Chapter One

JULY 19, 1919

HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND

The Saloon glows in the flicker of the candelabras and the low light of ornate wall sconces. Colorful heraldic shields dotting the base of the peaked gallery above enliven the honey-colored limestone walls and columns. The crimson, sapphire, and emerald of the shields are echoed in the ladies’ gowns and the jewels on their necks, ears, and wrists. If I allow it to work its magic, the Highclere Castle ball casts a glorious spell on me, banishing the pall of the Great War that lingers in this otherwise jubilant space, and that is precisely what has happened to the other revelers. But I would never allow that alchemy to blind me to the all-important past. History has always been my chosen companion.

The orchestra strikes up a Chopin waltz, and I permit the next gentleman on my dance card to sweep me up in its three-quarter-time rhythm. The hem of the fussy tulle ultramarine gown Mama insisted upon because, she claimed, it brought out the blue in my eyes, twirls as I spin around the dance floor under the expert hands of Lord Stockton. Surrendering to his lead, I swoop across the floor like the high-flying stone-curlew birds that nest on the estate. Lord Stockton may be in his fifties, but he’s still nimble and energetic, and there aren’t many young men here tonight in any event. Most of the boys I’d dreamed about as a girl didn’t come home from the war, and I won’t forget about those men and their sacrifice tonight—even if everyone else seems determined to do so.

The heels of my blue silk T-strap shoes skim across a floor upon which generations of my family have danced. The first Earl of Carnarvon in 1793, whose investiture was made by King George III himself. The third earl, who worked hand in hand with Sir Charles Barry and Capability Brown in the mid-1800s to fashion the current castle and gardens out of its earlier iterations. The fourth earl, who helped create the Dominion of Canada in 1867 within the castle walls, by drafting countless letters about constitutional provisions as part of his presentation of the British North America Act to Parliament. Oh yes, this was all widely known, but what about the women? The ladies Carnarvon, their daughters, and their guests—not to mention the governesses, maids, and cooks? Growing up amidst the unspoken legacy of all these women—past and present—I’ve wondered about them since childhood. But theirs aren’t the stories that my family usually tells. It’s as if the women never walked these corridors or inhabited the rooms, or as if they’ve simply been erased. Like so many others.

Did my companion say something? It might be the first or the hundredth time he’s spoken for all I’ve paid attention to him. But for my momentary surrender to the orchestra and the rhythm of the waltz, my thoughts have been elsewhere.

“Lady Evelyn?”

This time I know I can’t ignore conversation in the face of such a plaintive query. Not to mention the politesse of the ball requires these small exchanges. The world may have been upended by the war and the ink has barely dried on the Treaty of Versailles, but the society doyennes are doing their darnedest to return to the rituals and rites that used to govern our days. It seems a pointless, even disrespectful, folly to me.

“Pardon me, Lord Stockton,” I reply. “My head seems to be in the clouds.”

“No surprise—this is a heady affair.” He smiles at his little quip, but when I don’t return the grin, he clears his throat and repeats himself: “I said only that Highclere is in fine fettle.”

“The staff has outdone themselves putting Highclere back in order,” I answer politely.

“No Humpty-Dumptys there; Highclere is together again. One would never know it had served as a hospital until just recently,” he says, his untrained eye unable to see the residual traces of the hospital beds and screen stands and nursing stations that are obvious to me. Time can only be turned back so far, even here, where history abounds.

He leads me counterclockwise back across the Saloon dance floor, and when I don’t banter back, he adds, “It does lift one’s spirits to see a great house restored and wiped clean of the suffering that took place here. Especially when so many estates will not outlast the war.”

I almost stop dancing. Why should we erase the past? The collective forgetting of the war is being foisted upon us all, and I, for one, do not wish to participate in the forced joyful abandon I see around me. Too many boys are gone for that. History should not be relegated to a dusty corner. We should pick it up, examine it, and allow it to inform our current days.

Glancing up, I see my mother staring down from the gallery on the Saloon’s second floor, where she has a bird’s-eye view of the dancing and me. She is small in stature but fierce in temperament, and the intensity of her dark-eyed gaze gives me a start. I can almost hear her think, Concentrate, Eve, this ball is for you, the capstone of your successful debutante year. Lady Almina Herbert, Countess of Carnarvon, is the last person who should want to delete the past few years from our memory; her nursing work and creation of hospitals for wounded soldiers is the stuff of legend, after all. Yet she was first in line to reinstate the trappings of the Season and the presentation of debutantes to King George, even though the Treaty of Versailles hadn’t been negotiated when she began. Mama explains it away by saying that I came of age just as the Great War ended, and so needs must.

