“The late marquess and marchioness,” Mrs McConnor said, following Serena’s gaze. “Lord Greystone’s brother and his wife.”
“They were very young,” Serena observed quietly.
“Not yet thirty, either of them.” Mrs McConnor’s voice remained controlled, though the grief beneath it was unmistakable. “The carriage accident was two years ago this autumn. His lordship brought the children here immediately afterwards. He was named their guardian in the will, you see. The marchioness had family in Bath, but they…” She trailed off, her expression souring. “Well. His lordship felt the children belonged here, and here they have remained.”
Serena looked at the portrait again—at the smiling parents, at the children who had been too young to understand how much they were about to lose. The boy in the portrait must be Samuel, she realised. He looked no more than six in the painting, his face alight with the uncomplicated joy of childhood. The girl was Ella, recognisable even then by her sharp grey eyes and determined chin. And the smallest child, barely more than a baby in her mother’s arms, must be Rosie.
“It must have been very difficult,” Serena said. “For everyone.”
“It was.” Mrs McConnor turned away, her spine rigid. “But we manage. We always manage. This way, Miss Collard.”
They continued along the corridor, past doors Serena suspected she would soon learn to navigate, until they reached the nursery wing. The transition was marked by a subtle shift in atmosphere: the walls were painted a paler shade of grey here—though still grey, Serena noted with mild resignation—and someone had attempted to add warmth with vases of dried flowers and cheerful landscapes in gilt frames.
The schoolroom door stood open, and through it Serena saw a long table surrounded by child-sized chairs, a globe on its stand in one corner, and shelves lined with books that appeared to have been genuinely used. It was, she thought, a proper schoolroom—the sort her father would have approved of, with all the necessary tools of education at hand.
“The children take their lessons here from nine until noon,” Mrs McConnor explained. “Luncheon follows in the small dining room, then quiet time—reading or needlework for Miss Ella, rest for the younger ones. Afternoon activities vary with the weather. Dinner at six, bed by eight for all three.”
Serena nodded, committing the routine to memory. Structure, she had learned, was essential for children who had lost their footing; it offered something solid to grasp when everything else felt uncertain.
“And Lord Greystone?” she asked. “Does he spend time with the children?”
Mrs McConnor’s expression smoothed into careful blankness. “His lordship is much occupied with estate matters. He inquires after them regularly and ensures they have everything they require.”
Which, Serena noted, was not quite the same as spending time with them at all.
“I see,” she said, and did not pursue the matter.
They moved past the schoolroom to a comfortable sitting room—this one painted a soft yellow, with cushioned chairsarranged before the fireplace and a window seat overlooking the gardens below. And there, arranged like figures in a tableau, were the remaining two children Serena had come to teach.
Samuel sat in one of the chairs, a book open in his lap, though Serena suspected he was not truly reading it. He was a handsome boy, dark-haired like his elder sister, with features that hinted he might one day grow into the sort of man who turned heads in ballrooms. But there was a stillness to him that was unnatural in an eight-year-old—a watchfulness that spoke of too much seen, too much lost, too early learned about the world’s unreliability.
He did not look up as they entered. His gaze remained fixed upon the page, his body tense and unmoving.
And then there was Rosie.
She was curled into the corner of the window seat, small and delicate as a china doll, clutching something to her chest. A doll, Serena realised—a rag doll with yellow yarn hair that had clearly seen better days. The hair was missing in patches, as though tugged away by anxious fingers, and one of its button eyes hung loose upon a thread.
Rosie herself was the image of her mother from the portrait—fair hair, blue eyes, a rosebud mouth that ought to have been shaped for smiles. But there were none upon her face now. Only wariness, and something that looked very much like fear.
“Children,” Mrs McConnor said, her voice softening in a way Serena had not yet heard, “this is Miss Collard. She is to be your new governess.”
Neither child replied.
Serena waited a moment, then crossed the room and settled into the chair nearest Samuel—close enough to seem approachable, yet far enough away not to crowd him.
“Good afternoon,” she said pleasantly. “I am very glad to meet you both. Miss Ella has already told me a great deal about the household, though I suspect there is much more yet to learn.”
Samuel’s eyes flickered up from his book—only for an instant—before dropping again. But it was long enough for Serena to glimpse what lay behind them: grief, certainly, but also something harder. Distrust. The quiet conviction that this new person would, like all the others, eventually disappear.
She did not take it personally. She could not afford to.
“I understand you enjoy reading,” she said, nodding towards the book in his hands. “What are you reading?”
For a long moment, she thought he would not answer. The silence stretched between them, heavy with all the things he could not, or would not say.
Then, so quietly she almost missed it, “Robinson Crusoe.”
“An excellent choice. I read it myself when I was about your age. I remember being particularly fascinated by the footprint in the sand. Do you know the part I mean?”
