gathered half the road in mud. She stepped down carefully, lifted the hem of her blue dress clear of the stones, and handed her invitation to the butler. He examined the seal with the faint surprise of a man discovering that a village teacher was expected at a nobleman's house. Then he bowed and directed her inside.
Lady Honoria received Nora in a small library away from the crowded hall. She was a thin, sharp-eyed woman in black silk, with a walking stick beside her chair and a shawl drawn close around her shoulders. "Your mother once made my favorite coat," she said by way of greeting. "She refused to charge me for repairing the lining when I tore it on a gate. I paid her anyway. I have admired her judgment ever since." She pointed toward the bundle in Nora's hand. "Now show me yours."
Nora laid out the copies of the work tickets, the lists of missing goods, and the entries from the school's own daybook. Lady Honoria listened without interruption. One entry showed a payment of two hundred and forty pounds for coal to a supplier named Barrow & Sons. Nora had visited the actual coal merchant, who insisted that his firm had made no deliveries to the school after Michaelmas. Another recorded one hundred and eighty pounds for apprentices' wages, though Nora's signed receipt book showed that almost none of it had reached the girls. Together those sums would have kept the school warm and the pupils paid for many months.
A knock interrupted them. Nathaniel Ashcombe entered, tall and fair-haired, wearing a dark evening coat and a white cravat tied with severe precision. His expression softened at the sight of his great-aunt, then grew guarded when he noticed Nora. Lady Honoria introduced them and told him that Miss Fenwick had brought questions concerning his mother's charitable trust. For an instant he looked uncomfortable rather than offended. "I have seen reports that the school is functioning adequately," he said. "Mr. Prowse assures me all accounts have been settled."
"Then he has assured you of something that is not true," Nora answered. Nathaniel raised his eyes to her face. It was an awkward beginning, but she would not apologize for it. She told him about the missing coal and unpaid work. He listened, though his manner remained restrained. "If there has been an error, it will be corrected," he said. Nora had heard that phrase from too many men who meant to delay until an inconvenient visitor went away. "An error does not repeat itself in six different ledgers," she replied. "And a child cannot warm her hands with a promise that someone will investigate."
Cecily was waiting beneath a portrait of the Ashcombe ancestors, surrounded by guests who had formed a small court around her. Her champagne-colored gown shimmered in the candlelight, its bodice arranged with costly lace and a spray of seed pearls. She was beautiful in a way