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heart aching as she recognized the house plans she and Gilbert had drawn up long ago. After much discussion and many revisions, here was their ideal house.
    Perhaps it had only been a game to him. An exercise. But for her it had been very real. She had imagined living in those rooms. Filling those bedchambers with their children. Eating their meals together in that dining room with its bow window overlooking a landscaped garden through which she and Gilbert would stroll arm in arm. . . .
    She blinked away the foolish images and the tears that accompanied them. They had been adolescents. He probably didn’t even remember drawing these plans with her and would likely be chagrined to know she had kept them. She was tempted to tear them up, or burn them, but in the end, she couldn’t bear to do so. Although it was not very practical to go to the trouble of transporting them to their new home, she rolled the plans carefully and laid them in her trunk—keeping alive a dream probably better relinquished once and for all.

    On the appointed day, Abigail and her father traveled by post chaise back to Pembrooke Park. A line of newly hired servants stood shoulder to shoulder at the entrance awaiting their arrival.
    Mac Chapman was there to greet them. “Good morning, Miss Foster. Mr. Foster. May I introduce Mrs. Walsh, your new cook-housekeeper.”
    The thick-waisted, kind-looking woman bowed her head respectfully. “Sir. Miss.”
    “Her kitchen maid, Jemima.”
    A thin girl of no more than fifteen giggled shyly, then bobbed a curtsy.
    “And these are Polly and Molly. Sisters, as you may have guessed. They will be your housemaids.”
    The two dipped curtsies and smiled warmly. The pair of pretty girls were perhaps eighteen and nineteen, one with dark blond hair and the other a light brown.
    Abigail smiled in return.
    Mac turned to the lone male among the new hires. “And this is Duncan. He’s to be your manservant, odd job man, haul and carry—whatever you need.”
    The man with sandy brown hair was in his late twenties with broad shoulders and brawny arms. He certainly looked as if he could haul and carry.
    He bowed perfunctorily but offered no smile as the others had done.
    Her father said to the former steward, “Thank you, Mr. Chap—”
    “Mac,” he reminded them.
    “Mac. Well . . . Welcome, everyone.”
    Abigail added, “We are glad you are here. Shall we get started?”
    After consulting with Mac and Mrs. Walsh, they decided they would begin with the kitchen, scullery, servants’ hall, and sleeping quarters—so the staff could eat and sleep in the manor—and then move on to preparing bedchambers for the Fosters. Mrs. Walsh would occupy the housekeeper’s parlor and Duncan the former butler’s room belowstairs, while the young maids would sleep in bedchambers in the attic.
    For several days, while her father primarily remained at the BlackSwan, Abigail oversaw the servants’ work each day, returning to the inn at night. She answered the servants’ questions as they cleaned and aired the house room by room.
    Abigail’s father insisted she pick whichever bedchamber she wanted for herself—her small reward for coming early and preparing the house. It was kind of him, the first kind words he’d spoken to her since the disastrous bank failure, and she treasured them—though her practical, skeptical mind told her he’d only said it to assuage his guilt for leaving her to oversee the work alone.
    Whatever his reasons, Abigail did not choose either of the largest rooms—the master’s and mistress’s bedchambers in the past, she guessed. Nor did she pick the newest—the one in the later addition over the drawing room with its big sunny windows and lofty half tester bed.
    Instead, she picked the modest-sized room with the dolls’ house. She was drawn to the little window seat overlooking a walled garden and pond with the river beyond. She was drawn to the cherished dolls’ house and the small blue frock