Martha woke before dawn, as she always did.
For a moment, disoriented, she stared at the low ceiling dimly visible above her bed, listening to the unfamiliar creaks and sighs of Corbyn Hall. Somewhere below, in the depths of the house, a door banged softly. The wind pressed at the windowpane, testing for weakness.
Then memory settled: the journey, the children, the library.
*Richard,* she thought, and immediately scolded herself.
She had not meant to say his name aloud. It had slipped out, as easily as if she had known him for years instead of hours. A small rebellion, perhaps, against the rigid hierarchies that had shaped their lives.
Foolish, in any case.
He was her employer. An intelligent, troubled, exasperating man with ink on his fingers and a library in disarray. A man whose daughters watched doors. A man whose wife—
She did not know the full story yet. Only the shape of the absence.
She swung her legs out of bed and shivered as her bare feet met the cold floor. The coals in the small hearth had died hours ago. She dressed quickly, fingers practiced. Chemise, stays laced snug by her own hands, stockings, petticoats, the grey merino gown. Cap, for the hallways. Shawl, for everything.
By the time the scullery maid brought hot water to her door, she had already washed in the cold.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the steaming jug. The girl bobbed a curtsey, eyes wide and shy, and hurried away.
Martha poured the water into the basin, watching the faint wisp of steam curl upward, then fade. It would not last long in this chill.
She splashed her face, pinched colour into her cheeks, and tied back her hair more firmly. Grey eyes stared back at her from the wavering mirror. Not beautiful, she thought again. But not weak. She would need that.
***
The schoolroom, as Mrs. Pritchard had informed her yesterday, occupied the second floor near the back stairs. It looked out over the same kitchen garden visible from her bedchamber, though from a slightly different angle. The room itself bore the ghosts of previous governesses: worn spots on the rug where desks had stood, chalk dust ground into the cracks of the floorboards, a faint scent of ink and lavender.
Martha arrived at half past eight. She had an hour before the promised appearance of the marquess. Enough time to lay groundwork.
The room contained three small desks, a larger table, a cupboard with locked doors, and a blackboard nailed to one wall. The blackboard looked as though someone had used it recently for sketches of some sort. Rudimentary horses, perhaps. Or dragons. It was difficult to say.
She opened the cupboard. Books, slates, a globe with a large dent in Europe, several maps rolled tightly and secured with string. A hornbook with its handle chewed. Ink bottles, some dry, some usable.
She pulled out the arithmetic primer and set it on the table. Numbers, she had learned long ago, were much like people. They did not frighten her, but they sometimes frightened those unused to them.
The door burst open without a knock.
Mabel bounded in, hair coming loose from its ribbon, slippers barely tied. “We detest arithmetic,” she announced without preamble. “Agnes says numbers are spies. They creep up on you.”
Agnes followed more slowly, wrapped in a shawl over her nightgown, cheeks still too pink. “Numbers are traitors,” she corrected. “They pretend to be small and harmless, and then they multiply.”
“Miriam is hiding,” Mabel confided. “She says if she cannot be found, she cannot be forced to calculate.”
Martha set the primer down. “You are five minutes early. That suggests to me that at least some of you do not detest arithmetic quite as much as you claim.”
Mabel scowled, wrong-footed.
“Agnes,” Martha said, crossing to her. “You ought not to be out of bed yet.”
“Doctor said I could sit up a little,” Agnes muttered.
“Doctor did not say you might wander the house in bare feet.” Martha knelt and touched the girl’s forehead. Cool. Better. She allowed herself a breath of relief. “We will do nothing today that requires more exertion than holding a pencil. And if you cough more than twice in a minute, you will go back to bed.”
“Twice?” Agnes wrinkled her nose. “That is a very small allowance.”
“You may negotiate for three,” Martha said. “Provided you can present your argument logically.”
Agnes considered. “Two is acceptable.”
Mabel rolled her eyes. “You will never learn to argue if you are willing to compromise so easily.”
“I like breathing,” Agnes retorted. “Compromise allows breathing.”
Martha almost smiled.
“Miriam is truly hiding?” she asked.
“Yes,” Mabel said. “Under the big table in the breakfast room. She thinks no one knows.”
