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Mrs. Reynolds eased the cover back as far as it would go without strain. The first leaf lay loose enough to show a few lines of faded writing. Elizabeth could not read the lines beneath, but the name at the top was more firmly written.

Elspeth Darcy.

She had come to the window because of a dream. Mrs. Reynolds had opened the catch with a key. Between them lay something they could both touch.

Chapter Twenty

“WE SHALL HAVE to move it,” Mrs. Reynolds said.

Elizabeth looked from the opened book to the desk. “Can we?”

“With the towel beneath. Take that corner, miss.”

They lifted together. The oiled linen remained spread about the little volume, its damaged outer folds upon the towel. Mrs. Reynolds drew the desk nearer the window, and Elizabeth brought a chair for each of them.

The housekeeper supported the first loose leaf from beneath.

Elspeth’s hand was difficult. Letters ran into one another; a word Elizabeth took for house proved, after argument, to be husband. She almost laughed at their error, until they made out the sentence below it.

My husband brought me rosemary from the garden and said I

must have something sweet in a strange chamber.

Elizabeth put down her pencil.

Mrs. Reynolds looked at her.

“The dream,” Elizabeth said. “I told you.”

“Yes.”

They had read of cloth, candles, a child. Nothing of a bridal chamber. Elizabeth had written the rosemary upon her separate sheet weeks before either of them knew there was a book behind the panel.

“Go on,” she said.

The entry had no date they could make out. Elspeth had written it upon the back of a list, between a quantity of flax and the price of a brass pan. She had found room for what she wanted to remember.

He took such pains with my hood that I dared not tell him he had

put a pin through the lining. I would have worn it awry all day to

keep him so near me. He says I am to call this home. I asked

whether he would still say so when I had made changes enough to

vex him. He said I must try him.

Below, Elspeth had drawn a crooked sprig beside the word wife.

Elizabeth touched the edge of her own sheet. She remembered wanting him to kiss her. The woman who wrote this had wanted it, too.

The next leaves would not part. Farther into the book a page lay loose, exposing a date above a stain. They distinguished September and, after comparing the figures, 1555.

Here the writing crowded the margin. Mrs. Reynolds held the sheet beneath the leaf while Elizabeth read, stopping to copy a sentence whenever they agreed upon its sense. What followed took time to uncover. Elspeth had written as though she feared being interrupted.

Joan Ward mends. Hugh brought word before supper, but

Nicholas sent him away without hearing it. I had no need to ask