A Scottish winter is not kind to a woman in distress, and within ten minutes I was shivering like as aspen leaf. The night closed around me, damp and chill. It penetrated my light cloak and the thin material of my gown and reminded me that it was only comparatively recently that I had returned from a much more welcoming climate. I halted my heedless rush into the policies and looked around, listening to the wind roaring through the stark branches and the surge of the nearby River Tyne.
I used to be very familiar with the grounds of Tynebridge Hall and recalled an old Summer House where I could find a modicum of shelter. It was less than five hundred yards from the Hall, yet in the decade since I had last been here the paths had become overgrown and the trees more tangled. Even the undergr