“Everyone knows,” Agnes whispered.
Martha straightened. “Very well. We shall go and fetch her.”
“Will there be a battle?” Mabel asked eagerly. “If there is a battle, I want a sword.”
“No battles before breakfast,” Martha said. “It unsettles the digestion.”
“That is an arbitrary rule,” Mabel complained.
“Yes,” Martha said. “But if you begin to accept a few arbitrary rules, then you may more successfully argue against the ones that matter.”
Mabel chewed on this as they trooped down the back stairs.
The breakfast room, once elegant, had the air of a space that had been repurposed too often and for too little purpose. A long table ran down the center, its polished surface marred by scratches. One of the chairs had a missing back, replaced by a cushion tied on with mismatched ribbons.
Miriam lay under the far end of the table, flat on her back, arms crossed. A book rested on her chest. From the angle, Martha could not see the title.
“Miss Corbyn,” she said, from the doorway.
Miriam did not move. “I am not here.”
“An interesting claim,” Martha replied. “And yet, my eyes suggest otherwise.”
“You cannot compel me to do arithmetic if I am not present,” Miriam said to the underside of the table.
“I could simply assign you twice as much tomorrow,” Martha said. “Absence does not negate responsibility. It only postpones it.”
Mabel scampered around to crouch by Miriam’s head. “She says if you do not come, Father will be cross.”
Miriam’s eyes snapped open. “Father?”
“He said he would be in the schoolroom at nine,” Martha said. “To observe your arithmetic lesson.”
A flicker of something—hope? Skepticism?—crossed Miriam’s face. “Father said that?”
“He did.” Martha stepped into the room. “He was quite specific.”
“He will not come,” Miriam said, with the weary certainty of someone who had seen too many broken promises.
“Perhaps,” Martha said. “But if you are not there, you will not know whether he came. You will never have the evidence. And then any future arguments you make about his unreliability will be less convincing.”
Miriam frowned. “How?”
“Because you will be basing them on assumption, not observation,” Martha said. “If you mean to call him to account, you must at least give him the opportunity to fail.”
Mabel snorted. “That is very cold.”
“It is very *logical*,” Martha said. “Which is precisely what arithmetic is. Consider it practice.”
Miriam’s fingers tightened on the book.
“What are you reading?” Martha asked.
Miriam hesitated, then tilted the cover just enough for her to see. Aristotle’s *Poetics*. In translation, but still.
“You have peculiar tastes for a girl of eleven,” Martha observed.
“Twelve in March,” Miriam said stiffly. “And there is nothing peculiar about wishing to understand why stories work.”
Martha felt a flash of startled kinship. “No,” she said softly. “There is not.”
Miriam studied her, suspicious.
“You have read this?” Miriam asked, tapping the book.
“Yes.”
Miriam’s eyes narrowed. “What do you think of his argument about catharsis?”
“I think,” Martha said slowly, “that he underestimates the danger of too much indulgence in pity and fear. That sometimes, instead of purging those emotions, repeated exposure only deepens them. That instead of leaving the theater relieved, one might leave more afraid.”
Miriam’s gaze sharpened. “Have you ever left a theater afraid?”
“Yes,” Martha said. “But that is a story for another time.” She held out her hand. “For now, Miss Corbyn, you must decide whether you would rather lie under this table and wish your father had come, or sit in the schoolroom and see whether he does.”
Miriam’s jaw worked. Then, with a mutter that sounded like a very unladylike word, she shoved the book into Martha’s hand and wriggled out from under the table.
“I hate arithmetic,” she said.
“I know,” Martha said. “That is why we do it first.”
***
Nine o’clock came with the chime of the tarnished clock on the mantel.
Miriam sat at her desk, back straight, pencil poised. Mabel perched on the edge of hers, legs swinging, slate balanced on her knees. Agnes leaned against a cushion propped in a chair, a blanket over her lap, a small slate before her.
Martha stood by the blackboard, chalk in hand.
“Today,” she said, “we will begin with fractions.”
Collective groans.
“Fractions,” Mabel declared, “are the work of the devil.”
“Then devils,” Martha said, “have a very orderly understanding of proportional relationships.”
“Devils,” Agnes whispered, “do *division*.”
