Miss Upchurch looked up expectantly from her writing desk, her brow furrowed. “Oh? Why?”
With nervous energy, Margaret washed her hands, then retrieved the new fichu from a drawer. “A man has come,” she said, barely managing an accent. “A Mr. Benton.”
Helen cast her a quick look. “Sterling Benton?”
Margaret nodded, arranging the fichu around Helen’s shoulders and tucking it into the neckline of her gold day dress.
“What does he want?”
Margaret swallowed. “Says his stepdaughter has gone missing. And he’s showing her miniature and asking if anyone has seen her.”
“And did anyone recognize... the woman in the portrait?”
Margaret repinned a lock of hair that had come loose from Helen’s twist. “Only Mr. Upchurch, I think.”
“Why does Mr. Benton ask for me?”
“I don’t know, miss. To ask if you’ve seen the girl, I suppose.”
For a moment the two women looked at one another face-to-face and eye-to-eye.
Helen asked soberly, “And have I?”
Margaret pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. Her throat went dry. She whispered, “That’s for you to say.”
Helen cocked her head to one side. “But?”
In the silence, the mantel clock ticked.
Hoping to give her a way out, Margaret stammered, “But... your brother did tell him that,yourseeing... her... was highly unlikely. You not being out much in society.”
Helen frowned. “Be that as it may, I have eyes, have I not?”
Margaret lowered her gaze. “Yes, miss.”
She had said the wrong thing. Now what would Helen say?
———
Margaret followed Helen back to the stairway, staying a few yards behind her, matching her stately pace. She was reluctant to return to the hall, her every nerve pulsing a warning—Turn around, run, flee!
Instead she put one foot in front of the other and followed her mistress. Would Helen expose her? What would happen if she did? She would lose her place to live, her dignity, her freedom. Would she be forced to leave with Sterling? She had nowhere else to go.
The people on the stairs parted like the Red Sea to allow their mistress to pass between them.
Margaret resumed her place beside Betty.
“Ah, Miss Upchurch.” Sterling Benton beamed his icy, enigmatic smile. “How good of you to join us. A pleasure to see you again, even though one would wish for happier circumstances.”
“Mr. Benton.”
He handed her the portrait. “You may recall my stepdaughter, Margaret Macy?”
Helen regarded the framed image. “I recall Miss Macy, though of course she was not your stepdaughter when last I saw her in London. She was the daughter of Mr. Stephen Macy, an exceptional gentleman and clergyman, gone from this world too soon.”
Margaret’s heart squeezed to hear the words. She had not realized Helen had more than a passing acquaintance with her father.
Mr. Benton’s mouth tightened fractionally. “How kind of you to say.”
