Jane nodded in silent agreement, feeling the hot tears welling up in her eyes and wondering what magic her mysterious lover had wrought to engender such regard on the part of this simple country lad. For it had suddenly occurred to her that Simmons was also at risk, both for having slipped away from her brother’s manor at this late hour, as well as for having allowed himself to become an instrument in her conspiracy.

She had no time for further reflection, for the black horse was stamping its hooves, impatient now to be back in its warm stable. “Do you think the gentleman will ever come back, miss?” Simmons’s voice was a barely audible whisper above the snorting of the animal.

Jane slowly shook her head. “I fear he may not be able, Simmons,” she replied. “You had better go now, before you are missed.”

The servant straightened, touched the brim of his hat, then wheeled the horse around and rode away across the meadow. Jane watched him until he was once more swallowed up in the mist.

A bright tear ran down her cheek as she looked up at the lowering moon. “So this is how it is to end?” she asked the cloud-streaked sky.

Turning to the wood, she ran into the trees and back along the moonlit path the way she had come. Soon the dark outlines of a large stone house appeared through the trees. Warm light was shining from an upper window, and Jane knew that Cassandra had awakened and discovered her gone.


Making her way across the broad lawn at the rear of the house, Jane quietly let herself in through a low wooden door. Inside the kitchen the glow of embers in the fireplace provided the only light. Moving as quietly as possible across the flagged stone floor, Jane removed her cloak and hung it near the fireplace to dry. She took a candle in a copper holder from the mantel and lit it with a broom straw. Then, pausing just long enough to brush away her tears, she left the kitchen and walked through a dark hallway to the center of the house.

She had just reached the foot of the wide central staircase when she heard a footstep and saw the glimmering of another candle on the landing above.

“Jane, is that you?” Cassandra, her heavy plaits of golden hair falling about the shoulders of her nightgown, stood peering down into the dark stairwell, her soft features filled with concern.

“Yes, Cass, I am just coming up.” Fixing a cheerful smile on her lips, Jane hurried upstairs. She reached the upper landing to find her older sister regarding her with frank amazement.

“Surely you have not been out again at this hour,” Cassandra asked. “It is well past midnight.”

“I felt like walking in the moonlight,” Jane replied, brushing past the astonished Cass and making quickly for the door to her room.

“The moonlight?” Cassandra, who could always tell when Jane was lying, moved to block her way, forcing Jane to look directly into her steady gray eyes. “Jane, what have you been up to?”

Jane shrugged, attempting to inject a carefree note into her voice. “I have heard it said that Lord Byron highly commends the moonlight, when he is courting the muse,” she replied brightly.

“And I have heard that the wicked young lord goes abroad at night only to court ladies of dubious reputation,” Cassandra retorted. “What have you been doing, sister?”

Once again Jane felt her tears threatening to burst forth. She shook her head stubbornly. “I have done nothing either very dubious or very wicked,” she replied. And in her mind’s eye she glimpsed the handsome features of the man she had gone to meet. “I was not given an opportunity,” she murmured with regret.

Cassandra’s mouth fell open. But before she could find adequate words to express her shock, Jane kissed her on the cheek and pushed past her. “Good night, Cass,” she whispered as she reached the door to her room.

Cassandra’s lined features softened and she regarded her younger sister with concern. “Dearest Jane, you know you can confide in me,” she said softly. “Please tell me what has happened?”

“Oh, Cass, I am not yet certain,” Jane replied, feeling the salty wetness beginning to sting her cheeks. “Perhaps my foolish heart has been broken at last.” She sniffled and managed a little smile. “I shall have to reflect on it and let you know in the morning.”

Then without another word she entered her bedroom and firmly shut the door behind her, leaving Cassandra alone in the hallway to wonder.

Lit only by her single candle, the large, cheerful room that Jane loved so well by day was now a warren of leaping shadows. They danced impishly across the flowered wallpaper and pooled deep in the corners behind the bed as she walked to her mirrored vanity by the fireplace. Placing the candle on the table, Jane sat and began slowly taking down her elaborately curled hair, allowing the shining dark tresses to fall loose.

