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A ll Constantia’s efforts not to form expectations about Rylemoor Abbey had been in vain. And now that she saw it, all her expectations were—no, not disappointed . That word was wholly inadequate.

Exploded , then.

She had seen abbeys before, of course. Some still in use. Some crumbled into interesting ruins that people traveled far to see and sketch.

Rylemoor was neither. And both.

Lights, draperies, and other evidence of habitation in the two lower wings disguised the building’s great age. The former church, however, had long since surrendered to the wildness of the moors around it, battered by centuries of wind and rain since its lead roof had been stripped away in the time of Henry VIII.

To one side, something approaching coziness beckoned. To the other, a skeleton of stone that loomed in awful splendor and fired her artistic imagination. It was everything that the little stone church in the village was not.

She was drifting in that direction without conscious thought when Lord Ryland touched her elbow and directed her the other way. “I know better than to forbid you from exploring the west wing, like some ogre of old,” he said with a small smile. “But be advised, it’s not in safe condition. I certainly don’t recommend it after dark. And besides, my sisters will be eager to meet you.”

She stumbled against the crushed stone of the courtyard. “How can you be certain?”

“Because...” His voice trailed off and he shook his head. “You’ll see.”

The tall carved door was surrounded by elaborate stonework softened by time, and as they approached it swung inward. A man well past his middle years, the butler presumably, bowed. “My lord. We did not realize—”

Ryland waved off the explanation. “Not to worry, Wellend. Our arrival was unpredictable. I was delayed in Town by...circumstances beyond my control. This is Miss Cooper.”

She curtsied, a little uneasily. She might as well have been wearing a placard around her neck bearing the word circumstances . “Good evening, Mr.—Wellend, was it?” The butler inclined his head.

“Are my sisters abed, Wellend?”

“Not yet, sir. I believe you’ll find them in the family sitting room.”

“Excellent. Please have Mrs. Swetley make ready the chamber near the old schoolroom for Miss Cooper.”

“Very good, my lord.” With another bow, the butler left them, betraying no hint of surprise.

“I think you’ll find the light in the schoolroom well suited to your purposes, Miss Cooper,” Lord Ryland explained. Constantia only nodded, fully absorbed by the task of taking in her surroundings.

She knew enough about architecture to recognize the Tudor influences on the entry hall in which they stood: rough-hewn beams, walnut paneling, arched windows. At one end of the room stood a fireplace tall enough to roast a stag. But the fire was low and gave off too little heat to stave off the room’s stony chill. Three centuries ago, there would have been tapestries to soften and warm the room, but now the walls were bare.

“This way to the family parlor.” He gestured toward a short passageway, and at the end of it a winding staircase, the treads polished and worn by generations.

“Oh. I, um...” She glanced down at her travel-stained and wrinkled dress. “I hadn’t thought to meet your sisters quite so soon.” Not that she had a fresh, unwrinkled dress into which she might change. But at least she might be fresher.

“Nonsense. Once they get wind of your arrival, no one in this house will be permitted a moment’s rest until you’ve been introduced.”

She couldn’t imagine why anyone would be so excited to meet her, or why, given that she was an entirely unexpected guest, it would be difficult to keep her presence under wraps a bit longer. She gathered from Lord Ryland’s instructions to the butler that she was to be placed in some corner of the abbey little used by the family.

But she followed as she was led, rather than risk being left alone in the entry hall, watching the fire sputter and eventually die.

The stairs ended at a small alcove, which opened into what must be the family sitting room, with a cozy fire blazing in the hearth and comfortable furniture collected over several generations. On those furnishings were seated four young women, ranging in age from about fifteen to one- or two-and-twenty, employed in various tasks: letter writing, embroidery, and a contentious game of chess. Constantia stood for a moment, taking in the scene over the earl’s shoulder, until he cleared his throat and drew their attention.

“Alistair!” they cried out almost as one, and two of them—one of the chess players and the one at the writing desk—leaped up and came toward them.

“We were wondering what had become of you,” said the other chess player, who nonetheless had returned her attention to studying the board. “We expected you yesterday, on the mail coach.”

“Instead, it brought us a letter from Aunt Josephine,” said one of those who had approached to hug her brother. She made a sour expression to indicate that the substitution had not met with her approval.

“I wish you’d been half an hour earlier, at least,” said the one beside her. “I was forced to play Georgie instead, and she’s not very good.”

“Is that so?” The aforementioned Georgie—Lady Georgiana, that was—stood up from the table so abruptly that she jarred the board and several pieces toppled over. “Then I quit.”

That earned a shrug from her opponent. “You were going to lose anyway.”

“Harry!” exclaimed the young woman still seated with her embroidery. And then all four of them began to jabber at one another. They all had their brother’s dark hair and similar enough features that Constantia hadn’t a prayer of sorting out which sister was which, or even who was speaking to whom. This was the cacophony that staid Lord Ryland had professed to miss?

