Page 42 of A Legacy of Lies

She turned into the corridor. Conversation stilled like a candle pinched between finger and thumb. No one met her eyes. A scullery maid bobbed and reached for the basket she did not need. A footman offered to take the linens and fled before she could hand them to him.

Clara moved as if nothing were amiss, refusing to respond to every averted glance. “Mrs. Greaves, did Cook send up the lavender starch or the plain?”

Edith Greaves smoothed her apron. “Plain will do.” The words had a proper shape, yet they landed wrong. The housekeeper tipped her chin toward the far door. “You should give those to Percival. He has matters in hand.”

“Matters,” Clara repeated. The word soured on her tongue.

Edith’s mouth thinned. “You would do best to go along, Miss Whitmore.”

The steward’s office door stood half open. Beyond it, a desk with papers stacked in rigid towers. Hollis’s pale knuckles braced on the edge as if the wood might steady him. On the blotter lay a small velvet pouch. Black. Unmarked. Its silver drawstring frayed.

Her breath stilled. The pouch belonged to last night, to a gallery lit by lightning, to a voice that had stepped out of the darkness and would not go back. She had hidden it when the house slept, up under the eaves, in the old chest with the broken latch. She had closed the lid and waited for the soft click that never came.

It lay here.

Hollis lifted his gaze and lost it again. “Miss Whitmore.” His voice rasped. “There has been a discovery.”

The world narrowed to the pouch. “What is that doing on your desk?” Her voice came sharp enough to cut itself.

He swallowed. “A junior maid brought a cloak from the hall for drying. The butler asked for it to be brushed. When the maid reached into the pocket, she found that.” He glanced at the pouch. “She brought it to Mrs. Greaves. Mrs. Greaves brought it to me.”

“My cloak.”

A nod. Small. Miserable.

“I left nothing in the pocket.”

“I am sure you did not.” He fought the words through a throat that did not wish to say them. “It is not my place to judge. Only to receive and to report. Percival has gone to inform Her Grace.”

Clara’s hands tightened around the linen stack until the hems bit into her palms. The room held steady, and yet the floor shifted beneath it. She saw the chest in the attic, the splintered rim, the cloth she had wrapped around the pouch, the care she had taken. Someone had gone there. Someone who knew the way.

Her father’s voice was in the room without a body. You touched it.

“Stop,” she murmured, trying to still his ghost. She had whispered that word a thousand times as a child, unheard, unheeded, but always hers.

Clara drew a breath that did not quite fill her. “Do not let that sit open.”

Hollis blinked. “No, miss.” He tugged the drawstring and tied a knot that would not hold. Fear glazed his brow. He was a steward with a ledger and a code. Jewels on his desk foretold trouble.

Percival’s measured step came down the passage. He filled the doorway, his expression contained.

“Her Grace requests the steward, the housekeeper, and Miss Whitmore in the morning room.” He looked toward the blotter. “Bring that.”

No one else moved. Clara set the linens on a chair. Her fingers would not uncurl at first. She forced them straight, the motion more disciplined than calm.

The morning room held a thin fire and the scent of lemon oil. Light filtered through gauze curtains, soft but watchful. Eleanor sat in the glow, her cane upright, every inch of her arranged for battle. She did not ask anyone to sit.

Percival placed the pouch on a folded cloth before her. He stepped back.

“A maid,” Eleanor said, her voice as even as the rain’s whisper, “retrieved a cloak for brushing. A pouch lay within. The cloak belongs to Miss Whitmore.” She did not look at Clara until the end. When she did, it was not unkind, but neither was it yielding. “We will speak plainly.”

“It does not belong to me,” Clara said. “I did not leave it there.”

“Then we will learn how it traveled.” Eleanor tapped the cane once. “Hollis. You received it from Mrs. Greaves. Mrs. Greaves received it from the maid. The maid took it from the cloak. Percival, who holds the key to the servants’ hall cupboard.”

“Mrs. Greaves and I,” Percival said. “Also, the head footman, when directed. No one else without orders.”

Eleanor looked at Edith. “Who had charge of last night’s cloaks?”