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A thena struggled to make sense of what she was seeing.

How could Caroline Vernon be here—alive and breathing? It was impossible. The woman had been hanged for murder nine years ago. Hadn’t she?

A voice again. “I say, is anyone there?”

Lantern light pierced the darkness. A man strode into the open attic space.

It was Neville Sinclair.

Athena started in horror. If this woman really was Caroline Vernon, then the worst possible person to discover her alive was Neville Sinclair. For he was the parish constable who had sent her to prison all those years ago and had rejoiced in her death.

Athena sprang to her feet. Wrapping her arms around herself as if in terror, she stood in front of Miss Vernon, to shield her from Sinclair’s view. “Mr. Sinclair! I’m so frightened!” She blinked rapidly as he shone his lantern directly into her eyes.

“Miss Taylor?”

“Yes and thank heavens you’re here. But how did you know to come?”

He looked confused. “I didn’t know. Mrs. Hillman had a headache and wished to leave the concert early, but her coach had never returned. We spotted it at the side of the road on the way here, when I brought her home. We heard screaming. It seemed to come from up here. Was that you?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

Thinking fast, Athena replied, “I came to fetch a book from Mrs. Hillman’s library. Like you, I heard strange sounds coming from the attic. When I got up here, I was attacked.”

“Attacked? By whom?”

“I don’t know. My lantern fell and smashed. I couldn’t see a thing. But someone tried to kill me.”

“ Kill you ?”

“He tried to throw me out that window!” Athena could finally see the open window nearby and nodded towards it.

“Good heavens. Why?”

“I couldn’t say,” Athena lied. She needed to get this man out of here, and fast, before he noticed the woman on the floor behind her. “I am too distressed to speak further, sir. I’ll explain more once we are downstairs.”

“Very well.” Mr. Sinclair turned as if to go, when a small moan broke the stillness. He paused. “What was that?”

Athena’s pulse pounded in alarm. Caroline Vernon must be waking up. “I didn’t hear anything. Please sir, let us go.”

“Wait. There’s someone else up here.” Sinclair strode towards her, lantern in hand.

Athena turned, desperately trying to think of some way to protect Miss Vernon—but it was too late. Sinclair’s lantern beam had already found her.

With another moan, Miss Vernon slowly sat up, her eyes still closed.

“Who’s this?” Sinclair demanded.

Miss Vernon’s eyes blinked open. She squinted at Athena in the lantern’s glare, a look that seemed to be filled with recognition and wonder—feelings that Athena shared but was too terrified to express.

“Good God!” Sinclair exclaimed, starting violently. “Is it…? No! It cannot be!”

Miss Vernon took in the man before her and gasped in horror. She tried to rise but then cried out in pain and crumpled back to the floor.

“It cannot be!” Neville Sinclair exclaimed again with an incredulous stare. “ Caroline Vernon ? Impossible. I saw you die. I saw you hang!”

A tense silence reigned, and then Miss Vernon heaved a deep, resigned sigh. “No. You saw Harriet Fowler hang.”

“Who?” Sinclair demanded, his eyes bulging.

“Harriet Fowler. She was dying of consumption. She went to the gallows in my stead.”

Athena’s jaw dropped. She recalled now the story of another inmate whom Caroline Vernon had befriended in prison, and whom Mr. Vernon had said had later passed away from illness. She recalled, too, what the apple seller had said that day at York Prison, about Miss Vernon’s hanging.

“Skinny, pale young thing, as I recall. Might have used to be pretty, but who could tell with that shaved head and sickly complexion?”

“I took Harriet’s place in her cell,” Caroline was saying. “We looked so much alike, no one knew the difference. When they thought me dead from consumption, I snuck away from the burial site, unnoticed.”

Athena sensed that a lot of details were missing from that story. Did Mr. Vernon know that Caroline had escaped all those years ago? He must. No doubt, he helped coordinate the entire thing. No wonder he was so determined to keep that piece of history in the shadows.

Athena had no time to process that notion further, however, for Mr. Sinclair’s face was blazing with fury as he cried, “And where have you been all this time? Hiding in Rose Hillman’s attic?

” He strode to the open door in the brick wall and glanced inside.

“By God, I shall charge her and everyone else involved in this scheme with harboring a criminal!”

“I’ve had no accomplices, sir!” Miss Vernon shot back insistently.

“Mrs. Hillman knows nothing about my being here. For the past nine years, I’ve been living in another country.

But I’ve been so homesick. I had to come home or die.

I used to play up here in that secret room when I visited Mrs. Hillman as a child. It was a priest’s hole centuries ago.”