“We have a guest,” he said to his sisters, speaking so low that Constantia was certain he could not have been heard.

But something about the deeper timbre of his voice cut neatly through his sisters’ chatter. They turned, almost as one, and Constantia felt four pairs of dark eyes settle on her.

“This,” he said, stepping to one side so that they could see her better, “is Miss Cooper. An accident befell her in Town and I offered her my assistance in the form of employment. She is engaged to offer all of you instruction—”

Four faces met that announcement with varying degrees of suspicion and wariness.

“In drawing,” he finished.

At that, silence settled over the room as quickly as the noise had first erupted. The sisters looked from one to the other, as if deciding collectively on their response.

“Drawing?” repeated the letter writer, an edge of disbelief to her voice.

“Yes. And whatever else in that line she feels appropriate. Watercolors, perhaps. Or pastels.”

“Art?” That was one who had been chastised and addressed as Harry. Lady Harriet, then. The one whom Lord Ryland had described as possessing not just an artistic inclination, but a gift. “You—you are going to allow us to have instruction in art?”

“It occurred to me that a ladylike accomplishment or two might rid me of you faster,” their brother teased.

But Lady Harriet’s expression was solemn. “Truly?”

The earnestness of the question wiped the smile from Lord Ryland’s face. “Truly.”

And then Harriet’s arms were around her brother and the three remaining sisters were approaching Constantia with outstretched hands and more sharply whetted curiosity. “However did you manage to persuade him, Miss Cooper?” asked the one who’d been losing at chess.

“I—” she began, and then shook her hand. “Your brother is a generous man. My art was the only currency with which I might repay him.” She was suddenly aware of the weight of her reticule and the purse within, and her mind flooded with the memory of last night, the twinge of regret she’d felt when he had left, and the large, comfortable bed she had slept in, alone.

That answer only partly appeased them. She watched a speculative glance fly between the two she thought might be the eldest, though they were all so close in age, it was difficult to tell.

“I am Edwina,” said the one who had been embroidering.

The one who preferred country life, Constantia recalled, and thus stayed at Rylemoor. What a gloomy existence for a young woman! Though her expression was mild and obviously her manners had not been affected by the solitude.

“This is Frederica,” Edwina went on, indicating the letter writer, “and Georgiana, and Harriet, the youngest.”

“And Danny will be here in a week,” added Frederica.

Harriet piped up. “ With Aunt Josephine. And they’re staying for six weeks .”

“Our aunt means to stay, too?” their brother asked, the very evenness of the question betraying his surprise. “I expected her to send Danny alone while she went to her friends at Bath, as she usually does, and then return for our sister at the end of her visit.”

“It’s all in the letter,” said Frederica, going to the desk and returning with a folded missive she handed to him. “The entertainments in Bath have grown insipid and she prefers to spend the time with her family.” It was not quite mimicry, but close enough that Constantia had to bite back a smile.

No one else looked amused.

“Well,” he said after a moment. “Christmas is a time for family, is it not?”

“You’re not going to send Miss Cooper away now?” Harriet demanded.

“Certainly not,” Georgiana answered stoutly for him.

Lord Ryland’s “no” was considerably more measured. Alarm flickered through Constantia. Was her position here as tenuous as that? The aunt might be a dragon, but surely the earl was not powerless in his own home.

“Miss Cooper will no doubt prefer to keep to the schoolroom,” he went on, “and take her meals alone, as your other teachers have done.”

Alone. Isolated. Constantia thought of the hours and rooms they’d shared, and might have shared, on their journey and understood she did not really have a choice.

She also had the distinct impression that Frederica—or perhaps that was Georgiana? They’d all shifted about a little and those two were remarkably similar in appearance, even for sisters—was inclined to protest her brother’s edict.

“That is, indeed, as I would prefer it,” Constantia insisted. She was, after all, accustomed to solitude. “And as is proper, of course.”

“Miss Blackstone ate dinner with the family on occasion,” either Georgiana or Frederica reminded him—whichever had not been on the point of speaking before.

“That’s true,” Lord Ryland agreed. But he extended no offer.

“You must be tired after your journey,” Edwina said kindly after an awkward silence. “And my sisters will not give you a moment’s peace here.” She picked up a candlestick. “I’ll show you to your room if you like.”

“I would like that very much indeed.”

She curtsied and followed Edwina out the door. The remaining sisters immediately began to speak—asking questions of their brother, she supposed—but they were discreet enough to keep their voices too low for her to hear any details.

“The family apartments are all here in the center hall,” she explained. “Where the monks used to live, closest to the church. The public rooms and the schoolroom are all in the east wing.”

