The carriage lurched as though it had struck a rock, and Martha Harrow’s teeth clicked together. The impact jolted her from her book and into the slippery present: rain against the windows, damp wool at her throat, and the increasingly inescapable sensation that the road beneath them was less a road and more a series of determined puddles.
“Dear heaven,” she muttered, catching at the worn leather strap above the window as the equipage swayed onto two wheels and then slammed back down. “Is this the way to a marquess’s estate or the path to his grave?”
The footman across from her—young, broad-shouldered, with a nose that had seen better days—stifled a laugh and immediately attempted to disguise it as a cough.
“Beggin’ your pardon, miss,” he said, eyes fixed respectfully on the carriage floor. “Road’s always like this once you leave the turnpike. Been a wet season, too.”
“It has apparently been a wet decade,” Martha replied dryly, though she softened it with a brief smile. “How much farther to—” She faltered, searching for the name listed so neatly at the top of the letter she had read a dozen times.
“Corbyn Hall, miss,” the footman supplied. “We’ll be seein’ the gates over the rise.” He shifted, then added in a tone that suggested this was important, “You’ll be wantin’ to keep to the right window. The left’ll just show ye the bog.”
“The bog, how inviting.” She smoothed her skirts—still neat, still precise, though her hem had acquired a faint tide-line of mud sometime during their last change of horses. She glanced ruefully down at the grey merino. It was not the first gown to bear the scars of employment. It would not be the last.
She closed the book in her lap—Locke’s *Essay Concerning Human Understanding*, borrowed from a London circulating library and likely to be overdue by the time she had any hope of returning it—and set it aside. The rattle of the carriage wheels took on a different pitch, a hollow reverberation as they left the shuddering stones of the lane for something flatter. The carriage rocked over a shallow dip, then steadied.
The footman leaned very slightly, peering past her shoulder. “There now,” he said, as though presenting a marvel at Vauxhall. “Broken Oaks.”
Martha turned her head.
The estate rose from the mist like a memory that had been badly stored, edges blurred, colours leached away. Once, the avenue must have been magnificent. Two lines of oaks still flanked the drive, their branches reaching overhead to form a tangled archway. Yet most of those branches were bare, and too many of the trees leaned under their own weary weight. Limbs hung broken, jagged where lightning or some long-ago storm had claimed them. The undergrowth had crept close, brambles insinuating themselves into the gaps.
Beyond the avenue, on a low rise, stood the house.
Corbyn Hall was handsome in the way of old English houses: long and low, built of pale stone that had weathered to a soft grey. It wore a classical façade, with pilasters and pediments and an air of having been designed by someone who had very definite opinions about symmetry. Or rather, had *once* worn such an air. Ivy smothered one side of the house; a section of roof along the right wing dipped at an alarming angle. Several of the tall sash windows were clearly cracked. Even at this distance, she could see where weather—and neglect—had gnawed at the stone.
And yet, even in its disrepair, the house had presence. There was a sort of brooding dignity to it, like an aging general who refused to concede defeat.
“Broken Oaks.” Martha tasted the name quietly. “Is that what it is called?”
“Aye, miss.” The footman straightened and, with the solemnity of announcing a noble title, added, “On account of the oaks, see?”
She almost laughed. “So I surmised, Mr—?”
“Tom, miss. Just Tom.”
“Tom, then.” She watched as they passed beneath the sagging boughs. Rain tapped on the carriage roof. “And the marquess resides here always? He does not go up to London?”
Tom made a noncommittal sound. It was not quite a grunt. More a rough stretch of syllables that might have been words, once.
“He has not gone these five years, miss,” he said finally. “Leastways, not as I ever heard.”
Five years. The phrase settled in her chest like a pebble dropped in water, sending small ripples outward.
Not that it was any of her concern why the Marquess of Corbyn chose to bury himself in the countryside. It was enough that he had daughters. Three of them. All, according to the letter, in need of a governess.
She thought of her dwindling savings, of her brother’s increasingly anxious letters from their mother’s lodgings in Bath, of the unpaid bill at the dressmaker and the looming specter of no position, no income, no home.
“It will do,” she murmured. “It must do.”
The carriage rolled to a stop before the broad sweep of the front steps. There were twelve of them, flagstones worn at the center. Two stone lions flanked the entrance, their once-proud faces softened by moss and time.