Miriam said nothing. Her eyes flicked, once, to the door.
“He will not come,” she said, voice low.
“We shall see,” Martha replied.
She wrote on the board.
> 1/2 + 1/4 = ?
“Agnes,” she said. “If you had half an apple and then a quarter of an apple, how much apple would you have?”
“Three quarters,” Agnes said promptly.
“Correct. Miriam, show your working.”
Miriam sighed, but took up her pencil. “You find a common denominator,” she muttered, scribbling. “Four. So you convert the half to two quarters. Then add.”
“Very good.” Martha nodded. “So perhaps devils are not the only ones who can divide.” She turned to the board, wrote another.
The door opened.
All three girls’ heads whipped around.
Richard stood in the doorway.
He had, Martha noted clinically, at least changed his coat. This one fit better, the navy wool falling smoothly over his shoulders. His hair, still unruly, had been shoved into some semblance of order. He had shaved, though a faint shadow darkened his jaw already.
He looked, in that instant, like what he was: a young man of rank. Not an old recluse. Not a ruined figure. Simply—human.
His gaze scanned the room, lingering briefly on Agnes’s blanket, on the chalk in Martha’s hand, on the arithmetic primer. Then it settled on the faces of his daughters.
“Good morning,” he said.
It was not a tentative greeting. But neither was it hearty.
Mabel sprang to her feet. “You came!”
“Against my better judgment,” he said dryly. “I loathe fractions.”
Agnes’s mouth curved, small and disbelieving. Miriam did not move.
“You are late,” she said.
Richard’s brows rose. “It is five minutes past the hour.”
“Yes,” Miriam said. “You said nine. It is now nine-oh-five. That is late.”
“Technically accurate,” Martha murmured.
He shot her a look.
“I apologize,” he said stiffly to Miriam. “I was detained by an argument with the steward about hedgerows.”
“You prefer hedgerows to us,” Mabel said, matter-of-fact.
“I prefer hedgerows to London,” he said. “Not to you.”
Agnes coughed. Once. Twice. She glanced at Martha, counting, and subsided.
Richard’s eyes flicked to her. “How are you, Agnes?”
“Alive,” she said. “Miss Harrow says that is an accomplishment.”
“It is,” Martha said. “Especially in a house where the ceilings leak.”
He ignored that, but his mouth twitched.
He stepped further into the room. The girls watched him as though he might evaporate if they blinked.
“I see you are doing arithmetic,” he said.
“Yes,” Mabel groaned. “We hate it.”
“It is not necessary to be fond of a thing to do it well,” he said. “Many useful activities are disagreeable. Governance, for instance.”
“You govern?” Miriam asked, incredulous.
He lifted a brow. “It may surprise you to learn that I occasionally attend to the estate.”
“I thought Mrs. Pritchard did that,” Miriam muttered.
“She *assists*,” he said.
“You are arguing with a child about hedgerows and authority,” Martha observed. “This is not the best use of our time.”
He turned his head slowly. “Are you suggesting I am inefficient, Miss Harrow?”
“I am suggesting you have come to observe an arithmetic lesson, not to be drawn into a philosophical dispute you are certain to lose,” she said.
His nostrils flared. He looked, for a moment, as though he might retort. Then, to her faint astonishment, he stepped aside and leaned against the wall near the window, crossing his arms.
“Proceed,” he said.
Martha turned back to the blackboard. “As you can see,” she said, “fractions are simply numbers that have been forced into smaller pieces. Much like cook forcing a joint of beef to feed ten when it was intended only for six.”
“That is a terrible analogy,” Mabel said.
“It is an accurate one,” Agnes countered.
“Miss Harrow,” Miriam said, pencil poised. “What is the point of fractions? Numbers exist. Why chop them up?”
“An excellent question,” Martha said. “Why do we ever divide anything? Why not simply leave the world in whole chunks?”
“Father says the world is already divided,” Mabel volunteered. “Into people who own hedgerows and people who do not.”
Richard made a strangled sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.
“Your father is… not entirely wrong,” Martha said dryly. “But that is a question for politics, not for fractions. We divide numbers because sometimes, sharing is inevitable. You have three cakes and six girls. Do you leave three girls hungry?”
