This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice.

The carriage wheels clattered over the uneven stones as Margaret Thornfield peered through the rain-streaked window at the approaching monastery. Even through the gray October mist, she could see the ancient stone walls rising like weathered bones from the Yorkshire moors. Whitmore Abbey had stood for eight centuries, though it had been abandoned for the last fifty years since the final monks departed for more populated monasteries in the south.

Margaret pulled her woolen cloak tighter around her shoulders as the carriage lurched to a stop before the great iron gates. The driver, a weathered man named Thomas who had barely spoken during their journey from the village, climbed down and began unloading her trunks with obvious haste.

"Are you certain about this, miss?" Thomas asked, his breath forming clouds in the cold air. "The village folk say strange things about this place. Lights in the windows at night, voices in the wind. Perhaps you'd be better served staying at the inn until morning."

Margaret stepped down from the carriage, her boots finding purchase on the moss-covered stones. At twenty-six, she was considered well past marriageable age by society's standards, a fact that had granted her the unusual freedom to pursue her scholarly interests. Her inheritance from her late father, combined with her unmarried status, had finally afforded her the opportunity to conduct the historical research she had long dreamed of.