MOONSTONE by Laura Purcell (EXCERPT)
We’re thrilled today to be able to share an excerpt from MOONSTONE by Laura Purcell!
This YA romance is out this week from HarperCollins, and it’s very much Purcell’s love-letter to the Gothic. Let’s find out more from the blurb:
A sparkling gothic romance from award-winning bestseller Laura Purcell
Don’t misbehave. Beware the moon. And never go out after dark . . .
Following a scandal at the Vauxhall pleasure gardens, Camille is sent to the woods to live with her reclusive godmother and her strange daughter, Lucy. Cast out from polite society, she must learn to live by her godmother’s strict rules.
Camille has never met anyone quite like Lucy before, and as they grow closer and cross forbidden boundaries, strange things begin to happen. Mysterious deaths, claw marks raking the doors, and the nights are pierced by the howls of a creature that sounds almost . . . otherworldly.
Should Camille be more afraid of what’s hiding in the woods – or her own heart?
From the award-winning, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Silent Companions, Moonstone is a haunting gothic romance with real bite.
Moonstone is due for publication 23rd May 2024. You can order your copy from:
HarperCollins | Bookshop.org | Waterstones
CHAPTER ONE
At night I dream I am deep in the Felwood, after dark. Twigs snap and bushes crackle where the hidden things creep. I am not afraid. This isn’t the scene of horror I fled; it’s one of enchantment, of stars shaken like grains of salt across an indigo sky. The moon curves in a scythe above the trees. Colours pale in its pearly light, but I have no need of them. I can smell the ferns dripping green from a shower of rain, the purple heather buds ready to burst. The air tastes richly of damp earth. I am at peace.
Then I awaken and the torment begins.
I never knew there could be pain like this. My own body has turned traitor against me. When I was little, I feared Napoleon invading or the Cock Lane Ghost; now I know real danger comes from within.
A thousand insects seem to scurry beneath my skin; the itch burrows deep, right down to my core, where it turns into hunger. A craving I cannot satisfy.
I twist and writhe in the sheets. When I lived at Felwood Lodge, I used to long for my own bed, these quilted coverlets, the pillows of soft eider down. The irony is, I was more comfort- able on my narrow pallet there. The walls of Felwood Lodge used to bother me with their deep timber groans; here the creaking isn’t wooden planks or dead ivy rustling in the breeze. It’s me. My bones shifting, breaking of their own accord to re-set in a new and terrible shape.
How long can I keep it in? How long before the physician realizes mine is no ordinary malady?
I grope for the pendant hanging on a chain around my neck, the one object that soothes me. A moonstone presses cool and smooth against my burning palm. Since my illness began, I’ve seen the world around me in shades of grey, but I can always make out a blue gleam on the surface of this stone. It’s like hope, flickering in the darkness. While the moon in the sky tugs me in one terrifying direction, the stone which bears its name pulls me gently, gently back.
But it’s not strong enough. What’s one small pendant against the power of a whole satellite? The moonstone might slow my decline, but it can’t save me. It won’t stop the pain.
A howl rips from my throat.
‘Camille?’ Someone’s coming – footsteps along the boards. Marie enters the chamber, looking flustered. I used to recognize my elder sister by her mahogany hair and the dusting of freckles across her nose; now the first thing I notice is her scent. A waft of buttery milk and freshly baked bread. ‘Camille, what’s wrong?’ Marie drifts towards me, a high chignon at the back of her head and a gown of figured muslin caught by a sash at her waist. ‘Here, let me help.’ She bends over the bed and loosens my fingers from their rictus around the moon- stone. I’m ashamed of my nails, my roughening palms. ‘There, now,’ she coos. ‘Mr Leiston will be here soon.’
Maybe the physician is adept at healing gout or setting a broken arm, but he can’t help me.
‘I’m so hungry,’ I pant.
She hesitates. ‘I’ll fetch you some broth before he comes.’ Decades seem to pass before Marie returns with a tray.
Ravenous, I almost leap up from bed and snatch the food out of her hands, but I force myself to wait. She pulls over the chair, fills a spoon. Such a small, measly dribble. My sister grimaces as she feeds me. She’s disgusted by the drool, the lap of my tongue, the sounds that I make.
‘Camille,’ Marie whispers. ‘What happened to you? Can’t you tell me?’
Only a whimper escapes my lips. Marie sighs and starts spooning again. She shouldn’t have to degrade herself like this. She should be preparing for her wedding, not waiting hand and foot upon me.
The broth disappears with upsetting speed. I ate it so fast that I barely noticed the taste and I’m far from satisfied. All it’s done is whet my appetite.
Marie stares at the empty bowl. A delicate willow pattern shows through the skin that the soup left behind. ‘This is all my fault,’ she says.
‘No!’ My voice comes out hoarse and she flinches. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because . . . I’m the reason you were sent away! If it weren’t for me, Papa would never have taken you to Felwood Lodge and you wouldn’t have fallen ill.’
