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By Root 3531 0

you in Bath and implored you to save yourself and told you I knew you were not guilty of this crime, my beloved wife, I lied. I did not know. But I desired above all that you should be my wife, guilty or innocent. And even now, though I do not for one instant believe you are bound for anywhere but Our Father’s Heavenly Kingdom, I tell you truly that were you to be consigned to the fires of Hell, I should follow you there, even to the bottomless pit, and do so gladly a thousand times.

Your loving husband, Wyndham.

‘Well,’ murmured Mrs Totton. ‘Well.’

Dottie Pride awoke before dawn. It had come. She could feel it. She was going to get her story today.

She could not sleep any more. She got up and pulled on some clothes and, proceeding down the dimly lit stairs of Albion Park, made her way out through the big front door. The gravel drive scrunched under her feet. Faintly embarrassed at the thought of waking the other guests, she walked along the grass verge until she reached the gate.

It was quite chilly, but she didn’t care. For no particular reason of which she was aware, she wandered up the lane and into Oakley. The village was asleep. Not a soul was stirring yet. She came to the green where the cricket pitch was already fenced off. She could just make that out in the gloom.

Oakley. If she was a Pride, she suddenly realized, she must have come home. She walked across the wet, dewy grass to the edge of the heath. Her shoes would be sopping. She didn’t care. She took a deep breath, scenting peat and heather. She shivered for a moment.

The grey-black spring night still lay like a blanket over the sky. It was quiet, as if the whole New Forest was waiting for something to happen in the silence before the dawn. She stared out across Beaulieu Heath.

And then, suddenly, a skylark started singing in the dark.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Dedication

About the Author

Also by Edward Ruthurfurd

Preface

Acknowledgements

Maps

The Rufus Stone

The Hunt

Beaulieu

Lymington

The Armada Tree

Alice

Albion Park

Pride of the Forest

The Forest