Secrets of Nanreath Hall

by Alix Rickloff

  “You needn’t have gone to so much trouble. You’ve nothing to apologize for.”

  “Don’t I?” She perched on the bed beside him. “That day at the ruins, Tony. I . . . I was afraid. You were right about that. I was afraid of everything so I simply stopped feeling anything. I thought it would make my life easier, but it’s only ruined it. I’ve ruined it.” She felt herself reaching for her locket, forced her hands back into her lap.

  “What do you want from me, Anna?”

  “I want to tell you what happened.”

  He didn’t answer. Just continued to stare across the lawn toward a low wooden barracks.

  So many people had asked her about France; the sailors who’d plucked her from the water, the doctors and nurses in hospital, her friends, her parents. She’d never been able to speak of it without falling into the pit of her nightmares. Denial had been her only recourse against madness. But now, slowly at first, the words halted and painful, she spoke her nightmare out loud.

  “We were belowdecks. There was an explosion.” She paused and drew a shaky breath, mouth dry, throat sore as she tried to swallow.

  Tony remained silent, but at least he was looking at her now, his dark brown eyes locked on her face.

  “One of the nurses had been wounded, but I had a hold of her hand. It was dark and hot, and we were all trapped like rats. A fire in the engine room cut us off, the smoke made breathing painful, and I could hear men screaming as they burned alive. We thought we were goners. A wave swamped the ship. It started to roll, and my fingers slipped, and . . .”

  She blinked away tears. She’d not cried since that day. It had been as if all her pain had been locked inside with no escape, but now her shoulders shook and her throat ached as she wept. “Harriet was gone . . . just like that. I don’t remember much afterward. Somehow, I made it to an upper deck and into the sea. I woke in hospital bandaged and singed, but alive. Others weren’t so lucky.”

  “Her death isn’t your fault,” Tony said quietly.

  Anna’s teeth chattered. She rocked back and forth, trying to keep warm. “If that’s not my fault, whose is it? Harriet was barely eighteen. She counted on me to see her safe, and I let her down. I let them all down.”

  “It’s war, Anna. It’s a bloody awful mess where good people are going to die and bad people are going to live and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it. We just have to keep plugging on and hope we don’t go mad before it’s all over.”

  “They were my responsibility—my patients, the other nurses. They died, and I lived. I see them every day. I hear them in my head every night. Harriet’s parents came to visit me in hospital. They wanted to talk to someone who was with her at the end. They didn’t say it, but I could see their loathing and their disappointment that I had survived and their daughter had died.”

  Tony leaned forward and took her hand. His fingers slid between hers before curling against her palm. She shivered at the intensity in his gaze. “You can’t take on their grief and their regret, Anna.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it will grind you down until you’re as broken and self-pitying as Hugh. And frankly, one of you is bad enough.”

  She sniffled back her tears. “That’s a horrid insulting thing to say.”

  “About you or about Hugh?”

  “Both.” She wiped her face with her sleeve, a grudging smile tipping her mouth. “Am I too late again, Tony? Or is there still time for me . . . for us?”

  “Whether you like it or not, Anna Trenowyth, you won’t lose me as you lost Harriet.” Tony’s legs might be useless, but the power in his grip remained. It was strong and warm and unbreakable. “I won’t let go.”

  Snow dusted the ground and ice glittered along every branch and reflected dark from every frozen puddle. The sea frothed white and choppy, pushed by a wind that bit Anna’s cheeks and watered her eyes as she pushed her bicycle up the avenue toward Nanreath Hall.

  They’d buried old Mr. Smith today. Anna had attended the funeral and stayed for the tea afterward, so it was nearly dark by the time she parked her bicycle in the shed and headed for the house.

  An ambulance stood in the drive, an orderly smoking as he stood waiting while the driver checked the engine. Two VADs stood together on the portico, chatting and stamping their feet against the cold. A sister with an armful of files hurried up the stairs past a group of young men trailing in from the garden at the enticing smells of baking.

  A typical winter afternoon, yet an unusual air of excitement pervaded the damp, frosty air. In the main hall, conversation buzzed as knots of patients and staff hovered in expectant groups. One such group hovered around the wireless in the salon.

  “. . . Japs attacked . . .”

  “. . . Churchill’s on the radio now . . .”

  “. . . place called Pearl Harbor . . .”

  “Trenowyth, did you hear the news?” Sister Murphy fairly beamed, an odd and somewhat worrying expression to those unused to anything but her usual peevishness. “Late to the party, as always, but the Yanks are in it now. Just announced it on the wireless.”

  “That’s wonderful, ma’am.”

  “Not that there won’t be hard times ahead. We’ve still got work to do.” She checked the watch pinned to her apron. “Some sooner than others. You’re due on the ward in less than an hour.”

  Anna started for the stairs.

  “Oh, almost forgot,” Sister Murphy barked. “A package arrived while you were out. Jones took it up.”

  “You mean Meadows, ma’am?”

