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Valerie held his gaze for a few seconds. She held the book at her side, her thumb still in the page, and looked at Daniel with her head tilted two degrees to the left.

Adam noted how Daniel didn’t mind her gaze. In fact, he almost seemed to preen under her regard.

“Wool quotas,” Valerie repeated, now turning that suspicious gaze on her own father. Proudlake cleared his throat once.

“The figures above all,” Daniel drawled. “Ghastly.”

“I imagine they must be,” she said, “given that it brought a duke and a marquess here at this hour.” She glanced at the window, where the street beyond was entirely dark and silent. “In the middle of the night. Well, I suppose I will have to take you all at your word. Isn’t that right, Father?”

Proudlake seemed to flinch once before wearing a bright smile. “What do you take me for, a criminal?” he said, laughing heartily. “Now hurry to bed. It is quite late.”

“Yes, Father,” she conceded and, as she passed, she glanced at Adam. “Is Juliet well?”

That was an inquiry he could happily answer. “She is well,” he replied, nodding at her.

“Well…that is good. If you could, please tell her I would love to see her one of these days.” She smiled briefly, then turned to her father again, that suspicion still in her gaze. “I’ll leave you, then.” She moved past them toward the corridor, book in hand, and then paused on the threshold and looked back over her shoulder. “Good evening, Lord Honeysett.”

“Miss Slater,” Daniel said, that smile teasing his mouth.

Adam watched Daniel watch the corridor for four full seconds after she had gone. Then Daniel picked up his hat from the hall chair, turned, and said, at a perfectly ordinary volume, “She didn’t believe a word of it.”

“No,” Adam said. “She certainly didn’t.”

“Sharp girl,” he drawled, and, even though he arched a brow at that comment, Adam said nothing.

The house was still when Adam came in, the hall dark save for the lamp Grieves had left burning at the foot of the stairs. He went up without a candle, his hand on the wall at the landing.

He was passing Eloise’s door when he saw it. It was open by three inches, a rim of candlelight in the gap. He pushed it wider, worry rearing its head.

She was sitting up against the headboard with her knees pulled to her chest, not asleep, the cloth doll from the fair set in her lap. She was holding it by both ankles. The candle on her night table had burned low, the flame small and wavering, putting her in a light that made her look younger than seven.

She looked at him without surprise. “Where did you go?” she said.

He came in, pulled the chair from the corner to her bedside, and sat down. He put his coat over the back and set his forearms on his knees. “To see someone,” he said. “About a matter that needed sorting.”

She turned the doll upright in her lap. “Is everyone all right?”

“Everyone is all right.” He hoped his smile was comforting enough.

She seemed to take this at face value. She smoothed the doll’s green skirt with one thumb, her eyes moving to the candle, then back. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

“What were you thinking about?”

Her fingers paused on the doll’s dress. “Mama,” she said.

Adam’s heart stalled in his chest. The candle cast its small light between them, and the room fell still.

“What about her?” he said.

She picked at a thread at the hem of the doll’s dress, working it loose. “Juliet told me her mother died when she was fifteen,” she said. “And she was sad, but she also told me about things she remembered. How her mother smelled like lavender. How she used to sit beside her in the library.” She looked up. “That’s a lot to remember.”

“It is,” he said.

“I don’t remember Mama very much.” She said it the way she stated facts she had already put in order, without distress, but with a careful gravity. “I heard from the staff that she smelled nice. And that her hair was lighter than mine. And once she came and sat at the bottom of my bed when I had a bad dream.” She looked at the doll. “But I can’t remember her face…”

Adam looked at his hands, laced together between his knees, and then at his daughter.

“She had brown eyes,” he said. “Lighter than mine, a little gold in them when there was good sun.” He watched Eloise go very still, listening with the whole of her. “She had fine hands. Long fingers. She played the pianoforte very well. She would have taught you, when you were old enough.”