Prologue

"Please let him know I called?"

"Yes, miss."

Emma Walker-Price drew a long breath in through her nose and sighed, nodding sharply. "Well. That's all I can do, then, I suppose."

The butler bowed, face bland. "Good day, then, miss."

"Good day."

The old oaken doors swung shut, and the woman turned in a swirl of taffeta. Her heels clicked down the steps. She studied the familiar building absently, wiping the raindrops from the brass title plate as she passed. Fiddling with her umbrella, she walked unhurriedly down the slate sidewalk to the corner, where she turned right.

Immediately she closed the umbrella and stowed it under a bush. With a quick glance around, she stripped herself out of her outer skirts and shoes, and folded them in the same place, leaving her in a slim, loose dress of deep grey cotton. She twirled her hair up into a bun and secured it with pins drawn from her bosom before slipping over the cast-iron fence and onto the path to the Rose Estate's greenhouse.

The greenhouses were the pride of the Roses, especially their current scion, Lord Peter. He was something of a recluse, spending all his hours there rather than on the social circuit. He didn't even play bridge! But every day you'd see him, out and about, simply walking the streets of London. Accost him then and he would merely turn to you and scowl, as if you had interrupted some greatly important thought or other. Then he would smile, and forgive you, and say, "It's a beautiful old world, isn't it? Only I do wish that they wouldn't natter on so. Good day."

And he would leave you standing there, wondering who "they" were, and disappear down some misted vein under London's skin, just another figure moving through the city on an orbit of his own.

Emma had not been content with this interaction, though it happened once a day. Peter's walks often took him by her house, and always she would rush after him, questioning. "Who are "they"? What do they natter on about? Why do you always look so beastly, when I first approach?"

The lord would say nothing else, nor even seem to notice her at all. She followed him all the way, once, around his circuitous route through the city, her heels and his boots in step. Every so often she would try again to pierce the odd silence that the lord cloaked himself in, but to no gain.

So, two weeks ago, she had come here.

In an episode quite like today's, she'd dressed her best, rang the bell, done it all in the normal, proper way of a visitor, only to be rebuffed by the stern butler, stiff and starched. The master was not at home, and would not be for some time. No matter that he had passed her that morning and returned to this very house. No matter that he had not left since. He was not at home, and that was the end of it.

After the third day in a row of this, she'd found how easy the fence was to jump. And it was after she'd mourned the long tear in her skirts and after she'd found the way to the greenhouse and after she'd wiped the raindrops from the glass - it always seemed to rain - that she had decided that she must come back, and with her camera, for it was not enough for her own eyes alone to see what she saw.

The greenhouse was full of green, the green of the jungle, a green that shouted to her of heat and noise and danger. Leaves larger than her head crowded against flowers larger still in every color of the rainbow. Tiny frogs leapt from branch to branch, settling on thorns as long as her arm. Butterflies, like stained-glass-angels come to life, flitted before her startled eyes.

Lord Peter Rose sat among his flowers, perfectly still. He had shed his coat and tie, his hat, and sat only in his shirt-sleeves and open vest, arms loose at his side, legs crossed. He sat in the dirt and turned his face upwards towards the rain-lit ceiling. A goblet stood in front of him, old and tarnished and gold. Something was different, though, she noticed. His right palm rested on the hilt of a knife, driven deep into the earth below.

She could never tell whether the goblet was full or empty, for it was full of odd reflections, and there were too many vines in the way.

Vines. Vines curled about the young lord, cradling his head, caressing his body. They twined between his fingers, over and under his legs, around his neck. He was encased in them, embraced by them. Today, she noticed with no small amount of horror, a long thorn pierced his cheek, just below his eye, but he showed no discomfort. His face was serene, smiling, cocked to one side as if listening.

"I do wish they wouldn't natter on so..."

Emma raised her camera, pressing as close as she dared, and took a photograph.