Matilda read the letter once, then again. In the past, such a message would have frightened her into silence; now she saw the fear inside it. Beckham was not writing because he felt secure; he was writing because she had left Falconhurst with something he did not control. She folded the letter and placed it beside the incomplete proof.
Mrs. Albright looked up from her needlework. "Bad news?"
"A threat pretending to be advice."
"Those are common."
"Are they?"
"Among people who benefit from obedience." Matilda looked at her. The widow continued stitching: "You should write that down."
"I am a composer, not a philosopher."
"Today, perhaps you can be both."
Matilda did write it down, though not as philosophy. She wrote it in the margin of her private notes: Beckham fears public contradiction.
That evening, she finally opened Robert's letter. It had arrived the previous day and remained unopened on her desk because she had not trusted herself to read it. The envelope carried no ducal crest, only her name. Inside was one page:
I will not ask where you are. When you decide I may be useful, tell me how.
Nothing more.
Matilda read it twice, then a third time. He had done what she asked: he had not followed; he had not sent money, advice, protection, or a solution; he had left the choice with her. The restraint touched something more vulnerable than apology had. She folded the letter and placed it beneath the silver tuning fork.
For two more days, she said nothing. She worked. She visited the printer's office with Mrs. Albright's companion and examined the order ledger. Beckham's instructions had arrived on a Monday; the proof had been set from an incomplete copy; no replacement ending had followed. The printer remembered being told that the final pages would be supplied later. They never were.
Matilda asked him whether he would confirm that fact if formally requested.
He rubbed his chin. "I don't want trouble with Mr. Beckham."
"Neither do I."
"Yet here you are."
"Yes."
He looked at her for a long moment. "Then, if asked properly, I'll tell the truth."
Another piece. Not enough; more than before.
She also found a dated invoice for copying work submitted under her own initials. It covered the exact week in which the second movement had been revised. Hester had publicly claimed to have finished that movement months earlier. The contradiction was small, useful. Matilda gathered everything into a single folder.