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gatehouse the next morning, Mariah’s heart gave a little leap. Had Captain Bryant returned, to ask her name and thank her once again?
    Foolish girl , she admonished herself. Laying aside her quill, she rose from the writing table in the sitting room and hurried downstairs with none of the trepidation of the night before.
    But it was not the front door that rattled but the rear kitchen door. And it was not Captain Bryant standing on her doorstep. It was Martin, her aunt’s hook-handed manservant.
    His expression was grim indeed. “She has asked for you again, Miss Aubrey. We’d best not tarry.”
    Mariah wrapped a light shawl around her shoulders against the damp March breeze and followed him from the gatehouse. Though she was nearly as tall as he was, she had difficulty keeping up with his rapid pace up the drive.
    When Mariah entered Mrs. Prin-Hallsey’s crowded bedchamber, she was obliged to skirt a wheeled invalid chair she had not noticed before. Stepping to the foot of the bed, she saw that her aunt’s skin was waxy thin and her eyes vaguely focused, until they lighted on Mariah. Mrs. Prin-Hallsey gestured to Miss Jones, who quickly rose and helped position her farther up on the pillows. The wig had at last been replaced by an ornamental cap. From beneath it, a few strands of brown and grey showed.
    “Mariah.” Her voice was weak.
    Mariah stepped closer. “Mrs. Prin-Hallsey.”
    She shook her head. “Not that name.”
    “Francesca.”
    Another shake. “The name you used to call me. As a girl.”
    Tears bit Mariah’s eyes and thickened her throat. “Aunt Fran.”
    The woman closed her eyes as though to relish the sound, and so Mariah repeated it, provoking a hint of a smile on her aunt’s face.
    Fran Prin-Hallsey accepted the drink Miss Jones brought to her lips, then allowed the maid to dab her mouth with a handkerchief before looking once more at Mariah. “Remember those poems and little plays you wrote and performed at Christmas and Epiphany?”
    A ray of pleasure warmed Mariah’s heart. “Yes, but I am surprised you do.”
    “You always were a creative girl. Writing. Playacting.” Another shadow of a smile crossed her face. “I like a bit of drama myself, you know.”
    She crooked a finger, and Mariah obediently drew near the bed.
    “Closer.”
    She leaned over her aunt, nearly close enough to whisper in her ear. Then her aunt snaked up a trembling hand and dragged the key from her bodice. Miss Jones leaned over the other side of the bed and helped draw it over her head. Raising both hands slowly as though made of granite, Fran Prin-Hallsey reached the old chain up and over Mariah’s bent head. Her arms shook from the effort.
    Under her aunt’s watchful eye, Mariah tucked the key into her own bodice, glad she had not worn a high-necked frock that day.
    A sudden scratching sound from the door pulled Mariah’s head around. Hugh Prin-Hallsey stood in the threshold, chin high, eyes alert.
    “What has she given you? Nothing of my mother’s, I trust?”
    Mariah swallowed. “No, sir.”
    “Do not fret, Hugh,” Francesca said languidly. “It is only a chain given me by my first husband. Its value is purely sentimental. Mariah admired it as a girl, and I thought she might like to have it.”
    It was lies. The lot of it. But Mariah did not refute a word.
    Hugh held her gaze, then turned on his heel and disappeared from view.
    Her aunt whispered, “He thinks I have a treasure hidden away somewhere.”
    Mariah chuckled. “Why would he think that?”
    “I hinted at that very thing.” Francesca’s eyes glinted. “Did it to torment him.”
    “Have you a treasure?” Mariah asked.
    Her aunt Fran lifted a faint shrug. “Haven’t we all?”

    Two days later, Jack Strong brought the news that Mrs. Prin-Hallsey had died in the night. Mariah was surprised at the cloud of loss and grief that hovered over her. She was further surprised when Hugh Prin-Hallsey appeared at the gatehouse a few days after