Prologue
It’s time to leave. This isn’t my home anymore. The new owners will arrive soon and I need to be long gone.
Eleanor felt tears welling in her eyes and felt angry at this show of emotion. Her life had changed, and she needed to be sensible and get on with her new life. Maybe one day she might manage to look upon the memories of the destruction of her family but at that given moment she could not bear it.
The scent of beeswax was the main thing Eleanor noticed. That, and the cold, harsh light shining on the empty floorboards of the drawing-room where her mother used to play the spinet. This house, her home, Stretton Mews, was already sterile, stripped of memory and awaiting its new occupants.
Eleanor swallowed the hard lump of grief lodged in her throat.
So many memories.
She gripped the leather handle of her father's old traveling portmanteau. It was heavy, packed not with silks and bonnets, but with his scientific legacy; all his notebooks, packets of dried seeds, and the glass vials of tincture he had tirelessly worked to perfect.
All her life she’d been proud of Sir William Ashton, and she knew he had been innocent of the allegations against him.
She ran a finger over the smooth, worn wood of the chair where he used to sit by the fire.
How quickly the blight of the scandal had spread.
First, the accusation of fraud, claiming his reputation, and thus resulting in being shunned in the street and even his club.
Soon, the creditors made their appearance demanding immediate payment.
The accusation of embezzlement and fraud was the result of falsifying his research findings.
It wasn’t the truth of his guilt that mattered now; but the stain of the accusation.
She closed her eyes, remembering the night when she’d come to say goodnight, and found him lifeless in that chair by the fire. He had passed away a pauper; the shame of the loss of his reputation had been what caused his untimely demise.
She looked around the room, knowing she would never return, wanting to remember the happy times when her father had sat with her at the long table, showing her how to draw botanical specimens to help him record his research.
I won't be like Mama, Eleanor vowed silently, a fierce, brittle determination hardening her resolve. I won't give up. He was innocent. I will keep that knowledge alive.
Her mother had passed just months after her father, never recovering from the shame of those few days spent in the debtor’s prison.
Outside, the air was sharp and cold. Sarah Wyatt, the vicar's daughter, stood by the gate, her face blotched with tears.
They had been friends since childhood. Sarah's father, Reverend Wyatt, gave Eleanor's shoulder a solemn, final squeeze.
They had been her only friends and given her a home after Mama had passed on.
"Safe journey, my dear," the vicar murmured.
“Please write,” said Sarah.
“I made you this,” she said, pressing a lace edged handkerchief into her friend’s hands.
As the heavy carrier’s cart rattled into the square ready to take her to the posting house to take the stagecoach north to her new position a small figure darted past the vicar.
It was little Polly, the daughter of a woman Eleanor had nursed through a fever using one of her father’s simple remedies.
Polly pressed a crumpled posy of dandelions and daisies into Eleanor's hand.
Eleanor leaned over and thanked Polly for her kindness.
“You saved my Ma,” she said.
“We’ll miss you, Miss Aston.”
This time the tears overflowed onto her cheeks, and it was all she could do to try not to sob. The Reverend Wyatt helped her climb up onto the seat of the cart and stowed her portmanteau safely behind.
“Safe travels, my dear,” he called.
A final image flashed in her mind; her father, bent over his notes, explaining his research and how the common thyme, bilberry, and chamomile could help to boost the body's response to disease. Rigorous, robust research, but, since the scandal erupted, it was seen as worthless.
Later, in the stagecoach, she kept her face hidden not wanting to converse with the other passengers, and pulled her sketchbook from her bag, opening it to a likeness of her parents she’d sketched in happy days before the accusations of fraud.
She closed her eyes as the coach lurched forward to her new life as a governess.
A governess with a talent for sketching and a secret past she could not share, as it would likely result in dismissal.
She wiped the wet tears from her cheeks, swallowing her fear.
Her life had changed, but she knew she had the strength to survive whatever she had to endure next. Nothing could ever be as bad as those few days incarcerated in the King's Bench Debtor's Prison. She would always be grateful to the Reverend Wyatt for securing their release.
She could earn her living teaching others, sharing knowledge and keep the regrets and shame hidden deep inside.