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the Maitlands’s social circle, but here at Oakgate, everything—including the appliances—is the real deal.
    Standing at the vintage farmhouse sink, Royce pours his wife’s untouched sweet tea—a remnant of her well-loved, late-afternoon ritual—down the drain.
    â€œBetter run some water,” a voice says behind him, startling him so that he nearly drops the glass.
    He turns to see the Remingtons’s longtime live-in housekeeper standing in the doorway that leads to the maids’ quarters off the kitchen. “Nydia! You scared me.”
    Her staccato laugh is free of mirth.
    She’s one tart old biddy, Royce thinks every time he finds himself interacting with her.
    To Nydia’s further discredit: she has a disconcerting way of slithering up behind a person when they least expect it. This isn’t the first time she’s caused Royce to jump out of his skin.
    â€œDid you think I was a ghost, Mr. Maitland?”
    â€œOf course not.” But you do look like one, he can’t help noting.
    Nydia is a wisp of a woman, prone to wearing pastels, and her short hair and uninteresting features are as pale as the tiresome grits she dishes up every morning. Royce has no idea how old she is; she’s one of those people who could be in her fifties or in her seventies, but is most likely somewhere in between. He does know she’s been with Charlotte’s grandfather since his children were young.
    â€œSome people think this house is haunted,” she comments, taking the glass from his hand and opening the dishwasher.
    â€œDo you think it’s haunted?”
    â€œBy the living as much as the dead,” is her strange, prompt reply.
    He waits for her to elaborate.
    She doesn’t, forcing him to ask, “What do you mean by that?”
    Having placed the glass on the top rack, she closes the dishwasher in silence and turns to the sink, brushing him aside.
    She turns on the water.
    When she speaks, it’s only to say, “Tea stains this old white porcelain, you know, Mr. Maitland.”
    Royce steps back, watching her wash it away, wondering if he should press her on that cryptic comment about the house. She’s lived here for decades. She must know many things he doesn’t.
    Before he can speak up, she turns off the water, dries her hands, and faces him once again, dour as usual. “There. A place for everything, and everything in its place.”
    â€œI was about to put away the glass and rinse the sink when you came in,” he is compelled to inform her.
    â€œI’m sure you were.”
    No, you aren’t. You don’t trust me, and you don’t think I belong here, Royce thinks, not for the first time.
    He can’t help but notice, as he also has before, that Nydia owns the only pair of blue eyes he’s ever seen that aren’t the least bit flattering. They’re close-set and small, the washed-out shade of the sky on a halfhearted summer afternoon, with a smattering of lashes the color of fresh corn silk.
    What a far cry from Charlotte’s rich, purply-indigo irises fringed by lush, dark lashes.
    â€œWhere is Ms. Remington?” Nydia inquires, as if she’s read his mind.
    He suppresses the urge to remind her that it’s Mrs. Maitland now, not Ms. Remington, and has been for over a year.
    â€œShe’s upstairs changing. We’re going out to dinner.”
    â€œI was about to heat some soup for Mrs. Harper and the little boy.”
    And she’s none too pleased about that, judging by her tone.
    â€œWhat about you?” he asks, determined to be civil. “Did you eat?”
    She shakes her head. “I’m fine.”
    â€œCan we bring something back for you from town?” he offers generously. “Pizza? Some pecan fried chicken?” Sugar for that lemon you appear to have swallowed?
    â€œNo, thank you.”
    Not only doesn’t she trust me, Royce notes uneasily, taken aback by