They retraced the path Constantia had traveled earlier, down the narrow spiral staircase and across the entry hall, which was now nearly dark. Then up another staircase, straight this time, two floors. “The drawing room and library are just here,” Edwina indicated with a wave of her hand when they paused at the first landing. “But it will be easier for you to learn your way about once it’s daylight.”

One floor up, the stairwell ended at a door that opened onto a large, low-ceilinged room, with a row of smaller windows along one side. The space was filled with serviceable tables and benches. She could imagine a team of monkish scribes bent over them. When—if—the sun shone, it would be a passable studio. Better, certainly, than any she had had in many years.

“Your room is back there.” Edwin gestured with a nod toward a door on the room’s far side. “Wellend will have had your things brought up, and I’ll see to it that Mrs. Swetley sends hot water.”

Constantia wondered at the likelihood of hot anything, given the distance it would have to travel to reach her. But she nodded her thanks all the same. “You’re very kind.”

“I hope you will be comfortable here, Miss Cooper. Please tell me if there’s anything I can do to make you more so. As the eldest Haythorne sister still living at home, I fancy myself mistress here at Rylemoor—until my brother marries, of course.”

“Of course.”

“You can’t imagine what a surprise your arrival has been. A blessing, really. I thought we had done with teachers and masters and the like, after—well, anyway. And a teacher of art? Harry—Harriet—especially is pleased, I know.”

“I hope my instruction does not disappoint.”

Edwina looked surprised at that. “I cannot imagine it would. You must be an accomplished artist. My brother would not have brought you so far if you were not.”

It was on the tip of Constantia’s tongue to point out that an ability to do a thing did not necessarily guarantee a facility for teaching that thing to others. And also to mention that her brother’s opinion of her art—both good and bad—may have been, well, colored by certain factors.

But she contented herself with dipping her head, a gesture of acknowledgment if not honest agreement that she feared she had picked up from Lord Ryland himself.

Edwina set the candlestick on the nearest table; its flame wavered warningly in some draft. “I’ll leave you to your rest, then, Miss Cooper.”

“Thank you. But won’t you need the light?” Not that she was eager to be left in the dark.

Edwina’s answering smile was gentle. “I know my way.”

And then she was gone and Constantia was alone—in the room, and possibly the entire wing of the house. The silence, to which she had imagined herself accustomed, was awful. After a moment spent studying the odd shadows cast around the room by the flickering light, she crossed to the bedroom. It was larger than she had expected, with a bed, a washstand, a small clothes press, and a table and chair. A good many governesses, she felt certain, managed with far less.

An oil lamp sat on a small shelf above the washstand. She lit it and placed the candlestick on the table, beside her paper and box of charcoals. And then she realized that their presence there meant someone must have unpacked her things.

Reaching for the clothes press, she jerked open the door and found her things already arranged, the muddy-hemmed dress from yesterday brushed clean, and the one she’d been wearing on the day of her fall taken away, no doubt for mending. On the bottom of the cupboard, beside her shoes, sat the valise. She snatched it up, her heart thumping too hard to be much reassured by the familiar weight of it. Dropping back into the chair, she fumbled with the clasp and rummaged in its dark depths, prying up the false bottom with her nails.

Her fingertips brushed the edge of the picture frame. Carefully withdrawing it from the bag, she laid it atop her sketch pad and drew a steadying breath. The servant who had unpacked the valise had not found it. No one had seen it.

Except, of course, for Lord Ryland.

Alistair .

In four days of increasing intimacy between them, up to and including the revelation of secrets she’d never told anyone, his given name was information that had never fallen her way. She thought perhaps she still ought not to have it. But now that it was in her possession, it could not be taken from her.

She traced the clasp on the frame with trembling fingers but did not open it. Had it been a mistake to tell him about her mother? Certainly, she could not be surprised at his aloofness in the hours since, or his decision to tuck her away so far from everyone he held dear, from the warmth and chatter of his family. He had not cut her loose, for which she could only be grateful.

But that did not mean he would ever again hold her close.

Another gust of wind rattled the schoolroom windowpanes, breaking the silence. She shivered and returned the portrait of her mother to its hiding place.

No sense in wondering why he had brought her here, or why he had agreed to her mad scheme in the first place. She would focus on the delight and enthusiasm in his sisters’ eyes, particularly Harriet’s, at the prospect of being taught to draw. With a little hum of satisfaction, she opened her sketchbook, took out the landscape she’d been amusing herself with over the last day and a half, and pinned it to the wall above the table.

Only then was she struck by a realization. Hadn’t he assured her she would find sufficient models here to use for his sisters’ instruction in shape and perspective?

There was still a great deal of the house to be explored, of course. But she hadn’t glimpsed a single work of art, not a painting or sculpture or tapestry, anywhere she’d looked.