The coach door swung open, admitting a gust of damp air that smelled of wet leaves and something older—lichen on stone, perhaps, and the faintest metallic tang of neglect.
Tom hopped down, then turned and offered his hand. Martha gathered her cloak more closely around her shoulders and stepped down, boots meeting stone.
The front door opened before she could mount the stairs. A woman stood in the doorway, tall and straight, her hair drawn back in a knot so severe it might have been used to fasten a ship’s rigging. She wore black—not the fashionable, glossy black of London widows, but the bluish, faded black of serge that had endured too many years and too few washings.
“Miss Harrow,” the woman said. Her voice was crisp enough to slice cheese. “You are punctual. That is… unusual.”
“I find punctuality costs nothing,” Martha replied, climbing the steps. “And is seldom punished.”
The woman’s eyes flicked over her—bonnet, cloak, neat gloves, the scuffed but scrupulously polished boots. Brown hair tucked firmly beneath the bonnet brim, the faintest hint of freckles across an otherwise unremarkable nose. A face that had been told, too often to be flattering, that it was “sensible.” Grey eyes that watched more than they revealed.
“I am Mrs. Pritchard, housekeeper at Corbyn Hall.” The woman stepped back to allow her entry. “You will come in. Tom, see to Miss Harrow’s trunk. Her room is ready.”
The entrance hall was dim, the light from the high windows muddied by grime. A great oil painting hung crookedly above the main staircase: some long-dead Corbyn ancestor wearing a powdered wig and a bored expression. A chandelier drooped from the ceiling, its crystals dusty, like a dowager in need of a thorough brushing.
“Wipe your feet, if you please,” Mrs. Pritchard said. She did not sound as though she expected compliance to be an issue. “Mud grinds into the stone.”
Martha obeyed, dragging her boots across the worn mat. “Your letter was most specific about duties,” she said. “But I confess it was less so about the… ah… household. Might I ask how many servants the marquess keeps at present?”
Mrs. Pritchard’s mouth compressed. “As many as he can pay, Miss Harrow. Which is fewer than this house was built to employ.”
They moved down the central passage. Doors opened off either side; a few stood ajar, revealing glimpses of cavernous rooms. A drawing room with slipcovers over the furniture and a cold, yawning fireplace. A dining room with a table large enough to seat twenty, though only eight chairs remained, and one of those propped on a pile of books.
Martha’s steps slowed. Books? She stole a longer look as she passed.
The stack was indeed of books. Latin on the spines, some Greek. A few in French. She recognized Plato’s *Republic*, a volume of Hume’s essays, something by Rousseau. Hardly the fare she expected in a neglected dining room in the depths of Hertfordshire.
“You will have time to explore later,” Mrs. Pritchard said, not looking back. “Here.”
She turned into a narrower corridor. The ceilings were lower here, the walls closer. A servant’s passage, then. They mounted a small staircase, its treads creaking under their weight. On the third floor, the housekeeper led her down another passage and stopped at a door near the end.
“Your room.”
The chamber was small but not unpleasant. A bed with a plain oak frame, a washstand, a narrow wardrobe, a single chair. The window looked out over the back of the property. Martha crossed to it at once, pushing aside the thin curtain. Grey sky, low and heavy. A kitchen garden, half overrun with weeds, patches of green fighting upward. Beyond that, a line of trees and a glimpse of a low stone wall.
“It will do,” she said. And it would. The mattress looked firm. The roof did not obviously leak. She had slept in worse places.
Mrs. Pritchard set her candle upon the washstand. “His lordship is not at home.”
Martha turned. “Indeed? I had not expected—”
“He does not always inform us of his comings and goings.” A faint disapproval threaded the housekeeper’s tone. “He is at the Dower House at present. It is on the estate, two miles distant. He keeps a room there.” She paused. “Occasionally, he sleeps in it.”
The Dower House. A perfectly respectable arrangement, often used for widowed matrons of the family or elderly spinster aunts. And yet, the way Mrs. Pritchard said the words suggested something else. Or perhaps it was simply that *occasionally*.
“Then I shall meet him when he returns,” Martha said, brisk. There was no point in fretting over a man who was not in the room. “You mentioned in your letter that the young ladies keep to a peculiar schedule. I should like to see them as soon as may be, Mrs. Pritchard. It is best to begin as one means to continue.”
