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"They said she had reached him first. She was found beside him and could hardly speak. Adelheid told us that grief had overturned her senses."

Richard, who had been standing by the mantelpiece, looked toward Saye. Both brothers had been invited because Elizabeth wished no one to think her family must be divided between the people of her birth and the people who had raised her. Saye met Richard's eyes and then spoke quietly.

"Your Highness, did anyone hear Minna tell what she had seen?"

Albrecht shook his head. "I was with the physician. Adelheid said she would care for Minna until she was calm enough to speak. When I tried the next morning, Minna had been given a sleeping draught. After that, everything happened so quickly."

"And the carriage journey?" Darcy asked.

"I was told she needed air and privacy. She was to visit a physician away from Falkenried. I was not consulted before she left."

The Earl sat forward. "Then the two events were connected closely in time, but the household never learned exactly what she meant to tell you."

"No," Albrecht said. "I trusted Adelheid to understand her."

A difficult silence followed. Elizabeth saw her uncle looking at Saye and Richard, both men whose protection she had accepted for years without doubting its sincerity. She thought of Friedrich and Albrecht as young men at Falkenried, trying to keep Minna from climbing too high in the apple tree. They had loved their little sister. Yet loving someone had not made them powerful enough to discover what another person intended.

"When I first came here," Elizabeth said, "I believed Lord Saye would never forgive Richard for persuading me to play chess in the middle of an afternoon intended for lessons. I thought he would be as severe as the headmaster at a boys' school. Instead he brought us an apple tart and asked which of us was winning."

Saye looked wounded. "I had not known my character was so deeply misunderstood."

"You had brought a ledger to the drawing room," she reminded him.

"I bring ledgers everywhere. Their presence is not evidence of cruelty."

Richard laughed quietly. Albrecht watched them, and the painful line across his brow softened.

"Friedrich would have brought the tart," he said. "He disapproved of whatever I proposed until Minna approved it. Then he discovered that he, too, had intended it all along."

Elizabeth held out her good hand. Albrecht took it. She did not tell him that he should have saved Minna. She knew he had wanted to do so more than anything in the world.

A letter from Jane reached Elizabeth as the household was preparing its inquiries. Jane had heard the accident described by three different acquaintances, each adding some detail that made the incident less recognizable. One account placed Elizabeth in a river, another beneath the horses, and a third had Darcy arriving in time to lift the entire coach from the road. Jane begged her cousin to send the plain truth, adding that their mother's nerves had made such progress through the story that she had required smelling salts merely to hear it repeated.

Jane added that Bingley had been with her when the first confused report arrived. He had fetched paper for her reply, found a messenger willing to carry it, and then sat quietly while she tried three times to write Elizabeth's name without trembling. He had made no declaration. His hand had simply remained upon the edge of the desk until hers was steady enough to take up the pen.

Elizabeth wrote an affectionate answer. She told Jane that her shoulder was improving, that Mr. Fenwick had not prescribed any heroic deed on Darcy's part, and that she remained much more inclined to inspect carriage roads in future. She also asked whether Jane had yet spoken plainly with Bingley about their expectations. She would not allow her own distress to turn every letter into an announcement of calamity.

Lady Matlock found her sealing the reply. "You are sending your cousin good news?"

"As much as I possess. I have assured her I remain capable of walking to the library and correcting Richard's opinions."

"You might give her a greater assurance than that. Richard's opinions have survived everything the world has tried against them."

Elizabeth laughed. Her aunt kissed her forehead below the fading wound and sat beside her without summoning a servant or opening her correspondence. After a little while Elizabeth rested against her shoulder. Lady Matlock reached across for the folded shawl and spread it over them both.

In the middle of September, after several days of English inquiries, Saye remained after the visitors left to discuss the next practical steps with the Earl. Letters to trusted legal representatives in the German territories were prepared, asking for surviving accounts of Friedrich's death, records relating to the household carriages in 1789, and the recollections of any servants still living. Their letters were to pass through commercial correspondents by way of Sweden. They wrote in cautious terms, mindful that wartime correspondence might be delayed, examined, or lost. No one expected an answer for several weeks. A journey to Germany would require far more preparation than the household could undertake while Elizabeth recovered and the London inquiry remained active.

"We must not write as though we know a murder occurred," Saye said. "We know only that the young lady was endangered after her brother's death, and that a servant now alleges a member of the family ordered it."

"And Adelheid?" the Earl asked.

"Her conduct is deeply suspicious. But suspicion is not enough for a public accusation, particularly one carrying consequences for innocent children."

Lord Matlock regarded his elder son with pride and unease. Saye had learned to be responsible at an age when Richard learned to ride at speed. Neither quality would remove the suffering awaiting Albrecht's family.

That evening Elizabeth returned to Minna's little book, but she no longer searched its pages for a secret sentence. She read the childish handwriting for pleasure. In one margin Minna had written a complaint that Friedrich believed himself wise because he was eldest; beneath it Albrecht had added that wisdom was of little use when a boy could not find his own hat. Friedrich had answered in a small, upright script that the missing hat was on Albrecht's head.

Elizabeth laughed aloud. Darcy, who had come in with Georgiana and a new volume of poetry, looked up sharply.