Emily stirred from her sleep. She blinked twice as the shadows cast in the room from the one candle left burning on the mantlepiece came into focus.
She had always had a profound fear of the dark and what might be lurking in the shadows, so her initial reaction was to pull the covers over her head and wait for sleep to reclaim her.
Emily had been plagued with nightmares for as long as she could remember. They did not intrude on her every night, but often enough so that Nanny Lawson had continued to stay in her bedroom with her to keep an eye on her and be on hand should such night terrors descend.
This was a practice which, during her career, Nanny had ceased when her charge reached the age of five, and initially, she had done so with Emily. But when the nightmares returned with such al
