Viola snorted. She would love to see him in action, slaying one of the MPs. That vision sparked something. Finally! She grabbed her pen and scribbled.
She wrote a couple of lines, and for a while it looked like creativity had returned, only to come to another crashing halt. She reread what she’d written, groaned, crumpled up the paper, and threw it to the floor.
How could she have written nearly ten books, all of them roaring successes, and the eleventh left her flailing about like an amateur, a mere beginner who was incapable of writing anything at all? What if it had all been a mistake? What if her ten books were merely accidental creative burps, as the eleventh would, no doubt, reveal? What if her career as Mrs Selina Sable was done and over, forevermore come to an end?
The familiar grip of icy panic clenched her stomach.
She jumped out of bed.
This wouldn’t do.
She got dressed and told the maid that they were going to St Pancras graveyard.
She needed inspiration.
Her story was called ‘The Ghost of Gildenstone Abbey’. She had absolutely no idea how to go about writing it. If he was a spectre, and she was human, how could they touch, let alone kiss? How would they have a happy ending? Would she die, or would he come alive, or would there simply be no happy ending, with the two of them forevermore parted? Her readers might hate that.
It was truly a conundrum.
The solution was to seek actual spectres, and the graveyard was just the place to go. A shame she couldn’t go at night, for the graveyard would be locked, so she had to go during the daytime. That made the excursion slightly less frightful than she would have liked, but there was nothing she could do.
Her maid, Ellen, was not amused. She balked at the gate. “I’d rather not go in there if you don’t mind, ma’am.”
“Lady Viola,” Viola hissed at her. Ellen, who had not at all been surprised that Viola turned out to be married to Fane, had been given strict instructions to keep that a secret, particularly when they were out in public.
“I beg your pardon. Lady Viola,” Ellen repeated.
Viola left her there and went inside on her own, settling on a stone by Mary Wollstonecraft’s grave, pulling out her pocketbook and opening it.
She sat in the shadow of an oak tree, with the church in the distance, some slight fog hanging over the tight, crooked slabs of grey gravestones overgrown with ivy. It was peaceful in an eerie, lonely way. This was precisely the atmosphere she craved.
Finally, the words started flowing.
She’d written a wonderful chapter and concluded that maybe she hadn’t lost her touch after all, and that Peregrine would surely be satisfied with what she’d written, when she heard a child’s peal of laughter.
Her head snapped up. A woman with a small child was walking along the narrow gravel path by the church. Viola watched them wistfully. A pang of yearning went through her. The child, slightly older than a toddler, escaping from the woman’s grip, ran in Viola’s direction, stumbled over a root, fell, and burst into noisy tears.
“Oh, dear.” Viola shot up and knelt beside her. “Did you hurt yourself?”
The girl sobbed quietly but looked up at her through the tears.
Viola talked to her in soft, soothing sounds until the woman reached them.
“Amelie, oh dear. I told you to stay with me and keep holding my hand,” the woman fussed. “Did you hurt yourself badly?” Shelifted the girl, who clung to her. Over the child’s head, she turned to Viola. “Thank you for your help.”
“It is nothing at all. I am very fond of children.”
“Are you, indeed? Children are a blessing, of course, but this one turned out to be a handful.” The girl had wiped her tears, and now she insisted on being lowered so she could run around again. “Careful, Amelie, pray do not climb that gravestone,” her mother called. “She is very lively, you see, the liveliest of the three. And there is a fourth one on the way.”
“Oh! How wonderful. How tremendously fortunate you are.” Viola ignored the prick of jealousy deep down inside her.
“Indeed, my husband and I count ourselves very fortunate.” The woman took in her appearance and Viola self-consciously realised that she must look a fright. A bespectacled spinster with a crooked bonnet and a crumpled pelisse. She pulled her spectacles straight.
“You do not appear to be—” the woman hesitated “—married?”
It took a beat for Viola to sort herself out mentally. “No. No, I am not. Fortunately. Or unfortunately.” She laughed awkwardly. “I am Lady Viola Leigh.”
“I am Lady Josephine Penworthy.” The woman smiled, extending her hand. “You look like you are an interesting woman, sitting here,” her eyes fell on Viola’s journal, “writing? It is an excellent place to do so.”
