Page 3
A thousand years ago, a living, breathing Northman had worn it close to his skin as he pulled the oars and rowed across the whale-road, leaving the shores of his homeland behind.
Papa, Mr. Clutterbuck—they had only to glance.
She stared at it herself now in wonder, her scrutiny finding delicate traceries in the metal surface.
It had been engraved.
She scrambled to her feet, heart pounding in her throat. The hammer felt heavier by the second in her palm.
The Great Heathen Army had, in fact, overwintered on the bluff. No one had ever corroborated a literary reference to one of their winter camps.
Until now. She had. Elfreda Marsden.
She needed to run like the wind back to the house.
She allowed herself one more moment, just her and the hammer.
She didn’t realize she’d closed her eyes until the darkness shattered into stars. Her breath whooshed out as her ribs compressed. Whooping cries pierced the hush, and she was off her feet, lifted bodily into the air, and then she was falling, falling—splash! She felt a frigid slap of water, and the pond closed over her head.
2
“Georgie! What have you done?”
Elfreda registered a shocked, high-pitched voice with one ear. The other ear was underwater. She pushed off the pond’s mucky bottom, struggling to her knees.
“You tried to drown a perfect stranger.” The scolding continued. “It was absolutely sinister.”
“She’s not a stranger,” came the low reply.
What Elfreda saw on the bank belied the claim. Strangers. Two of them. A tall young woman in a peach-blossom walking dress, blonde ringlets peeking from a bonnet of blue crepe. A hatless gentleman in top boots, buckskin breeches, and a riding coat, thick russet hair waving upon his brow.
There was no time to wonder how or why.
She relaxed her fisted fingers with difficulty, then gazed with horror into her hand.
It was empty.
She’d let go. When that sinister sprig of fashion had attacked, she’d let go.
“No.” She flung forward. She plunged both hands through insubstantial silt, buried them in clinging mud, and scooped.
Tadpoles. A slimy twig. A pebble. Another pebble. Another pebble. Pebbles by the hundred. By the thousand.
“No, no, no.” She pivoted wildly. Every movement spread billowing brown clouds through the water.
“Elf,” said the gentleman. “Did you lose something?”
She froze.
The gentleman strolled toward her. He had a loose-limbed, athletic stride, a way of moving that epitomized smugness. And that face. That unmistakable face.
She stared, spellbound by incipient dread.
The hair was short, and darker than it had been a half decade ago when she’d seen it last, arranged in shining twists and braids. The wicked slant of the brows was the same. The high cheekbones. The square jaw that framed a deceptively sweet-looking mouth. The pale blue eyes edged with long black lashes.
Certainty struck like a lightning bolt.
Her mouth went dry. She was dripping everywhere, but she could barely unstick her tongue from her teeth.