When she was done, she regarded her dim reflection in the mirror, raising one pale hand to touch the silvery-looking glass with her fingertips. “Only one of us is real,” she said quietly to that other Jane who sat gazing at her from the glass, “the other is but an illusion. The question is, which am I?”

Removing the undelivered letter from her gown, she placed it on the dressing table before her and stared down at the address she had so neatly written there a lifetime ago. She was startled from her reverie by an insistent knocking at the door.

“Jane, do let me in,” Cassandra entreated. “I will not sleep a wink until you have told me what has happened.”

“What has happened?” Jane repeated in a voice so soft that only she could hear. “That, dear sister, is one thing that I will never tell you.”

She scooped up the letter as Cassandra knocked again. “Jane!” she called, demanding now to be let in.

“Just a moment, Cass.” With a heavy sigh Jane pushed back from the vanity, bowing to the inevitability of admitting her sister. Ever since they were small children Cass had always been the one who had soothed her hurts and given her the courage to go on. That would never change, certainly not now that he was gone.

Picking up the letter, she looked quickly around the dimly lit room. “And what am I to do with this?” she wondered aloud. For she could not reveal its contents, even to Cass, nor did she dare destroy it because of the secret it contained.

Jane caught her own worried reflection looking back at her from the shimmering depths of the mirror as Cass’s knocking grew louder.

Volume One

Chapter 1

New York City

Present day


“Oh, now I do like this!” Eliza Knight exclaimed, though there was no one within earshot.

She brushed a thick layer of dust from the mirror of the scarred little vanity table and peered into the silvery glass. The sudden appearance of her own reflection startled her and she paused for a moment to regard the hazy image. The familiar face looking back at her was, she thought, if not exactly beautiful, then slightly exotic, with its high cheekbones, straight if somewhat narrow nose and full lips. Her dark eyes were, she confirmed, still her best feature, though she also liked her glossy black hair, despite the longish, flyaway cut she’d let her hairdresser talk her into a couple of weeks before.

Grimacing at the hair, Eliza stepped back to take a better look at the old-fashioned rosewood dressing table. In the hour or so that she had been poking through the clutter of the shabby West Side antiques warehouse that was allegedly open only to the “Trade,” the vanity was the only thing that had caught her eye. She had spied it just moments earlier, crammed between an art deco floor lamp and a Jetsons pink 1950s Formica coffee table, and had immediately felt herself drawn to it.

Taking her eyes from the dulled mirror, Eliza scanned the rows of dusty merchandise stretching in every direction like a bad Cubist painting. She finally spotted Jerry Shelburn three aisles away. He appeared to be taking stock of an ancient gasoline pump with a cracked glass top.

“Jerry,” she called excitedly, “I want your opinion. Come over here and take a look at this!”

Jerry had gotten them admitted to the wholesaler’s warehouse through one of his clients, who ran a small freight-forwarding business. Now he smiled good-naturedly and waved back. He carefully replaced the brass nozzle on the gas pump before starting toward her, the round lenses of his wire-framed glasses glittering like little moons beneath the cold fluorescents of the overhead fixtures.

Eliza sighed inwardly as she watched him picking his way through the maze of old furniture, noting the extraordinary care he took not to soil his Old Navy khakis and spotless cotton pullover. They had met two years earlier, through an artist friend of hers, when Eliza had been looking for someone to manage the small investment portfolio her father had left her. Jerry had turned out to be an excellent manager, increasing the value of her stocks by nearly thirty percent in the first year and then shrewdly using the capital to secure the down payment on the condo that also served as her studio, thus eliminating more than half the taxes she’d been paying as a renter.

Somehow while all of that was going on they had started dating and then, occasionally, sleeping together. It was marginally comfortable and definitely low maintenance on both sides. There had been a few times in recent months when she had felt as though the relationship was either going to progress into something more serious or end altogether, and had to admit that it wouldn’t really bother her that much if it did end. Feeling slightly mercenary, she consoled herself with the thought that at least her net worth had never been higher.