She had been ordered not to look, and she had looked, and her hands were shaking.
6:00 had come and gone. The hour was nearly spent. She folded the cloth and let herself out.
At the door, she paused and turned back to the chair by the fire. Whoever had put it there had done so on purpose.
Who had lit the fire? And why would anyone warm a room for a woman who was not supposed to be in it?
* * *
Four mornings later, the Duke was in the room before she was.
He stood by the fire he had not needed to light. He held a folded paper and did not look at it.
Hester stopped in the doorway with her cloth and her one candle. Judge walked past her and lay down on the hearth rug as if he had been invited.
"Shut the door," said the Duke.
She shut it.
"Dr. Sutherby tells me you are at the stone every morning till 7."
"I am dusting it, your grace."
"For 50 minutes past the hour."
"It is a large stone."
"It is 4 ft high."
He glanced at the plinth.
"It has been dusted twice. Once by you, and once by you."
She said nothing.
He was quick, then, whatever else he was.
He crossed to the table. He did not sit. He did not seem to be a man who sat.
"My father spent 20 years on that stone," he said. "I have spent 10. I have paid seven men £12,000 to tell me what it says. They have told me 11 different things."
"Yes, your grace."
"Can you read it?"
It was the plainest question anyone had asked her in 14 months. It carried a trap or a mercy, and she could not tell which.
Her hand went to her apron pocket before she could stop it.
"Some of it," she said.
"How much is some?"
"Enough to say the seven gentlemen are wrong."
The Duke was silent for a long moment.
"That is a considerable claim from a housemaid."
"It is a considerable stone."
The ghost of something crossed his face and did not stay.
"Then we will have terms," he said. "I dislike a bargain in which one party is guessing."
"So do I."
"I want it read. All of it, accurately and quietly. Sutherby is not to know until there is no argument left to make."
"And why is that, your grace?"