The housekeeper’s expression eased fractionally. “They are in the nursery. Miss Agnes has a fever—nothing serious,” she added, seeing Martha’s instant frown. “The doctor has been. It is only a chill. But the other two…”
She drew a breath, as though preparing to plunge into icy water.
“I will show you.”
***
The nursery was at the back of the house, up another flight of stairs. As they neared, Martha heard it: the unmistakable rhythm of children’s noise. Not happy laughter, precisely. Something more feral. A shriek, then a thud, then the crash of something fragile meeting floor.
Mrs. Pritchard set her jaw. “They were quiet at breakfast,” she muttered. “That was my mistake. I should have known.”
She pushed open the door.
Chaos.
Books scattered across the rug, some face-down, some with pages bent. A doll hung by its hair from the bedpost, its porcelain head thankfully intact. A chair lay on its side. Chalk doodles decorated not only the slates on the table but the table itself, the door, a disconcerting section of wall.
And in the center of it all, like two warring generals on a battlefield, stood a pair of girls.
The elder had a fall of dark hair half-tamed into a braid, the rest escaping in stubborn curls around her face. Her gown had once been white but was now patterned in mud and ink. Her bare feet were braced apart, toes gripping the rug. She held a wooden sword—the sort sold by obliging peddlers—pointed at the other girl’s chest.
The second child was smaller and slighter, hair of indeterminate brown pulled back with a ribbon that had lost its bow and now drooped forlornly. She, too, was barefoot. She held a tin soldier clutched in her hand like a talisman. Her chin jutted.
“Say it,” the dark-haired girl demanded, blades of her eyes flashing. They were grey. A familiar shade of grey.
“No,” the smaller girl said, stubborn. “You said a *lady* never apologizes if she’s right.”
“I am not a lady,” the elder snapped. “I am a fiend from the seventh circle, and I demand—”
“Ahem,” Mrs. Pritchard said, hands on her hips.
Two faces whipped toward the door.
Silence fell. It did not fall easily. It came down with a thump and then skittered about like an uncooperative cat.
The elder girl lowered the sword. “We were only—”
“Enacting scenes from Dante’s *Inferno*?” Martha suggested. She spoke mildly, but her gaze took in the room, cataloguing.
Two beds against the wall: one rumpled but occupied, a small mound beneath the coverlet. The third daughter. A fire burned low in the grate, fighting valiantly against the damp. Books, chalk, toys. No sign of a nurse.
The older child’s mouth actually dropped open. “How did you—”
“Because you mentioned the seventh circle,” Martha said. “If you had said ninth, I would have suspected *Paradise Lost*. But you are slightly too cheerful for Milton.” She stepped into the room. “And because the housekeeper wrote that the previous governess complained of your habit of hurling books at one another. If one must have missiles, they might as well be literary.”
The smaller girl’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
“Mabel,” Mrs. Pritchard reprimanded. “Mind your tongue.”
“She asked a reasonable question,” Martha said quietly. “I am Miss Harrow. Your new governess.”
The elder girl folded her arms. “You will not last the week.”
“Miriam,” Mrs. Pritchard hissed.
“Well, she will not,” Miriam said, not taking her eyes from Martha. “We do not keep governesses. We wear them out. Like shoes. Or tempers.”
“Speak respectfully,” the housekeeper scolded. “That is your—”
“Fifth governess in two years?” Martha supplied. “I did read the reference from Mrs. Nettleford. She mentioned that she left owing to fatigue, not to any… difficulty. On your side.” She let that hang, very deliberately.
Miriam’s chin came up. It was the same stubborn angle as the younger girl’s, magnified. “Mrs. Nettleford was old.”
“Yes,” Martha said. “Most people become old if they do not die first. It is an unfortunate habit of the species.” She walked further into the room. “And what is *your* name?”
“Miriam Corbyn,” the girl said, with all the hauteur of a duchess at court. “But you may call me Miss Corbyn. I am almost twelve.”
“Ah.” Martha inclined her head. “And you?”
The smaller girl drew herself up. “Mabel Corbyn. But—”
“Miss Mabel Corbyn,” Miriam interrupted. “She is almost nine, and she is tiresome.”
Mabel scowled. “I am not.”
“You are. You tattle.”
“I do not.”
“You told Nurse that I had climbed onto the stable roof, and then she—”
“Girls,” Mrs. Pritchard cut in sharply. “That is enough. Miss Harrow is here to take charge of your education. And your conduct. You will show her the respect you owe to your betters.”