But must I?

With Mama’s eyes upon me, I return to the waltz. I chat as expected and perform the requisite dance steps. I smile and play the part assigned to me. But no matter how tightly Mama tries to wrap me in duty, my mind drifts, as do my eyes, over Lord Stockton’s shoulders and around the room.

Suddenly, I see Streatfield, our ever-proper house steward, appear on the periphery. His presence is a silent signal to me, as he needn’t be here otherwise. The muttonchopped, white-tie-wearing steward is here to deliver a message of which he doesn’t approve. But as my reluctant champion since childhood, Streatfield will do as I’ve asked and share the news. The man for whom I’ve been waiting all night has finally arrived.

Chapter Two

JULY 19, 1919

HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND

As soon as the final chord of the waltz sounds, I take my leave of Lord Stockton. The summer evening is warm, even though a pleasant breeze drifts in from the estate grounds through open windows. Pulling out my fan, I feign being overheated and retreat to the periphery of the Saloon.

Passing behind the dozens of guests consulting their dance cards and seeking out their next partners, I do my best to avoid Mama’s line of vision as I head toward Streatfield. As I duck and weave behind our taller guests, I hope that, for once, my diminutive height is a boon.

Gathering up the hem of my skirts for easier movement, I dodge the guests pouring out of the adjoining rooms where they have gathered to enjoy the lavish buffet, cigars, glasses of bubbly Pol Roger, and subtle rounds of flirting, and emerging now for another round of dancing. If I hadn’t, I’d be stopped by any number of people, including my tipsy older brother, Porchey, home from the war and ready to carouse.

Once clear, I traverse the remainder of the Saloon until I reach Streatfield. In a wonderfully strategic decision, he stands directly under Mama’s position on the second floor. This renders me effectively invisible to her, as this is the one place in the Saloon where she cannot see me.

In one deft, seamless movement, he moves in front of me. Thus blocked from sight, I reach for the handle to the towering wood door situated within a wall covered in embossed leather and gilt wallpaper commissioned in Spain in the 1600s. This is one of very few doors closed to tonight’s revelers, and for good reason. No one wants tipsy revelers in proximity to its treasures, least of all Papa.

I turn the handle and pause on the threshold as the Library materializes before me. Never does this room fail to delight and soothe, even amidst the cacophony and expectations of the Highclere Ball. But, for the first time, I also find it perplexing. Because, when I glance around the room, I am alone. Had I not been clear with Streatfield that I was to be brought here only when he got to Highclere Castle? Mama will be on the hunt for me if I’m out of her sight for too long.

“Lady Evelyn,” Streatfield gently prompts me along. I cannot be found near this room on tonight of all nights.

Passing into the Library, I hear the click of the door closing behind me. I glance around the vast space again. With its gilded bookcases and ceiling, thousands of leather-bound volumes, sumptuous cerise velvet sofas, and a roaring fire within a chocolate brown marble hearth regardless of the warm night, the Library has always felt like the inside of a book to me. It is an exquisite invitation to curl up and be ferried to other times and places. But it is not a place to be during my very own ball.

Just then, a muffled sound emanates from the adjoining room, the Small Library that faces north. Is it the sound of a throat clearing? Is it the person I’ve been waiting for? Dare I investigate? Or should I scurry back to the ball and hope my absence wasn’t noticed? Praying that it is not my father—how furious he’d be to find me here, I think—I tiptoe past the columns into the second library chamber, the one housing my father’s desk. One of the great treasures of Highclere, the desk came from Napoleon’s suite at the Château de Fontainebleau. How many times have I seen Papa proudly peek at the letter C under the arm of the chair, a sign that Napoleon himself owned it when he was consul and not yet emperor.

There, with an open book in one hand and an object in the other, stands the brilliant Mr. Howard Carter. I race toward him. “Mr. Carter! I thought you’d never get here!”

As I draw as close as I dare to the formidable man, I see a pleased half smile peeking out from under his thick mustache and a gleam in his dark, hooded eyes. I consider this reaction from the usually stoical Mr. Carter to be quite the victory, and I beam back at him.

Even though a smile is fixed in place on his lips, he grumbles, “Well, it was no easy matter to extricate myself from the British Museum.”

Copyright © 2026 by Marie Benedict