I did agree to go to Felwood Lodge for Marie’s sake, but it wasn’t her idea. Our parents had hatched the plan, along with our brother Pierre. ‘I never blamed you! Not for a minute. I might have resented you, envied you . . . but I didn’t blame you for wanting me gone.’
She scrubs her tears away. ‘You should have. Who else is there to blame? I’m the one who whined and pouted that you were causing a scandal.’
‘But I did cause a scandal. That was my fault. My own behaviour brought this down upon me.’
‘I wish none of it had ever happened,’ Marie says wildly. ‘I wish the King had never been crowned. I’d take it all back, even give up my engagement to Adam, if it meant things could return to how they used to be.’
I’m not sure I would. The memory of that night is precious now, an oasis shimmering on the horizon of my sick-bed, full of the music and colour to which I can never return.
I hadn’t set foot inside Vauxhall Gardens before we attended the masquerade for George IV’s coronation. I wore my new gown of royal purple silk and a white domino mask. It had been a thrill to hide my face and assume the character of someone else, finally breaking free of my own dull personality. All my life, my parents had compared me unfavourably to Marie. I understood why: she was the elder, prettier and more accomplished. She could dance a minuet and play the pianoforte without any of my clumsiness. But that night, as we bustled across Vauxhall Bridge towards the gardens, you could hardly tell the two of us apart.
‘Hold on to me, girls,’ Mama had hissed. ‘Do not wander.’
I couldn’t help going astray. The gates to the pleasure gardens opened and transported us into another world. Glass lanterns hung between the trees; it looked as though stars had dropped straight from the sky to nestle in their branches. I craned my neck back, the better to see them, and gasped at the sight of a tightrope-walker balancing above my head.
‘Watch where you’re walking!’ Papa pulled me clear just in time. A juggler passed by, so close to us that my cheeks stung from the heat of his flaming torches.
‘How does he catch them like that?’ I marvelled.
‘With great difficulty. Come, my dear, let us sit and watch the fantoccini puppets. We shall be out of harm’s way there.’
Although the marionettes amused me for a while, it was impossible to concentrate on the show. Strains of ‘God Save the King’ floated from the octagonal bandstand where masked revellers waltzed. Every so often, a pop punctuated the music as fireworks lit up the sky.
We took supper in one of the finely painted boxes. Excitement filled my belly, leaving no space for food; I drank wine instead. Pierre droned on about his horses, the thinness of the ham. In pretending to listen to him, I scarcely noticed Adam Ibbotson’s attentions towards Marie. My parents must have been sitting on smiles, nodding to each other across the table, certain that this would be the night he finally proposed marriage, but I saw none of it. Peering over my brother’s shoulder, I watched a dowager sparkling in diamonds, a giggling hoyden, a gentleman wearing an old-fashioned periwig with footmen at his side.
After a brief consultation with the waiter, Papa turned to the table. ‘This fellow tells me they are about to light a transparency of the King in his coronation robes! Twenty-four feet long!’
‘Oh! We must see that!’ Mama nursed no real affection for the new king; few people did. But as a family with its roots in France we had to appear more patriotic than everyone else, or we could be suspected of sympathizing with the nation that had fought against Britain for decades.
I left the supper box with my companions. Marie hung on Adam’s elbow, Papa walked ahead with Mama, and Pierre escorted me. We fell a little behind. I was unsteady on my feet, and my brother kept looking at a gaggle of young men dressed as harlequins, who were skimming stones into one of the orna- mental ponds.
‘I know that chap,’ he burst out at last, withdrawing his arm from mine. ‘He owes me money for a bet. Wait there,’ he commanded, before he strode off, hailing the man. ‘Hey, Bradshaw!’
I wasn’t sorry to see Pierre leave. He was too loud and he occupied too much space, forever obtruding on my reveries. But now I was free. A moth flitted past on the summer breeze. I followed it out of the dazzle into a dark, sweet-smelling walk. The path down which it led me was perfectly secluded. Noise echoed far away; grottoes glinted in the distance. I was intoxicated, not only by wine, but by the feeling of finally being alive. I leant my aching back against a tree and stood for a while, well contented. Languor spread through my limbs. As the alcohol began to take effect, I thought I could quite happily spend the rest of my years just here, watching the lights from afar.
That was when he took my hand. His touch jolted, yet I wasn’t afraid. I sensed his warmth, the heat of him, welcome as a fire on a cold night.
‘At last, the chance to speak alone.’
I turned to the right. Shadows rippled over a half-mask and the lower part of a young man’s face. He was tall, athletically built, dressed for the ball as a soldier in a red military coat.
‘Sir?’ My tongue seemed too large in my mouth. ‘Do I . . . know you?’ Surely I did, if only from a dream. I’d seen this vision before. Hadn’t I once spent my nights conjuring up an admirer with the same ink-spill of black curls?
