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Back The Winter Garden Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. COVER
  2. About the Author
  3. ALSO BY ALEXANDRA BELL
  4. DEDICATION
  5. Prologue
  6. Part One
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. Part Two
  15. CHAPTER EIGHT
  16. CHAPTER NINE
  17. CHAPTER TEN
  18. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. Part Three
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. Acknowledgements
  54. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

But it was no longer the time for beauty and magic, so she put the carousel to one side, turned to a blank page and began work on a new mechanical sketch. Several hours passed, her back aching and her stomach grumbling with hunger, but still she worked and worked, adding details here, refining the design there. The sun was low in the sky by the time she’d finished and it had turned even colder in the aviary, but she was pleased with her efforts.

She glanced at Cookie’s ball and her hands tightened on the paper. She would pay Eustace back. It would take a little time, and she would have to work in secret, but she would hit him harder than he’d hit her. As the ravens cawed overhead, Rosa smiled grimly down at the clockwork plan before her. Whatever it took, she would have it ready for the day Eustace’s pleasure garden opened.

CHAPTER NINE

March 1837

That night Eustace came to Rosa’s room as usual. She thought he must be quite mad if he thought to share her bed after what had happened earlier, but it turned out that saying no wasn’t an option. The struggle between them was brief, strangely silent, and over in a matter of minutes. Shortly afterwards Rosa closed the door of her bedroom and turned her back on it, trembling in every limb. Too late, she realised she had made a dreadful mistake. Far from clearing the air between them, trying to discuss the matter with Eustace had made the situation a hundred times worse.

Her wrists ached where Eustace had gripped them, and her hands shook as she took a candle and matches from her dressing-gown pocket. She lit the wick, but one small flame did not do much to dispel the house’s shadows.

She set off down the corridor, walking and walking, with no idea where she was going. The mansion was muffled in freshly fallen snow, like an ancient dowager in her prized furs. Fires were kept burning in the main rooms throughout the day, but the house remained colder than a crypt. Beatrice had been right – it was simply impossible to heat a building of this immense size.

As she walked, it seemed to Rosa that the corridors stretched on endlessly, like a maze from which there could be no escape, always leading to another crooked staircase or another shut-up chamber. Antlered skulls loomed out of the shadows, and the vast oil paintings seemed filled with the sightless eyes of slaughtered deer and the limp wings of blood-stained pheasants. Many of the rooms had not been occupied in years and mouldered away beneath their Holland covers.