The search began. Mrs. Dobbs and the butler went from room to room with two footmen while the servants waited in silence. The great clock ticked. Half an hour passed, then an hour.
Then footsteps came down the stairs. Mrs. Dobbs was walking slowly, her face white. In one hand, she carried something that glittered.
"My lady," she said to the Dowager, her voice trembling, "it was in the attic, in the room shared by Betsy Moore and Clara Bell." She swallowed. "It was inside Clara's pillow."
Every head in the hall turned toward Clara.
Betsy gave a little cry. "No! Clara would never—she never would!"
"Silence!" snapped the Dowager.
Clara stepped forward. She made herself speak calmly, though her knees were shaking. "I did not take it, Your Grace. I have never even seen it before. Someone put it there."
"Someone?" Lady Cecilia repeated softly. "How very convenient."
"There is something else, my lady," said Mrs. Dobbs unhappily. In her other hand, she held a small leather book. "The mattress had been cut open. This was hidden inside."
Clara's heart stopped: the diary.
Before the Dowager could reach for it, Lady Cecilia stepped forward and took it smoothly from the housekeeper's hand. She opened it and turned the pages slowly. Clara watched her eyes move across the old Duke's handwriting. And then Clara saw Cecilia stop—only for a moment, only for a single breath, but Clara saw it: Cecilia's face went pale beneath the powder, her fingers tightening on the little book. Then she closed it with a snap.
"It is the late Duke's private diary," Cecilia said, turning to the Dowager with wide, innocent eyes. "This girl has been stealing from his rooms, Your Grace."
"From his rooms?" The Dowager's voice rose sharply for the first time. "That is impossible! Those rooms are locked; I hold the only key."
"Not quite the only way in, I am afraid." Lady Cecilia reached into the folds of her gown. She drew out a long, dark blue silk ribbon and held it up for everyone to see. "I found this last night on the floor beside the hunting tapestry, outside the old Duke's study. There is a door there—a little hidden door."
Gasps went through the hall. Everyone knew that ribbon; everyone had seen it on Clara's cap.
The Dowager Duchess turned slowly to face Clara, her eyes terrible. "You entered my husband's rooms," she said, "in the middle of the night. You went through his private papers."
Clara opened her mouth, and then she closed it again. What could she say? That she was looking for papers that would prove her father's innocence? Then she would have to say who her father was, and Lady Cecilia, daughter of the Earl of Marlowe, was standing right there listening.
There was only one thing she could say: "His Grace knows I was there," she said quietly. "Ask the Duke. He will tell you that I took nothing."