‘Don’t say you have forgotten me.’
Brown eyes implored mine from behind the sockets of the mask. Chocolate irises, flecked with sparks of gold. Familiar, somehow, as was the sound of his voice.
‘Mr Randall,’ I whispered, his name rising to mind along with my blush. ‘Is that really you?’
I could hardly believe it. He’d grown since I last saw him. Truly become a man, and not the student who once attended the same college at Oxford with Pierre. After their quarrel, I hadn’t dared to hope I’d ever meet the fascinating Mr Randall again. I never really knew what happened to sour their friend- ship; something to do with a horse race and then Pierre was rusticated for a term, vowing he’d never speak to Colin Randall as long as he lived. But Pierre’s disapproval held no weight with me. Whatever had occurred between the young men, I was certain it must have been my brother’s offence. He could never hold his temper in check and Mr Randall had always been so amiable.
He offered a slow, crooked smile, showing me a row of pearly teeth. ‘Yes! I knew you were too kind to banish me from your memory entirely. You cannot imagine how you have haunted mine, Miss Garnier. That blessed week I spent at Martingale Hall feels so long ago now. But I recall every detail.’
My heart gave a kick. Pierre’s friends usually remembered Marie, the elder, eligible daughter, her age closer to their own. When Mr Randall had visited, he’d scarcely seemed to notice my existence at all, although I spent my time hiding around corners spying on him. But there could be no doubt that tonight his gaze was trained solely on me.
‘You must come and join our party,’ I urged him. ‘Everyone will be so pleased to see you.’
He reached up and twirled one of my curls around his index finger. My breath seemed to stop. ‘I wish that I could. How often I’ve longed to travel down and visit you all again!’
‘You have? Why didn’t you?’
I’d wept when he left – silly, girlish tears Marie had chided me for. But seeing Mr Randall here, I couldn’t blame myself. Who wouldn’t cry to have such a man snatched away from them?
‘I’m afraid your brother holds me in utter contempt these days.’ He frowned. ‘He must have told you of our disagreement? He wouldn’t let me within a hundred yards of his home now; if he knew I was talking to his sister, he’d be furious.’
A thrill ran through me. The thought of Pierre’s rage only made Mr Randall more exciting. I longed to ask why they’d fallen out, to discover where Mr Randall lived, what kind of people his family were. Instead I stared dumbly, caught by his delicious smell of sandalwood.
‘We have only this moment, Miss Garnier. Who knows if we’ll meet again?’ Epaulettes winked faintly from his shoulders as he moved closer. ‘I’ve already missed so much of your life. Look at you! You have blossomed into the perfect young lady. Gentlemen will soon be clamouring for your hand, and you’ll spare no more thoughts for me.’
‘That’s not true!’ I protested. Mama always complained that I was too gauche to attract a suitor. But maybe she was wrong, maybe tonight I could be everything Mr Randall saw in me with those beautiful eyes. A woman grown. Desirable.
He sighed, toying with my hair again. The intimacy of it made me shiver. Only Marie or the ladies’ maid ever touched my hair and their hands felt nothing like his. ‘If only there were a way to stretch time, Miss Garnier. Make this brief encounter last an eternity.’ His eyes met mine. ‘But we cannot. So how shall we spend it – our one precious moment together?’ My chin lifted, almost of its own accord. I couldn’t help myself; enchanted by the night, bewitched by the wine, emboldened by the mask he wore. Everything carried a dreamlike air and it was the deep, unconscious part of me which dared to offer up my lips.
The mouth that pressed, insistent, against my own was rich as a fine wine. I had never been kissed before. My body responded without question. A chamber unlocked, deep within, spilling secrets I had always known.
I wished we could have done as he said: frozen that moment and kept its sweetness. But I was startled by the sound of Mama shrieking my name. Her voice broke the spell. All at once I remembered what my parents had said about the notorious dark walks of Vauxhall Gardens, where no respectable lady should venture alone. I opened my eyes, suddenly and dreadfully sober. Mr Randall swore before he fled, disappearing into the shadows as quickly as he’d materialized.
My mother stood at a distance, frozen in horror. Her cry had brought others to her side. Mr Ibbotson let go of Marie’s arm. Strangers tutted at me, raised their quizzing glasses and chuckled lewdly. An old, heavy-set man said, ‘If she were my daughter, I’d horsewhip her.’
My brother stepped forward from his group of friends, his back rigid as a poker. He seized my arm so hard that I cried out in pain. ‘I told you to wait for me!’ he barked. ‘What the devil have you done?’
I wasn’t sure. But as I peered up at him, his countenance stark and frightful in the lamplight, all the magic of the evening turned to ashes in my mouth.
Moonstone is due for publication 23rd May 2024. You can order your copy from:
HarperCollins | Bookshop.org | Waterstones