“To make you stay.” She shook her head, and the truth settled over me. “Who do you think tipped off Thornhill, told him you knew something of his secrets? I thought you knew.” Bridget gave a wobbly half smile through the shadows. “Here I thought you were the clever one. I suppose you do need me around.”

I smiled wanly at her—then at Rose. Rosamond Swansea, my ward. The treasure I was sent here to find. What was the truth then—about Thornhill? About her? Why was she here?

Her lovely face simply watched me as it always had those many years ago, tipping sweetly to the side—a minuet of moonglow and roses.

The dreams. The nocturnal music played by this woman in the rose room. It was all real.

“Rose room.” I blinked—looked at the slender form whose eyes still shone just as I remembered, with that shy, secret smile. “That was yours, wasn’t it? You played there. You truly did.” I hadn’t dreamed it. She’d been at my home. Played the pianoforte. Spent time with me.

As I stared, the woman edged herself out farther and, with a tender look that harkened back to my most precious childhood memories, reached out and caressed my cheek with maternal affection, catching that birth-marked lower lip in her teeth.

38

My compositions spring from my sorrows. Those that give the world the greatest delight were born of my deepest griefs.

~Franz Schubert

Mitchell Turner had misjudged many a person in his life, many a situation, but never one so greatly as he had Dr. Thornhill. He stared at the news clipping flattened to the desk under his palm, mesmerized by the grainy sketch. Dr. Thornhill’s relaxed smile graced the page, looking over at an intelligent woman beside him as if he still couldn’t believe she’d married him. His hair was darker, his face narrower, but it was definitely him. Crowded before them were five children of varying heights, the oldest looking no more than ten or twelve.

He took a breath and forced himself to read the text again, the shock slightly less this time as he took the story in. The events of the 1859 asylum fire had resulted in numerous casualties, including the entire family of one of its doctors who all lived in a flat within the asylum—Dr. Timothy Alan Thornhill. The alienist himself, who had been away to participate in a special committee probing into English lunacy laws, was the sole survivor of his family.