Page 10 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

But the conversation was not over. “Then tell me honestly that you have managed things properly and I will believe you.”

An abrupt silence while everyone at the table stared at its head was the only answer.

It was the silence which did it. Mrs. Mayweather’s gaze turned cold and precise. Daphne cried quietly, Pearl’s chin trembling. Seraphina was looking between their father and her mother with wide-eyed shock.

Tamsin glanced around the table and completed the arithmetic she had already started since the moment her father said after Christmas. There were other expenses the family had between that moment and the new year.

Music lessons for Henry. Edward’s school fees due before January. The winter coal not yet ordered. The quarterly wages for the staff. Large, necessary expenses.

Daphne’s dress was the least of it.

“Perhaps,” she said to the table generally, “we might discuss this more calmly in the morning, when we have had a chance⁠—”

“There is nothing to discuss,” Anne said, not looking at her and instead fixing her glare upon her husband. “Calmly or otherwise. Your father has been negligent, and we are all to suffer for it.”

“I have not been negligent,” Mr. Mayweather said, standing suddenly. “I have been unfortunate. There is a considerable difference, and I only thought to ask that this family extend me the basic courtesy of⁠—”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, sit down, George.”

He did not sit down. He placed his napkin beside his plate, looking wounded. “I will not. Not when I am afforded so little respect in my own household.” He left the room with his head higher than Tamsin thought appropriate, given the circumstances.

For a moment, no one moved.

Then Daphne pushed back her chair and ran out the other door, still crying. Pearl went after her, tears glistening on her cheeks. Seraphina rose without a word, her face composed in a way that meant she would be furious later, in private, where it was safer. Tamsin had seen it before. Had comforted her before. Had comforted all of them.

Leopold stood, glaring at the door his father had gone through. “I will see those accounts by the end of the week.” Then he left.

Well. Stormed out, more like.

Anne rose with silent indignation and went out the same door as her husband. In a moment, Tamsin guessed, she would hear their not-so-calm discussion echo through the house.

Charles had already disappeared. Tamsin wasn’t sure exactly when. One moment he had been there, then he wasn’t.

Which meant that she sat alone at the table.

The candles guttered in the draft from the open door. The remains of dinner sat undisturbed around her. Somewhere upstairs she could hear Daphne sobbing, and her stepmother’s voice, low and clipped, then a door closing.

Then quiet.

Tamsin reached out and straightened the fork beside her plate. Then the one beside her father’s abandoned setting. Then Charles’s spoon.

Leopold would demand the accounts, their father would resist, the argument would go on for weeks, and nothing would be resolved. Henry’s music teacher still would not be paid. Edward’s school fees would still be due in January. The coal still would not be ordered.

Perhaps their anger would keep them warm.

She needed someone who would actually know what to do with the situation. The little ones should not be made to suffer for the mismanagement of funds, but there were not many people to seek out, in her situation, for advice. She would need a woman’s perspective, most likely, and a woman who ran a household would be best. But who⁠—

Oh. Matilda Elgin.

Tamsin’s friend was a widow, with access to people and information she herself did not have. What might she know?

Perhaps she could help, or knew whether there was anyone in York with both the discretion and the knowledge to tell Tamsin what she actually needed to help her family.

The candle nearest her father’s chair sputtered and went out.

Tamsin sat in the dim light, alone at the family table, and thought.

Chapter Five