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behind the rungs of her chair,
    knowing that nothing would serve to conceal the sturdy, sensible, and unfashionable
    boots upon her feet.
     
    But Mrs. Kennet apparently saw nothing to dislike in me picture before her. She
    seated herself carefully in the chair opposite Sarah, a momentary look of unease
    crossing her mobile patrician features, as if she suffered some inward pang.
     
    „Is something wrong?“ Sarah asked.
     
    „A touch of indigestion, perhaps – I will not say that travel disagrees with me, but
    the victualing that one finds in one’s travels certainly does. But you will wonder, and
    rightly so, what business an entire stranger may have with you,“ Mrs. Kennet said
    briskly.
     
    Sarah had schooled her features to polite interest, and Mrs. Kennet smiled. „How
    rarely one finds such mannerliness in the young!“ she commented. From her sleeve
    she withdrew a billet of ivory vellum sealed with a red blotch of wax, and extended it
    toward Sarah.
     
    Sarah took it and gazed down at the picture in the wax: a crowned Salamander in
    flames, surrounded by a ribbon of Latin motto too blurred to make out „It is the seal
     

 
    of the Dukes of Wessex – a not inconsiderable power in England,“ her mentor
    commented.
     
    „This cannot be for me,“ Sarah said in bewilderment „It is, if you are Cordelia
    Herriard’s great-granddaughter. She married a Richard Masham, did she not?“
     
    „Her son was my mother’s grandfather, so I suppose I am. But – “
     
    „Read your letter – and then, if you please, you may tell me what it contains, for
    that is one consideration Her Grace never rendered me.“
     
    Sarah broke the seal and scanned the pages of precise elegant script, her
    confusion deepening by the moment The writer spoke of an ancient wrong done to
    the Herriards by her own family, of betrayal and unlawful attainder, and of a suit
    before the Chancery Court that had taken more than a century and the reigns of
    half-a-dozen kings to wend its way to completion.
     
    „But this is foolishness!“ Sarah burst out, passing the pages to her companion
    half-read. „What can any of this have to do with me?“
     
    Mrs. Kennet glanced over the pages briefly before she replied.
     
    „It is best you know from the first that my patron is the Dowager Duchess of
    Wessex, and I have some cause to know that noble family well, for mine has served
    theirs since before your unhappy ancestress was exiled to this bitter place. If the St.
    Iveses and the Dyers feel that some redress is owed you, then be sure they will find
    some way to pay their debt down to the last ha’penny.“
     
    „But what can they owe to me?“ Sarah asked again.
     
    Mrs. Kennet smiled. „Child, that matters not in me face of their determination that
    they shall pay. I see from this letter that the Dowager wishes you to come to
    England – is there any reason that you may not accompany me when I take ship next
    week?“
     
    Sarah had hesitated only momentarily, the certain future here at home weighing
    very lightly against a future that held, at least, the allure of difference.
     
    „There is no reason at all, Mrs. Kennet. I shall be delighted to accompany you,“
    Sarah said firmly.
     
    In her tiny cabin on the Lady Bright, Sarah refolded the Dowager Duchess of
    Wessex’s letter once more. She had withdrawn her promise a thousand times in the
    week that had followed, for Cousin Masham was not shy in awarding the rough side
    of her tongue to both Sarah Cunningham and the „English adventuress“ who had
    beguiled her, but Mrs. Kennet was one who delighted in pitched battle, as well as
    one who listened to one’s first words and conveniently ignored the last. Sarah, had
    said she would accompany her when me Lady Bright sailed from Baltimore to
    England, and nothing Sarah might say afterward would be allowed to alter that
    impulsive decision in the slightest. Borne upon the spring tide of Mrs. Kennet’s
    formidable will,