Athena listened to this speech in wonder as she glanced into the hidden room, which was illuminated by the beam from Mr. Sinclair’s lantern.

The chamber was eerily similar to the one in Thorndale Manor’s attic, except that this room’s furnishings did indeed look as if they dated back a couple of centuries or more.

“I only returned to England a few days ago,” Miss Vernon continued. “I informed no one that I was coming. I snuck up here with food and water to last a week while I figured out what to do next.” Tears pooled in Miss Vernon’s blue eyes. “But it seems my luck has run out.”

Athena knew in her bones that all this was a lie.

Miss Vernon hadn’t been living in another country.

She was only saying that to protect her brother and Mrs. Hillman.

Mr. Vernon must have built the secret room at Thorndale Manor, based on this one, to house and conceal his sister after her escape from prison.

Caroline had no doubt lived there until Mr. Vernon had had to sell Thorndale Manor—when he’d been obliged to find her another place to hide.

Neville Sinclair seemed to have bought Miss Vernon’s story, however. He marched up to confront her, his voice harsh and ugly. “You devil. You may have escaped the law until now, Miss Vernon, but so help me, you’ll hang for my brother’s murder before the week is over.”

“Wait. Wait!” Athena knelt down at Caroline Vernon’s side and wrapped her arms around her.

“Don’t do this, sir. Miss Vernon is innocent.

She didn’t kill your brother.” Athena felt Miss Vernon’s hand squeeze her arm—was it to signify gratitude or resignation?

—as she continued. “A witness lied on the stand at her trial. I have proof!”

“What proof?” Mr. Sinclair spat venomously. “Can you furnish that proof to me here and now?”

“Well, no,” Athena began helplessly, “but—”

“It is my duty to see that this woman pays for her crime, however overdue that payment might be.” Mr. Sinclair wrenched Miss Vernon from Athena’s grasp and hauled her to her feet.

“No! Don’t!” Athena cried, but Mr. Sinclair dragged Miss Vernon off. Limping and in obvious pain, Caroline Vernon glanced back and met Athena’s gaze, her eyes filled with sorrow and regret but not a hint of recrimination.

Athena burst into tears of shame.

She owed Caroline Vernon her life. The young woman had just saved Athena from a horrific fate at the hands of a determined killer.

And yet, if Athena hadn’t come here tonight to satisfy an idle curiosity, Caroline Vernon would still have been safe in hiding, as she had been for years.

Now she was going to die.

And it was all Athena’s fault.

*

The news of Caroline Vernon’s discovery somehow traveled far and wide that same evening.

By ten o’clock the pupils at Thorndale Manor, having returned from the concert, were all gathered in the second-floor corridor, clad in their nightgowns and chattering about it.

“To think that Caroline Vernon has been alive all this time and living on the Continent!” exclaimed Miss Weaver in wonder.

“France, they said it was!” cried Miss Gilbert.

“I heard it was Egypt!” declared Miss Jones.

“What will happen to her now?” asked Miss Cecilia.

“Why, she’ll hang, of course,” replied Miss Russell matter-of-factly.

“Girls! There will be no gossiping in the halls,” reprimanded Selena.

“It’s late. Go to bed at once!” Athena insisted, struggling to keep tears at bay. She had never been more miserable or filled with self-recrimination in her life.

Later, in a private conversation with Athena and Selena in their study, Mrs. Lloyd wept as she admitted that she’d been one of the few people privy to Caroline Vernon’s secret from the start.

“It was Mr. Vernon’s idea to have that other prisoner take Miss Vernon’s place at the gallows,” the housekeeper confided in between sobs.

“The woman had no objection. She was going to die soon, anyway. No one guessed a thing. Miss Vernon pretended to be dead in her cell from consumption. Mr. Vernon paid a guard at York Prison who allowed him to take her ‘body’ to a doctor, he said, for medical study. He built that secret room for his sister, like the one at Darkmoor Park. At first, it was only meant to be a temporary stopping place. He planned to remove her to some safer place in Scotland to live under an assumed name. But no sooner had she got here than it turned out Miss Vernon was with child.”

Athena’s breath caught in her throat. “With child?”

Mrs. Lloyd nodded. “She was madly in love with Edward Ackroyd, you know. It was his child. But by the time Miss Vernon realized she was pregnant, he was away at sea and later told that she had died on the gallows. That poor young man!” She wiped her eyes.

“He loved her so. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he saw Harold Sinclair berating Miss Vernon at that party! ”

Athena stared at Mrs. Lloyd. “Are you saying that Edward Ackroyd was at the garden party where Harold Sinclair died?”

“He was. I’ve never seen a man so angry.”