Скачать книгу

on id="u142bd24c-2331-5461-b5c3-ef3e06806dbc">

      

image
image

      First published in Great Britain 2018

      by Egmont UK Limited

      The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

      Text copyright © 2018 Katherine Woodfine

      Illustrations copyright © 2018 Karl James Mountford

      The moral rights of the author and illustrators have been asserted

      First e-book edition 2018

      978 1 4052 8704 3

      Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1798 4

       www.egmont.co.uk

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

      Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

      Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. All the papers we use are from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

      To all the readers who asked

      for more of Sophie and Lil

image

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       PART III

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

       PART IV

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

       CHAPTER NINETEEN

       PART V

       CHAPTER TWENTY

       CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

       CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

       CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

       CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

       CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

       PART VI

       CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

       AUTHOR’S NOTE

       ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

       Back series promotional page

       CHAPTER ONE

image

       ‘Arnovia is as pretty as a picture postcard. It feels rather like we have gone back in time to another century. We arrived yesterday by train, travelling through a tunnel that cuts through the mountains: Papa told me it is the longest railway tunnel in Europe.

       Arnovia itself is a tiny country, sandwiched in between Germany, Switzerland and Austria-Hungary. We are staying in the capital, Elffburg, on the banks of the River Elff, in lodgings close to the Royal Palace. This morning we saw the Royal Family drive out in their carriage – quite a spectacle!

       Papa says that his business here will be complete in three days, and then he has promised me a trip into Arnovia’s wild countryside. Until then I believe I shall be perfectly happy trying all the cakes in the city’s wonderful cake shops, which are as famous as the glorious mountains I can see in the distance . . .’

      – From the diary of Alice Grayson

image

      Wilderstein Castle, Arnovia

      Anna knew that there was something strange about the new governess.

      She’d had the odd feeling that something wasn’t quite right about Miss Carter from the first day she’d arrived in the schoolroom. She’d been dressed exactly as you’d expect a governess to be: spectacles, sensible shoes, hair in a neat bun. But as she’d glanced around, taking them all in – the Countess, her pouchy face patched scarlet with rouge and white with powder, the Count with his bristling moustache and his head as pink and shiny as a boiled ham, and of course, herself and Alex – Anna had thought at once that she didn’t really seem like a governess at all.

      To begin with, Miss Carter was young and pretty. Their last governess had seemed at least a hundred years old. She’d had grey hair and a bonnet with a drooping black feather in it, and Alex had made up stories about how she was really a

Скачать книгу