  “Jones . . . Meadows . . . call her what you will, I wouldn’t give you tuppence for that marriage, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

  Anna left Sister Murphy to her grumbling as she took the stairs two at a time. She recalled how her heart used to lift into her chest with a fool’s hope at the arrival of every letter. It had been over a year now. Graham and Prue weren’t coming back. And she was all right with that now. She grieved them still—she would grieve them always—but she had found what she’d been looking for when she arrived at Nanreath Hall broken and suffering.

  She had found a place to belong.

  Upstairs, she snapped on the light, removing her scarf and gloves as she did so. As always, Tilly’s side was a clutter of photos and newspaper cutouts of the latest movie stars. A book lay facedown on her bed alongside a half-written letter, a castoff pink frock, and the latest copy of Tatler. Only now, pride of place on her nightstand was taken by a wedding snap of Flight Officer James Meadows freckled and beaming with pride beside his beautiful bride in her VAD uniform as she grinned into the camera.

  Sophie’s cot remained stripped and bare, the locker empty. No silver-framed photograph stood on the rickety dressing table beside the Après L’Ondée perfume bottle or the Fortnum & Mason care package. But her last letter had brought surprising news; Sophie was shipping out for a forward battalion hospital in North Africa within the month. It was too late for Lieutenant Douglas, but there were plenty of men far from home who would benefit from her presence.

  On Anna’s bed sat a parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. The label had been typed, the return address a solicitor’s office in Chancery Lane near Lincoln’s Inn. For some reason, a chill swept through her despite her winter coat, and her fingers grew clumsy and numb as they fumbled with the paper.

  It was a leather-bound journal. The cover, though ornately tooled, was cracked and blistered, a corner charred black. The fragile pages warped and curled, as if they’d been doused in water.

  A page of expensive stationery fell from the book and into her lap dated three days ago. She unfolded it, reading the typed impersonal note accompanying this strange gift.

  Dear Miss Trenowyth,

  This journal was found among the client files of the late solicitor Mr. Alton Bainbridge of Clements Lane who was killed last November in an air attack. All salvageable material from his office was sent on to his associates at Peckham, Stills and Copp
er. This journal entrusted to Mr. Bainbridge by the late Lady Katherine Trenowyth was among those items along with instructions for the delivery of said journal to Lady Katherine’s surviving daughter at her guardians’ discretion. We have ascertained these guardians are no longer living. Thus we are sending this journal directly to you. We regret the delay.

  Sincerely,

  Claude Peckham

  Anna sat quietly for a long time unmoving. The ancient radiator clanked and hissed. Frost feathered the cold glass of the window. She rose from her bed to stare down the long, sloping hill toward the sea, the light purpling in the growing dark. To the north, the black fingers of the winter trees marched along the hidden creek bed. Beyond lay the wood and the ancient ruins. On the other side of the closed door sounded the thud of shoes upon the stairs and slamming doors up and down the corridor as shifts changed over. Someone laughed. A chorus of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” broke out.

  Despite Lady Boxley’s best effort, this was not the Nanreath Hall of corsets and quiet manners, house parties and soft-spoken servants. Lady Katherine wouldn’t recognize it now. Yet there was still a dignity about its grand spaces and neglected corners, memories imprinted in its very brick and mortar. Sophie had once said the family was cursed. Anna didn’t agree. So many other families had fallen in the years following the last war, their men dead, their wealth scattered. Nanreath Hall had survived. The Trenowyths had survived.

  Broken and suffering, they had all come through stronger and more resilient. And God willing, one day perhaps a son of hers and a daughter of Hugh’s might play within the ancient remains of the cliff ruins, adding their marks to the marks of those children who’d come and gone.

  Smiling, she seated herself back on the bed and opened the journal to the first page. Her hand closed tight around her locket.

  And she began to read.

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt gratitude to my agent, Kevan Lyon, whose enduring faith in my stories has, on occasion, eclipsed even my own. Without her advice, encouragement, guidance, and friendship, I would more than likely still be banging away on manuscripts doomed to eternity in a dusty drawer and an audience of one.

  Thanks also to my editor, Tessa Woodward, who took a good story and made it great; her assistant, Elle Keck, for keeping me organized throughout the process (never an easy task); and everyone on my HarperCollins team whose support and enthusiasm made even the most difficult bits easier.

  As always, I have to give an enormous shout-out to my critique partners, Maggie Scheck and Do Leonard. You two have been there with me from the very first page of the very first book. You’ve sympathized with every failure and cheered on every success. You’ve hacked through the clichés, pointed out the plot holes, and directed me back to the path when I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. And you did it all with popcorn and lots of laughs.

  Last but never least, my family. I drive them crazy, but they love me anyway.

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the author

  * * *

  Meet Alix Rickloff

  About the book

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  Author Q&A

  Reading Group Discussion Questions

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  Alix’s Ten Favorite Page-Turners

  About the author

  Meet Alix Rickloff

  ALIX RICKLOFF is a critically acclaimed author of historical and paranormal romance. Her previous novels include the Bligh Family series, the Heirs of Kilronan trilogy, and, as Alexa Egan, the Imnada Brotherhood series.

