Free Fiercombe Manor by Kate Riordan

the three asymmetrical gables and the box hedges that marked out a small formal garden at their feet.
    â€œI’ve never seen anything like it,” she said. “It’s—”
    â€œIt’s a pleasant spot for a picnic and no more,” Edward interrupted, a plaintive note creeping into his voice. “Do try to save some excitement for Stanton House, won’t you?”
    After a few minutes the carriage slowed as its wheels met the resistance of the freshly raked gravel drive. Edward’s new house appeared quite suddenly out of the misty shroud of rain then, like the stern of an enormous ship: a great grey galleon anchored in the choppy waters of the carriage sweep. The numerous windows, reflecting the densely wooded slopes of the valley darkly, looked like empty eye sockets. Elizabeth shivered slightly and, glancing down into her lap, saw that she was clutching the wool of the travelling rug so tightly that her knuckles shone white.
    â€œWhat do you think of it?” Edward said close to her ear, making her start. “You are to be mistress of all this.” He gestured towards the great house.
    She faltered, knowing that she couldn’t possibly tell the truth: that she thought Stanton House squatted menacingly at the end of its drive; that it seemed to glower at her. Instead she told herselfthat it was merely the effect of the inclement weather and, with some effort, turned to her new husband with a bright smile. He looked back at her with such hope and expectation that she understood why his parents had found him so irresistible as a boy.
    â€œGoodness, Edward. What a house you have built,” she said. “I’m sorry if I seem a little stunned, but I am. I didn’t expect it to be so very . . . grand.”
    He absorbed her words as she looked on apprehensively. Eventually, tentatively, he began to smile, and because she loved him, because she wanted to please him more than anyone then, she reached out to clasp his hand.
    â€œIt’s a wonderful, elegant house, and I can’t wait to come to know it,” she said firmly, and was rewarded by Edward’s widening smile and the genuine pride and pleasure that lit blue eyes the colour of forget-me-nots.
    Six years on, as the house was polished, swept, and garlanded for a great occasion, little had changed. She was now firmly in the habit of tiptoeing around her husband, of dressing up unpalatable truths in flattery or avoiding them altogether. When he fled the valley in a temper, she never alluded to it on his return. When Isabel clung and cried, she hid her from him. When he knocked on her bedroom door after a period of physical estrangement, she was careful to avoid both the teary relief and the cold resentment she truly felt, and instead went to him as she had at the beginning, with the best impression she could muster of simple passion.
    But he also deceives himself, Elizabeth thought as the three of them—husband, wife, and daughter—stepped inside Stanton House’s cavernous hallway. Not only had he never realised how much the local people resented this misguided indulgence of a house, but he had never realised how much she had come to view it as a prison.

[3] ALICE
    B y the time I pushed open the door leading from the kitchen garden into the manor, Ruck had gone through with my case and was nowhere to be seen. There was no entrance hall; I was standing in a room that, after the brightness of the day, seemed dark and low-ceilinged. The enormous hearth at the far end was quite black with what must have been centuries’ worth of accumulated soot. I walked over and had put out a finger to touch it when a figure appeared in the darkened doorway to my left, making me jump. As my eyes adjusted fully to the gloom, I saw that it was not Ruck but a woman in her fifties, dressed in black except for her starched white collar. She stepped forward then and took my hands, though she didn’t smile. Her