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Well, it had meant a whole host of things, Owen had explained earlier at dinner while the other three had listened with rapt attention. Like looking respectable when they presented themselves to a prospective employer, for example—not slouching or dragging their feet or thrusting their hands into their pockets. Or belligerent or contemptuous. But how could they appear even halfway respectable when they possessed nothing but rags and shoes flapping at the soles or held together with fraying string? He had had to bring volunteers on board—to help teach elocution and manners and deportment, to prepare them to face interviews. And volunteers to organize a drive to gather donations of good secondhand clothing and shoes and to launder the former and polish the latter. And a thousand and one other things he had not even thought of until he got started. A barber, for example. The husband of one of the volunteers had offered that service free of charge.

The number of boys had doubled to a dozen after a few days. And then some girls had sauntered into the room in the church Owen had appropriated as his headquarters and demanded to know what was so special about the boys, then. Were girls nobodies and nothings?

By the time Owen had left London yesterday, leaving a friend of his in temporary charge, his role had settled into general director of operations, arbiter of squabbles and even the occasional fistfight, and procurer of available job openings, mostly in the domestic field and mostly in the homes of those who could afford to pay their employees a respectable wage and had a reputation for fairness to those who worked for them. Mostly they were people of the business and professional classes with whom Owen had some acquaintance.

And by some odd miracle it was working. Some of the boys and a few of the girls had actually been hired—in very menial roles, it was true, but in most cases there were meals included with their modest wage and, in two cases, accommodation as well.

“Have I found my calling at last?” Owen said, considering Stephanie’s question with a furrowed brow. “Something has dawned on me during the past year or two, Steph. I used to worry that I still could not decide what I wanted to do when I grew up. I could have taken holy orders. I still could. But only part of the job appeals to me. I have always wanted to serve people who need help, but that is a very vague ambition and not at all practical, since most people who need help do not want anything from the likes of me except the odd handout, which they resent, and rightfully so. I thought a year or so ago I might want to purchase some farmland and set it up to benefit boys and girls like those who are with my agency now and give them a taste of country air and hard, rewarding work and all that. The fact is, though, I still do not know where exactly I am headed, and maybe that is the way it ought to be. I am fortunate enough to be free to let life take me where it will and use me as it will. Does that make me driftless and ultimately worthless, do you think?”

“What I think is that you may be more worthy than the rest of us put together, Owen,” she said.

“Oh, I say,” he said, grinning at her. “I don’t think you need to go that far, Steph. But enough of me. How are you?”

“Enjoying the colors in the sky,” she said. “I love sunsets.”

He turned his head to gaze at it and sighed with seeming contentment before they sat in silence for a while.

“Owen,” she said then. “May I ask you a hypothetical question?”

“A hypothetical question?” he said. “Or a question on a hypothetical matter?”

“The latter,” she said. “What would you think if someone invited you somewhere to stay so that person could convince you that you are not inferior to anyone else even though you already know you are not? And to prove that that person is not superior to anyone else even though you already know that? Why exactly would the person have invited you?”

“Eh?” he said inelegantly. But he held up a staying hand when she drew breath to explain more clearly. “Shall I assume for the sake of argument that we are talking about you and Bert?”

She stared at him, speechless. Was she that transparent?

“I would say,” her brother said, “that he wants to launch a serious courtship, Steph, and that is why he has invited you to Redcliffe. It is probably not a bad idea either. He went to London in the spring with gritted teeth to choose the least objectionable of the sweet young things on the marriage market and marry her so he could do his duty and get some heirs before his father shuffles off this mortal coil. Though Dorchester looks to me like a man in the full vigor of his prime.”

“I really do not want to go tomorrow,” she said. “Is it too late to change my mind?”

“Forget that for a moment,” he said. “Explain to me why Bert of all people intimidates you and makes you feel inferior, since that is what you seem to be saying.”

“Well,” she said, exasperated, “look at me.”

“I am looking,” he said. “What am I supposed to see? The old faithfuls? Fat and ugly?”

“I am not fat,” she said crossly. “Or ugly.”

“We are agreed on that at least,” he said. “In fact, Steph, you are a dashed fine-looking woman, even if you are built on a rather large scale. And you turn heads, whether you realize it or not. Male heads, that is. Appreciative heads.”

“What utter nonsense.” She made an impatient gesture with one hand.

“Bert, of course, is handsome enough that all other men ought to hate him,” Owen said. “But have you noticed that none of us do? He is so downright…nice.”

“But even his niceness is intimidating,” she said. “I called him arrogant last summer and then suffered pangs of conscience for months afterward until I saw him again to apologize.”

“Steph,” he said with a sigh. “This feeling you have that you can never really be attractive to men like Bert—does it have anything to do with what happened to us?”

She froze.

“I think you must have felt horribly abandoned,” he said. “I know I did. No one ever explained to us what had happened that night. We were too young. But we were not too young to know our world had come to an end. Mama sent Dev away and therefore Ben too. And soon after that Nick went to join his regiment. Mama was a totally different person, all cold dignity and marble face. Papa tried too hard. Pippa was like a limp rag and a mere shadow of her former self. And then I went off to school, where life was suddenly normal again. As far as school life can ever be normal, that is. But I had fun there. You were still only nine. It must have been pretty dreadful for you.”

She stared at him, the sunset forgotten. “I do not think about it,” she said.

“The thing is, though,” he said, “that it is there inside you anyway, even if you do not think about it. Did you imagine it must be all your fault? That no one loved you enough to stay with you or make life normal for you again or explain why it was not?”

“Papa loved me,” she said.