“Yes,” Mabel said, without hesitation.
“No,” Miriam said. “You cut the cakes.”
“Exactly,” Martha said. “Fractions allow us to describe that cutting. To say, precisely, who gets how much. Without them, we are left with vague gestures.” She scribbled on the board. “You may be content with vague gestures, Mabel, but I assure you the girls who receive the smaller slices will not.”
“I would never accept a smaller slice,” Mabel said indignantly.
“Then you had best learn fractions,” Martha replied. “Else you will be cheated at every table.”
A reluctant light sparked in Mabel’s eyes.
“Now,” Martha said. “Let us suppose you have one and a half cakes—”
“Who cuts a cake in half?” Agnes whispered.
“Desperate people,” Martha said. “—and you have three guests. How much cake does each receive?”
They worked through it. Agnes faltered, coughed twice, glanced at Martha as though for permission, then pressed on. Miriam’s answers were quick, precise, occasionally accompanied by a muttered commentary on the stupidity of some mathematical terminology. Mabel attempted to distract herself from the tedium by devising elaborate word problems that involved dragons and biscuits.
Richard said nothing.
He watched.
Martha felt his gaze occasionally on her, occasionally on the children. She was acutely aware of his presence, as if the air in the room had changed density.
At one point, when Miriam stumbled over converting a mixed number to an improper fraction, he spoke.
“You are overcomplicating it,” he said.
Miriam stiffened. “I am not.”
“You are.” He pushed off the wall and came to stand near her desk. “A mixed number is simply an addition problem in disguise. One and three-quarters is one plus three-quarters. Why make it harder than it is?”
“Because arithmetic *is* hard,” Miriam muttered.
“Arithmetic,” he said, “is simple. People are hard.”
“That is because people are irrational,” Martha murmured.
“Irrational numbers are a separate topic entirely,” he retorted.
To her surprise, Agnes giggled.
He glanced at her, startled, and a brief, unguarded smile flickered across his face.
“There,” he said to Miriam, pointing at her slate. “Write one and three-quarters as one plus three-quarters. Now imagine each whole number is made of quarters. One is four quarters. Add the existing three. What do you have?”
“Seven,” Miriam said grudgingly.
“Seven what?”
“Quarters.”
“Precisely.”
She frowned at the slate, then at the board. “That is… easier.”
“Most things are,” he said. “Once you stop telling yourself they are impossible.”
His tone was pointed. Martha did not entirely miss the way his gaze slid, briefly, toward her.
“Lord Corbyn,” she said. “You are distracting my pupil.”
“I am *instructing* her,” he said. “You are not the only one in this room acquainted with numbers, Miss Harrow.”
“Indeed.” She folded her hands. “But I am the one charged with teaching them.”
He held her gaze for a moment. Then, with exaggerated reluctance, he took a step back.
“Very well,” he said to Miriam. “I leave you to your fate.”
When the lesson ended, after a grueling forty-five minutes during which Mabel declared three times that she was perishing of boredom and was twice persuaded otherwise by the introduction of biscuits into the proceedings, Martha closed the primer and dusted her hands.
“That will suffice for this morning,” she said. “This afternoon, we will have geography.”
“Geography is only slightly less tedious than arithmetic,” Mabel said.
“Geography,” Martha said, “tells you where you might go. Arithmetic tells you whether you can afford to get there. You will find both useful.”
“Can we go to London?” Agnes asked suddenly.
The room froze.
Richard’s shoulders went rigid.
“No,” he said. The word was flat. Absolute.
“Why not?” Agnes persisted.
“It is not… convenient,” he said.
“It is because of Mama,” Mabel said. “Is she there?”
Richard’s jaw clenched.
Martha stepped in. “These are questions,” she said gently, “that deserve more time than we have before luncheon. And they are questions for your father, not for me.”
“They are questions for *both* of you,” Miriam said, eyes on her slate. “Since you are the only adults we see.”
The barb landed.
“I have estate business,” Richard said sharply. “We will discuss London another time.”
“You always say that,” Mabel muttered.
“I said we will discuss it,” he snapped.
“And we say we do not believe you,” Miriam shot back.
Silence.
Martha could feel the moment stretch, taut, ready to snap.