Martha saw the flinch in Miriam’s face. A small tightening around the mouth. The lowering of eyes. The way her toes pressed harder into the rug, as though steadying herself against a blow that did not quite land.
*That,* Martha thought, *is interesting.*
She smiled, very slightly. “I am not your better, Miss Corbyn. I am your governess. I am here to teach you how to think, how to read, how to navigate society, and how to argue so well that no one will ever dare call you ‘tiresome’ again.”
Mabel’s head popped up, suspicion warring with curiosity. “You teach arguing?”
“I do.” Martha bent and righted the fallen chair, dusting off the seat. “It is a very useful skill. Especially for young ladies. The world expects you to be silent. It is… amusing… to confound the world. But to do that, you must be precise. You cannot simply shout. You must *make your case*.” She sat, set her reticule on her lap, and folded her hands. “So. Tell me, what was the argument about?”
Miriam blinked. “We—what?”
“The disagreement which led to the sword and the soldier. There was an argument, yes? Otherwise you would simply have been trying to maim your sister for sport, and that seems inefficient.”
Mabel snorted, then quickly smoothed her face when Mrs. Pritchard shot her a look.
“We were not arguing,” Miriam said loftily. “We were… engaged in a difference of opinion.”
“Ah.” Martha bit back a smile. “About what?”
Mabel shot Miriam a treacherous glance, then said, “Miriam says Father is a coward.”
The words dropped into the room like a stone through glass.
Silence. No cat this time. Just sharp, thin quiet.
Mrs. Pritchard went pale. “Mabel.”
“Well, she did,” Mabel said, suddenly defensive. “He was supposed to come today, and he did not, and he never comes when he says and—”
“That will do,” the housekeeper said, voice shaking the slightest bit. “You know very well you are not to speak of his lordship so.”
Martha did not miss the way Miriam’s hands had clenched tight around the wooden sword hilt, knuckles white.
“A coward?” Martha said, very gently. “That is a strong word.”
Miriam lifted her chin. “I did not say it. Mabel misheard. She always mishears. She is not precise.”
“I am too precise!”
“You are not, else you would have known that I said *cowherd*,” Miriam retorted. “Which is entirely different. A cowherd is a person who herds cows. If Father is one, it is because he prefers cows to his family.”
“Miriam Corbyn,” Mrs. Pritchard whispered, horrified.
“What?” Miriam’s eyes flashed. “It is true.”
“Whether or not it is true,” Martha said, “is not the point.”
Three heads turned to her. She noted the shape of their mouths, the colour of their eyes. Mabel’s were brown, lighter than her hair. Miriam’s were grey. The child still in the bed made no sound.
“Then what is the point?” Mabel demanded.
“That you have made a very serious accusation without sufficient definition,” Martha said. “And that is poor arguing.” She smoothed her skirt. “If you mean that your father does not visit often, then say so. If you mean that he fails in his duties as a parent, that is another matter. If you mean that he is afraid of cows, then—”
“That would be silly,” Mabel said. “Father is not afraid of anything. Except London.”
Miriam shot her a warning glance.
Martha watched, thoughtful. So that was the story, then. Five years away from London. Fear, or something near it, threaded through an absence.
“I believe,” she said slowly, “that we will have time for a great many discussions about your father. However, before that, I must meet your third sister.” She nodded at the rumpled bed. “Miss Agnes, I presume?”
There was a rustle. The coverlet shifted, and a small head emerged: hair a pale, pale blond, almost white against the pillow. A narrow, sharp little face, cheeks flushed too-high with fever. Eyes the same grey as Miriam’s.
“I am not to sit up,” Agnes whispered. “Doctor says.”
“Doctor is correct,” Martha said. She rose and crossed to the bedside. Up close, she could see the sheen of sweat along the child’s hairline, the glassy brightness of her gaze. “You must rest. I am Miss Harrow. I shall be your governess once you are better. For now, I will be content if you merely practice breathing.”
Agnes considered this. “I can do that,” she decided. “I am very good at breathing.”
“I am delighted to hear it.” Martha shifted a pillow a fraction higher, ensuring Agnes’s head was properly supported. “Have you had some broth today?”
“She threw it at Mabel,” Miriam muttered.
“It was nasty,” Agnes said plaintively. “Cook boiled it three times. Even the carrots were sad.”
“She is not wrong,” Mrs. Pritchard admitted grudgingly. “Cook’s stock is… thin.”