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  About the book

  Author Q&A

  What inspired you to write Secrets of Nanreath Hall?

  Actually, the earliest seeds were planted while watching a certain popular BBC show that shall not be named. My inquisitive mind passed over the adults’ melodramas to focus on the children. Who were these three cousins? How would their disparate upbringings have affected them as they grew older? And what would have happened to them during World War II, when they would have all been young adults? From these initial questions, I began to weave my own story, and the book grew from there.

  How did you go about researching the two time periods in your book?

  I’m a history nerd so I love the research that goes into a story almost as much as the actual writing itself. Until now, my focus has been on Regency England, so for Secrets I had to really utilize every tool in my thwarted history major’s toolbox. I spent countless hours devouring memoirs and biographies, film documentaries and contemporaneous newsreels and newspapers, and even historically accurate bus and rail schedules. (Truly, the Internet is an author and history nerd’s best friend.)

  To capture the era surrounding World War I, I found myself leaning heavily on Vera Brittain and Lady Cynthia Asquith. They came from very different backgrounds and experienced the war in very different ways, but their collected letters contain a wealth of historical detail and, more importantly, the painful emotions of those living through the war.

  I adored Lucilla Andrews’s memoir of her time spent as a VAD during World War II. She touchingly captured both the optimistic can-do spirit of that generation as well as the heartbreaking sorrows they endured with typical stiff-upper-lip stoicism.

  What was the first story you ever wrote?

  I wrote my very first story in Mrs. Larsen’s fourth-grade class, probably while I was supposed to be doing something far more important like long division or diagramming sentences. I titled it “The Fuzzy Family” and both wrote and illustrated it. I went on to complete an entire series starring the Fuzzies, which, alas, never made it to a bookstore near you. But I still have the complete set in my attic, so you never know.

  Who or what inspired your love of books and writing?

  I blame my parents, who are both avid readers and bibliophiles. I grew up in a house overflowing with books on every subject from history and literature to theater, art, and music. The local bookstore was the one place my father kept a charge account that we kids were not only allowed but encouraged to use. I still remember clear as day being about seven years old and curling up with my mother in a rocking chair every evening to read The Secret Garden. We still enjoy exchanging and discussing books we’ve read, and she was the very first person after my editor and critique partners who read Secrets of Nanreath Hall. (If you’re wondering, she gave it two thumbs up.)

  This is your first straight historical fiction novel, though you write historical romance under the pseudonym Alexa Egan. How was the transition from one genre to another?

  The one thing the romance novelist in me insisted on was a happy ending, and if a love story turns up unexpectedly, well . . . old habits die very hard. Actually, it turned out that switching genres wasn’t as difficult as juggling the dual mother and daughter narratives. There were times when I truly questioned my sanity in thinking this story would ever come together as I first envisioned it. Fortunately, I have a very unsympathetic husband, who knows me better than I know myself. His job over the years has become dismissing my bouts of panicked venting as part of my creative process. After ten novels and three novellas, I am beginning to think he might be right.

  Do you do in-depth plotting for your books or do you fly by the seat of your pants as you sit down each day?

  Authors who create collage boards, color-coded Post-it notes, spreadsheets, and in-depth character studies before they ever type their first word make me green with envy. They just seem so perfectly organized. I tend to start with a character or a vague premise and build from there, though “build” might be a rather misleading term. It sounds far too orderly for the chaos that ensues as my characters run rampant across the page. I’ve often compared my method to driving through a fog at night in that I can only see a short way ahead before the road is obscured, but as long as I keep driving I’ll end up where I need to be.

  You open the book at
the end of Lady Katherine’s story, which then unfolds as a flashback. Were you concerned about the potential downfalls of this narrative style?

  Not at all. The opening scene with Lady Katherine came to me immediately, and while I tweaked it slightly, there was never a question of not beginning the book at this moment in her story. If I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, readers will be curious enough to turn the pages to find out what events led her there.

  How do you decide on the overall theme of each book? Is this something you decide before you begin plotting or does it grow organically as you write?

  I never sit down to write a book with a specific theme in mind. But I do seem to unconsciously return again and again to a core story of redemption and the search for one’s place in the world. I’m sure an astute psychoanalyst could tell you why. All I know is that it makes for wonderful story fodder.

  What are you working on now?

  I’m working on a follow-up to Secrets of Nanreath Hall that tells the story of the third and final Trenowyth cousin, who has departed Singapore for England under a cloud of scandal on the eve of Pearl Harbor. I also hope to soon return to Regency England and my Alexa Egan historical romances.

  Reading Group Discussion Questions

  1.The book opens with Kitty looking back on her life and her choices. Did your knowledge of how her story ultimately ends affect how you felt as you read?

  2.Anna’s story begins in late 1940 when England stood alone against Germany and an attempted invasion seemed inevitable. Despite this threat, citizens never panicked. How would you have felt under a similar situation? Would you have assisted in the defense of your country? In what way?