"Do you know what this is?" he asked.
"It is only stitching, sir. My mother liked pretty things."
"Where did she learn to make it?"
"I could not say. She died when I was small."
Arthur straightened. He studied her downcast eyes, the careful blankness she had pulled over her face like a curtain. She was guarding something, and guarding it well. A common maid would have wept, or babbled, or begged for mercy; this one answered each question and gave nothing away. And that, more than the embroidery, told him he was not speaking to a common maid at all.
"What was your mother's name?" he asked gently.
"Mary, Your Grace." The answer came a beat too quickly.
"And her people? Where did she come from?"
"From the north. I do not know the village." Clara's hands tightened. "Your Grace, if I have done something wrong, I would beg you to tell me plainly. I have no wish to play at riddles."
Arthur regarded her in silence. He could press her now. He could name the House of Crestwood aloud and watch what broke in her face. But the thought of the disgraced family stirred something old and uneasy in him—a memory of the trial, of how swiftly the verdict had come, of how few had asked whether it was just. If this girl truly carried that blood, then she had survived ten years by trusting no one. He would not earn her trust by cornering her in a candlelit room at midnight.
He needed time. He needed records and proof, and the freedom to ask his questions where no one would overhear. And he could hardly do any of that while she scrubbed floors three stories below.