear. I shivered at his touch and I could see in the mirror that the pupils of my eyes had enlarged, making my eyes darker.

‘I have brought something for you,’ Richard said softly. ‘Something I know you will like.’

He smiled.

I considered that smile, watching his face in the mirror which had once reflected my Mama. It was not the smile he used to hide his anger, so I should have nothing to fear. It was not the smile which was his genuine laughing smile. It was affectionate, tender. But there was some joke at the back of it which I thought I would not enjoy.

I nodded warily.

Richard lifted the flap of his pocket and delved in its depths. His jacket was black velvet, his linen cream lawn; the pocket flap was trimmed with black satin ribbon. I was watching his reflection in my mirror so carefully that I noticed how the sheen on the ribbon caught the light from the candles on either side of my mirror.

‘I hope you will like it,’ Richard said sweetly. His voice quavered on a little giggle of suppressed laughter. ‘Indeed,’ he said, his voice shaking, ‘I know you will like it!’

My eyes flew to his reflected face in my mirror. His eyes were dancing with boyish merriment. Then I felt the cool touch of a necklace around my throat.

The cool touch of rounded perfectly matched pearls.

Rose pearls.

Mama’s rose pearls.

Mama’s rose pearls, which were taken by the highwayman who shot her and left her to die on the highway.

I put my hand up to touch them as if to confirm that they were real. I could not believe they were real. I had not thought to see them ever again.

‘How well they suit you,’ Richard said pleasantly. There was a ripple of amusement under his voice. ‘How pretty you look in them, my dear.’


My eyes met his, my grey level stare to his dancing blue twinkle.

‘Mama’s pearls,’ I said, prosaically.

‘Mama’s pearls,’ he confirmed. The joy never left his face. ‘Or, at any rate,’ he amended, ‘something very like them.’

There was a noise of carriage-wheels outside as Dr Pearce and his friend arrived.

‘Early!’ Richard said, crossing to my window to look out. ‘Come then, Julia!’ He held out an imperative hand to me as I sat frozen at the glass.

For a moment I thought I could not move. I sat in silence and looked at Mama’s rose-pearl necklace and at the matching earrings which Richard had tossed down before me.

‘Oh, yes!’ he said, following my gaze. ‘Put the ear-rings on too! You can’t imagine the trouble I had getting them!’

It was that nonchalant mention of his trouble in getting them that tipped me from my frozen crystal of disbelief into a well of horror which I recognized.

At last I knew the horror for what it was: Richard’s murderous madness.

Richard’s hand was held out to me, and Dr Pearce was knocking at the door. I was a woman entirely dependent on one man, that man my brother, seven months pregnant with his child, without a friend in the world who could help me stand against him.

I knew him then as Clary’s murderer, the entrapper of Matthew Merry, the betrayer of Ralph Megson, the murderer of Jem the groom, of his own papa, John MacAndrew, and of my beloved mama.

I looked at him as if I had never seen him before; but there was no fear on my face. I was beyond fear, in a pit of such horror that I could think nothing and say nothing.

Mechanically I pushed the studs of the ear-rings through the little holes in my ear-lobes.

They stung.

Then I took Richard’s hand and went down the stairs with him to greet Dr Pearce and Mr Fowler, and sat at the foot of the table, with my husband at the head, while Stride served a dinner of which I could be proud.

Afterwards we played cards, and Dr Pearce and I won. We took tea and then the two of them went home. Richard and I were alone in the parlour.

‘It’s good to have company,’ Richard said, yawning. ‘We spend too much time alone. It will make you dull, Julia. You were blooming tonight.’

My hand was at my throat on the necklace. Richard glanced at it.

‘It’s remarkable how well those pearls set off your skin tones,’ he said. ‘They make you look like a bowl of warm cream.’

He put out his hand to me to help me to my feet, and out of habit, before I could think what I was doing, I let him pull me up out of the chair and found myself standing close beside him on the hearthrug.

His hand came down under my chin and lifted my face up. For no reason he squeezed my chin until I could feel the strength in his long fingers, killer’s fingers. The blood drummed in my head, but I did not speak and my grey eyes on his face never wavered.

‘I think I shall come to your room tonight,’ he said with a little sigh. ‘I think I should like to lie with you.’

There were a few moments of utter silence while my reeling head tried to take in what he was saying.

‘You cannot!’ I said stupidly. ‘Richard! You are my brother!’

Richard’s hand left my chin and lingered on my bare shoulder, caressing the slope of my neck, one finger negligently trailing down to touch the warm rounded top of my breast.

‘Oh, I don’t regard it,’ he said idly. ‘It was just something they said to frighten us.’

‘No,’ I said. I tried to step back, but Richard’s other arm was around my waist holding me tight beside him. ‘No, they meant it, Richard. It was the truth, I am sure of it.’

I was still not afraid – I was too stunned to be afraid. My brother, and the killer of my mama, had me held tight to his side and was stroking my breast and my neck with confident, bloodstained fingers.

‘I don’t regard it,’ Richard said again. ‘I do not think we need regard it. They will not be saying it again, after all!’ He gave me one of his most charming smiles, as if that were the wittiest sally he could make, and he put one hard finger under my chin and tipped my face up to receive his kiss.

In the pit of madness which was all that was left of my will, there was nothing to stop him. His mouth came down upon mine and I gritted my teeth to stop myself retching, and I put my hands on his waist to hold myself steady while the world reeled around me.

‘Whore,’ he said gently, and put me from him. ‘Go and get into bed. I shall have you tonight.’

My will was broken and my mind was dead.

I went up the stairs to my bedroom for there was nowhere else I could go. Jenny Hodgett undressed me in silence and looked anxiously at my face so pale that it was deathly. I slipped between the sheets of my bed and blew out my candle. Then I lay in the half-darkness with the firelight flickering on the looming furniture of the room; an owl was calling and calling outside.

He was late coming to bed. In my strange calm state I even dozed while I waited for him. I was afraid no longer. I had lost my fear. I was not a virgin – I did not think it would hurt. I could not cry for help and shame Richard, and shame our family name, and shame myself. When he pulled the covers roughly off me, I lay as still as a corpse. Only the little hairs on my arms and my legs lifted and prickled at the cold night air. But I held still.