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will have to conserve your strength and not do yourself in! Back to the house, I insist.”
    As they turned round, Ada looked up at the great stone bulk of Somerton Court, massive as a pyramid. They had been walking in its shadow all this time, she realized. Dark windows gazed back at her like secret eyes, and she thought she glimpsed a figure at one of them, dressed in the black and white of a maid. But it was gone the next moment she looked.
    “Yes, back to the house,” Georgiana said with a sigh. “We must get used to our new home—and our new family.”

Dinner was finally over, and the housemaids had filed off to bed in the attic. The footmen were snoring in the hall. Only Mrs. Cliffe was still awake.
    She walked from room to dark room, the gas lamp in her hand. Its light and the faint jingle of keys at her belt marked her path through the house. She paused by each ground floor window to try it. Satisfied that they were fastened, she moved on, toward the main stairs.
    Though there was little light, she did not hesitate. With her eyes closed she could have told you where the outbuildings and the stables lay, she could have told you on which of the four floors and in which of the two hundred rooms she stood. Placed blindfolded in the attic or the cellar, she could have made her way unerringly back to the servants’ passage, taking her clues from the line of the wainscoting, the height of the ceilings above her, the creak of a floorboard, the pattern of echoes. She could feel Somerton around her even when she was not aware of doing so, sensing her place in the house, as familiar and secure as the stays she had put on every day since she was fourteen. For better or worse, her life was here.
    On her way back to the parlor, she paused. A faint sound echoed down the stairs. It was music, the halting notes of a piano.
    Mrs. Cliffe stood, thoughtful. Perhaps she should go upstairs and check that the music room was secure. On the other hand, if the young ladies wished to practice at this time of night, it was not her place to complain.
    She walked on to the parlor. As she entered it, the clock was just striking eleven, and as she set the lamp down, there was a knock at her door.
    Mrs. Cliffe hesitated only a second before turning back and opening the door.
    “Good evening, Lord Westlake,” she said, her voice perfectly calm, despite the fact that there was no good reason for the master of the house to be in the servants’ quarters at this time of night. She stepped back to let him in and, with a glance up and down the servants’ passage, closed the door behind them. Then she turned to face her master, who stood awkwardly in the center of the room.
    “Won’t you sit down, sir?”
    Lord Westlake grimaced. “Rosaline,” he began. He hesitated. “Mrs. Cliffe. You must be surprised to see me here at this time.”
    Mrs. Cliffe startled herself by wanting to smile. He was the same as always—oblivious. “Not really,” she said.
    “I came to—well, I came to apologize.”
    “Please, do sit down. It wouldn’t be proper for me to sit in your presence unless you do, and my feet are tired.”
    Lord Westlake sat, hurriedly, in one of the easy chairs near the dying fire. Mrs. Cliffe lowered herself into the housekeeper’s chair.
    “I cannot imagine what you have to apologize to me for,” she said.
    “For this marriage, of course. It must be—I know it must be a shock to you.”
    Rosaline stared into the fire. The embers were nearly cold.
    “It has meant a lot of extra work for the staff, but that cannot be helped. It was the fault of the telegraph service.”
    “You know what I mean,” he answered.
    Rosaline considered denying it. But they had known each other too long to be anything other than honest.
    “I think I know what you mean,” she said. There was a dull ache in her feet and she wanted nothing more than to be asleep in bed. It had been a long day. “But I assure you there is no need for apology. I