“Then perhaps,” Martha said, “we shall ask Cook to leave it off the boil for once. Overcooking is the enemy of all that is good.” She smoothed the coverlet over Agnes’s small form. The child’s hand caught at her sleeve.
“Will you make us do French verbs?” Agnes whispered.
“Yes,” Martha said.
Agnes sighed, resigned. “I thought so.”
“You will also do Latin, mathematics, geography, history, composition, needlework, and deportment,” Martha continued. “On alternate days, we will read. Poetry, novels, essays. I have been known to tolerate the occasional gothic tale, provided no one swoons unnecessarily. And if any of you should feel compelled to throw a book, you will first wrap it in something soft to protect the binding.”
Mabel’s eyes widened. “You are odd.”
“So I have been told.” Martha glanced around the room. “Mrs. Pritchard, where is the nurse?”
The housekeeper’s mouth went tight. “Gone.”
“Gone where?” Martha asked, though she suspected the answer.
“To her aunt in Surrey.” Mrs. Pritchard’s jaw flexed. “She left a note on Tuesday. ‘Cannot abide the heathen savages another day.’ Those were her very words.”
Miriam’s shoulders hunched.
“Nurse Waller said we was devils,” Mabel said dully. “Agnes cried four times.”
“I cried *once*,” Agnes protested, indignant. “The other three times, my eyes leaked without permission.”
“That will do,” Mrs. Pritchard said, casting a look at Martha that asked—as plainly as if she had spoken—*Well? Do you still want them?*
Martha met her gaze steadily. “I see,” she said. “And who has been caring for Miss Agnes in Nurse Waller’s absence?”
“I have,” Mrs. Pritchard said.
“And Miriam and me,” Mabel added quickly. “We take turns bringing her water and songs. She does not like my songs, but she is forced to endure them because I am eldest but one.”
“I suppose that makes me eldest but two,” Miriam said, a fleeting smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. It fled almost at once.
“You will not need to carry the full burden alone now,” Martha said. “I am here. And I am not in the habit of abandoning my posts.”
“Yet,” Miriam muttered.
Martha let it pass. Children tested boundaries. That was their work. Hers was to establish which boundaries held.
“Mrs. Pritchard,” she said, voice gentle but firm. “Might we have fresh water and perhaps some bread and cheese sent up? I expect their luncheon was… disrupted.”
Mabel looked at the overturned table guiltily.
“Of course.” The housekeeper hesitated at the door. “His lordship expects a report.”
“I shall be pleased to give him one,” Martha said. “When he returns.” She paused, then added, deliberately casual, “He is in good health, I trust?”
Mrs. Pritchard’s eyes flickered. “He is as he chooses to be, Miss Harrow.”
Then she was gone.
***
They ate bread and hard yellow cheese and apples that were slightly bruised but still sweet. Martha coaxed Agnes into drinking water sweetened with a stingy spoonful of honey. She righted furniture, gathered books into piles, and watched. Always, she watched.
They were not wild, these children. Not truly. They were ungoverned. Unmoored. Left too often to their own devices in a house which gave them too few anchors and too many shadows.
“Your father lives at the Dower House?” she asked at one point, adjusting Agnes’s blankets again.
Miriam made a dismissive motion. “He lives in his own head.”
“That is an accusation *and* an interesting metaphor,” Martha said. “But it is not entirely informative. Does he come to the Hall often?”
“When he must,” Miriam said. Her finger traced patterns in the worn coverlet. “When Mrs. Pritchard insists. Or when we are ill. Sometimes.”
“He came when I had the measles,” Mabel said. “He sat with me all night.”
“But he never looked at me,” Miriam said quietly. “He talked only to the doctor. And to Mabel. He sent me away.”
“Because you did not *have* the measles,” Mabel snapped. “You were only in a bad temper.”
“It is the same thing,” Miriam retorted.
“It is not—”
“Ladies,” Martha said, with the smallest emphasis. They both subsided, though Mabel muttered something under her breath that involved toads.
She let a beat of silence pass. “You three must miss your mother,” she said.
Again, that glass-shattering quiet.
Mabel sat up straighter. “We do not speak of Mama.”
“That is Father’s rule,” Miriam said. “She is… gone.”
“She is not *dead*,” Mabel said fiercely. “He would not say ‘gone’ if she was dead. He would say ‘in heaven’. Mrs. Pritchard says ‘gone’ only when she means—”
“She means what Father means,” Miriam cut in sharply. “She means nothing. It means nothing. Mama left and she is not coming back and that is that.”