“Children,” she said quietly. “Politeness does not require dishonesty. If you doubt someone, you may say so. But you may also choose *how* you say it.” She glanced at Richard. “Perhaps you might try, ‘I hope you mean that this time, Father.’”
Mabel snorted. “But we do not.”
“You might hope you might hope it,” Martha said.
Miriam’s mouth twisted. “That is very convoluted.”
“Most feelings are,” Martha replied.
Richard exhaled.
“I… will come again tomorrow,” he said, rough. “At nine.”
“On time?” Miriam asked.
“Yes,” he said. “On time.”
“We shall see,” Mabel murmured.
He shot her a look. Then, to Martha: “A word. In the corridor.”
She inclined her head, set down the chalk, and followed him.
***
The corridor outside the schoolroom was narrower than those on the main floor, the carpet threadbare. A window at the end let in a slant of watery light.
Richard turned to face her.
“You undermine me,” he said without preamble.
“How?” she asked, equally blunt.
“You corrected the way they spoke to me. You suggested alternate forms of address. You inserted yourself between us.”
“I moderated,” she said. “Which is part of my role.”
“Your role is to teach them,” he said. “Not to interpret their every remark as an opening for a lesson in rhetoric.”
“Everything is an opening for a lesson in rhetoric,” she said. “They spoke truthfully, but harshly. You responded defensively, but with authority. I attempted to show them that there is a middle path.”
“Middle paths are for those too timid to choose a side,” he said.
“They are for those who wish to stay on their feet instead of falling off a cliff,” she retorted.
His eyes flashed. “Do you know what it is to have your authority questioned by your own children in your own house?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “My father was a vicar. Parishioners, children, old ladies with hymnbooks—all of them questioned him, all the time. We had very thin walls.”
He paused.
“My daughters,” he said, “are not parishioners.”
“No,” she said. “They are your responsibility.”
The words were quiet, but they hit with force.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You speak as though I do not know that.”
“I speak as though you perhaps need reminding,” she said. “Just as they need reminding that you are not simply a wall to shout at.”
“You presume,” he began.
“You keep saying that,” she cut in. “If anyone in this scenario has presumed, it is you, my—” She caught herself. “Richard.”
“There,” he said sharply. “That. Do not do that.”
“Use your name?”
“Yes.”
“Why does it disturb you so?” she asked.
“Because it suggests familiarity that does not exist,” he snapped.
“Familiarity is not required,” she said. “Humanity is.”
His hands clenched at his sides. “You play with words, Miss Harrow.”
“No,” she said. “I live with them. Most of my power resides there. I have no title. No wealth. No servants to order about. Only what I can persuade others to do. And what I can persuade myself.”
He looked at her as though seeing, for the first time, the scaffolding of stubbornness beneath her calm.
“You persuade yourself,” he said slowly, “to walk into strangers’ houses and inform marquesses that they are failing as fathers.”
“Only when they *are* failing,” she said.
He should be furious. Part of him was. Another part—older, perhaps, or simply more tired—recognized something terrifyingly like relief.
“You are very sure of yourself,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I am very sure of *them*.” She nodded toward the door. “I have seen too many children pay for the weaknesses of the adults around them. If I can at least lessen that cost, I will.”
“And if, in doing so, you alienate me?”
She met his gaze steadily. “Then you will dismiss me. And hire another governess. And perhaps, in six months, another. And the girls will learn a different lesson: that any adult who tells them the truth will not be allowed to stay.”
He flinched.
“Is that what happened before?” she asked, very gently.
Pain flickered, quick and dangerous, across his features.
“You go too far,” he said.
“Probably,” she agreed. “Frequently. But you have not yet told me to stop.”
He stared at her. Then, abruptly, he laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. There was very little mirth in it. But it was laughter.
“I fear you are going to be a great deal of trouble,” he said.
“I do not fear it,” she said. “I am counting on it.”
A beat of silence.
He shook his head. “You will continue as you have begun,” he said. “For now. But you will remember that I am their father. That my word, in the end, is law here.”
“I have no desire to replace you,” she said. “Only to prod you, occasionally, into *being* here.”
His jaw tightened. “Prod gently.”
“I do nothing gently,” she said. “It is not in my nature.”