Agnes’s lip trembled. “She might.”
“She will not,” Miriam said, but there was something raw in the words.
Martha’s throat tightened. She had known, reading between the lines of Mrs. Pritchard’s letter, that there had been some rupture. Some thing-that-must-not-be-named. An elopement, perhaps. Or a scandalous abandonment. But there was only so much a letter on cream-laid paper could convey. The reality bore the weight of three small, wounded faces.
She took a breath. “You may speak of your mother to me, if you wish. Or not. That choice will be yours. But in this room, there will be no words that are forbidden because they are painful. Only because they are unkind or imprecise.” She met Miriam’s eyes. “Agreed?”
Miriam blinked. For a moment, the twelve-year-old mask slipped, and Martha saw the small girl beneath. Then the chin lifted again. “We do not need to talk about her,” Miriam said. “We remember without talking.”
“Very well,” Martha said. “Then we shall remember without talking. I am adept at silences.”
“You talk a great deal, for someone adept at silences,” Mabel observed.
“That is because I do not trust people who are silent all the time,” Martha replied. “They are either very clever, very stupid, or up to mischief. Sometimes all three.”
Agnes giggled weakly.
“Now,” Martha said, picking up a chalk-smeared slate. “Let us begin as we mean to go on. Miss Corbyn—Miriam—will you kindly define your terms?”
Miriam’s eyes lit, in spite of herself. “For an argument about Father?”
“No,” Martha said. “For an argument about *arguments*.”
And she began to teach them to fight properly.
***
That night, when the children were finally abed and the house had sunk into its creaking, draughty stillness, Martha sat at the small writing table by her window. A single candle burned at her elbow, its wavering flame casting shadows on the plain plaster wall.
She dipped her pen and began a letter.
> My dear Thomas,
> I have arrived at Corbyn Hall and find it, in equal measure, melancholy and intriguing. The house is handsomer than I expected, though long neglected. The marquess is not presently in residence. His daughters, however, are.
She paused, remembering Miriam’s wary eyes, Mabel’s sharp tongue, Agnes’s hot, weak fingers clutching at her sleeve.
> You asked, when I accepted this position, whether I was certain. You will be astonished to hear that I am not certain at all. The situation is… unusual. The children are allowed far too much liberty in those things which hurt them and far too little in those which would help. There is some great weight lying upon the household. I do not yet know its shape.
A draught stole under the window, making the candle gutter. She pulled her shawl more tightly about her shoulders and went on.
> Nonetheless, I intend to stay. They need someone who will not vanish as soon as they balk. And, as you once observed, I am too stubborn by half. Do not worry for me. I am not easily daunted, and the housekeeper is terrifying enough to ensure some degree of order.
> How is Mother? Please tell her that I am well and that the country air is bracing (this is not strictly a falsehood; the air is certainly *something*). If the doctor insists upon more of those vile draughts, tell her I shall write to him personally and perform such an argument upon him that he will repent his entire profession.
> I remain your affectionate, quarrelsome,
> Martha
She sanded, folded, and sealed the letter, laying it aside for posting on the morrow.
Then she sat back and looked at the darkness beyond the window.
Somewhere on the estate, the elusive Marquess of Corbyn occupied his own set of rooms. Perhaps at the Dower House, perhaps—if Mrs. Pritchard was to be believed—shut in his own thoughts. She imagined a man of late middle years, florid and stout from country idleness, or perhaps thin and desiccated from too much brandy. A man who allowed his house to fall to pieces around him, his daughters to run wild, his servants to mutter.
“A coward,” Mabel had said.
“A cowherd,” Miriam had insisted.
She should not care. He was her employer, nothing more. His person was of no consequence so long as his payments were regular and his daughters properly educated.
And yet, as she pinched out the candle and slid into the narrow bed, she found herself wondering—not whether he was a coward, but whether he believed himself to be one.
Sleep came slowly, bearing with it the uncomfortable sense that she had not just entered a house but walked into the echoing aftermath of a storm. The thunder was gone. But the air still trembled.
She did not know, as she finally drifted under, that in a low stone house two miles distant, a man with grey eyes and ink-stained fingers stared into the darkness and, for the first time in months, wondered what sort of woman would willingly come to Broken Oaks.
***