He believed her.
“Very well,” he said. “Prod. But if you drive me out of the schoolroom altogether, you will have achieved the opposite of your aim.”
“Then I will adjust my methods,” she said. “I am not a fanatic.”
“Debatable,” he muttered.
The corner of her mouth curled.
“I will see you at nine tomorrow, then,” she said.
“Punctuality,” he said, “is a virtue.”
“So is consistency,” she said.
She left him standing in the corridor, the faint scent of starch and soap lingering where she had stood.
He watched her go and thought, incongruously, of the first time he had seen Elizabeth in a ballroom, her laughter spilling like wine.
This woman did not spill. She measured, she poured, she rationed. But he had the unsettling sense that, behind all that control, something fierce burned.
He was not sure whether that fire would warm his daughters or set his entire, carefully constructed life alight.
***
That night, the house slept.
Mostly.
Martha lay awake longer than she liked, listening to Agnes’s soft coughs through the thin wall and the faint drip of water somewhere above her. Rain had started again. It tapped at the window like fingers.
At last, when her mind refused to quiet, she slipped from bed, wrapped her shawl around her shoulders, and lit a candle.
She had left the Aristotle on her table. She picked it up, thumbed through the pages. The marquess’s marginalia was sparse here; he seemed to save his ink for the political philosophers. Still, there were a few notes. A curt dismissal of Aristotle’s views on women. An approving underline beneath a passage on recognition.
She could have read in bed. She did, sometimes. But tonight, the walls of her narrow chamber pressed close. The air felt thick.
She opened the door and stepped into the dark corridor.
The house at night was a different creature. The noises changed. Floorboards creaked as though under invisible footsteps. The wind found new gaps to test. Somewhere, a door banged softly in its frame.
She moved quietly, candle held low, shawl clutched. On the second floor, the corridor was darker; someone had neglected to light the sconce. She made her way toward the library almost without deciding to.
It was, after all, the warmest room she had yet found in the entire house, when the fire was lit. And the books—
The door was ajar.
She hesitated. Then curiosity, that old and ever-troublesome impulse, pushed her hand forward.
The library was lit by only two candles: one on the central table, one on a side desk. The fire burned low, embers glowing.
Richard sat in the armchair by the hearth.
He wore a shirt open at the throat, the top buttons undone, sleeves rolled up. His cravat lay discarded on the side table, a limp white snake. His waistcoat hung over the back of the chair. He held a book in one hand, his other arm braced along the chair’s side, fingers curled loosely.
His hair, unbound by pomade, fell in messy waves over his brow. The faint shadow on his jaw had deepened. In this light, in this loosened state, he did not resemble a marquess at all.
He resembled a man.
Her heart gave an absurd little jolt.
He looked up at the soft scrape of the door.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then his brows drew together. “Miss Harrow.”
“Lord Corbyn,” she said, automatic.
His gaze flicked to the candle in her hand, to the Aristotle pressed to her chest, to the shawl wrapped tightly around her.
“Do you habitually wander other people’s houses in the middle of the night?” he asked.
“Only the ones that leak,” she said. “It is difficult to sleep with water dripping on one’s forehead.”
His mouth quirked. “As I recall, you chose that room.”
“As I recall,” she returned, “you refused to repair the roof.”
He huffed something that might, in a more generous mood, be called a laugh.
“How did you know I was here?” he asked.
“I did not,” she said. “I hoped. It seemed the likeliest place. For both of us.” She lifted the book slightly. “Aristotle makes poor company in bed.”
“I find him tolerable,” he said.
“I suspect you find anyone tolerable compared to Hobbes,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “You have been reading my margins.”
“I have been reading Aristotle’s arguments,” she said. “Your margins merely intrude.”
He gestured, brusque. “Well? Are you coming in or will you stand there criticizing the philosopher from the corridor?”
She considered. She ought, she knew, to withdraw. To apologize for the intrusion, retreat to her room, and leave him to his solitude. It was midnight. She was his employee. This was precisely the sort of situation that tongues in houses like this savored.
And yet—
He was here. Awake. Reading philosophy by firelight. A man who had buried himself in avoidance, now voluntarily sitting in the most haunted room in his house.
She stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind her.
***