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A quiet rap at the door drew her from her thoughts. “Come?”

Mrs. Roberts stepped in, a ledger in her hands, her lips pressed thin. “I do apologize for disturbing you so early, miss. But a matter has come to our attention that requires your consideration.”

Viola sat up, her tea forgotten. This, she understood, was part of taking on Stoneleigh House — responsibilities she had never before had to carry. “What is it?”

“I can wait until you have finished, miss,” Mrs. Roberts said quickly. Viola shook her head. “It is only that the coal merchant is soon to call, and so I came to you now.”

“There is no need to delay.” Viola spoke practically, though inwardly she shrank from whatever was to be asked of her. Had she the wisdom for it? Could she act, as Lady Warrington would have, with fairness and compassion? “Pray, what is the trouble?”

Mrs. Roberts set the ledger beside her and drew a letter from her pocket. “Mr. Sowden, the coal merchant, sent this morning, miss. I had written to say the number of sacks on his receipt did not match what his men delivered. His reply is rather… short. If you would read it?”

Viola took it and read it through. Mr. Sowden wrote with a firmness that wished to give no offence and would yield no ground: if the receipt had been signed by a member of the household, then there had been no error, and that was the end of it.

For a moment the words swam, and she breathed and steadied them. It would have been very easy to hand the letter back, to say she did not yet understand the running of a house and might the staff smooth the matter over themselves. But this was a thing Lady Warrington would have taken up at once, without hesitation, and Viola was determined to do the same. She read it again, more slowly, then raised her head.

“How great was the shortage? And who noticed it?”

“The cook noticed it, miss. We ought to have had two sacks more. With the weather turning, there has been a need for small morning fires — ”

“Which I have been grateful for.”

Mrs. Roberts smiled faintly. “And now the cook needs more for the kitchen, with meals to prepare. There is a fear we may have been… cheated. Though I am loath to suggest it, for Mr. Sowden has supplied this house for years.”

Viola bit her lip and reached for the ledger. “Show me the delivery here.”

Mrs. Roberts ran a finger down the column. The figure matched Mr. Sowden’s receipt exactly. Viola took the receipt up and studied the name signed at the foot of it. “Who signed for this? If fewer sacks came than ought to have, I am surprised it was signed at all.”

“That would be the under-footman, miss. James Martin. He was the only one free to take the delivery — Mr. Sowden’s men came earlier than we expected.”

Viola’s fingers tightened on the edge of the page. “Then would you summon Mr. Martin?”

A faint hesitation in the housekeeper’s posture said she had not looked for Miss Trent to ask for the under-footman directly. But she inclined her head and went to the door. Only a few minutes passed before the young man arrived, his eyes wide, his shoulders squared as if braced for a reprimand. Viola took in the restless movement of his hands and offered him a small smile, hoping to set him at ease.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, keeping her tone gentle. “I must ask you about the coal. Did you count the sacks when Mr. Sowden’s men delivered them?”

The young man swallowed and bowed his head. “I did not, miss,” he admitted, low. “They were in a hurry, and the kitchen was calling for me, and the man said it was all in order — ”

“As I said, they came early,” Mrs. Roberts put in. “James was the only one able to manage it then.” She glanced from him to Viola, plainly afraid the boy was about to lose his place.

Viola let out a slow breath, picturing the bustle of it — the easy assumption that men who had delivered here many times would never cheat a grand house, the sense that to count would seem an insult. “Your honesty does you credit,” she said, and surprise flickered across his face. “I do not hold you to blame. But make it known below stairs that, when coal is delivered, every sack is to be counted — not once but twice. Then there can be no argument.”

The footman nodded fervently, his hands clasped before him now. “Yes, miss. Of course.”

Viola turned back to Mrs. Roberts, who looked relieved. “Send word to Mr. Sowden that we will not dispute his tally this once. But tell him also that the lady of the house expects his men to wait while deliveries are counted, and that, should they come early again, they are to present themselves to you or to the butler, not to a footman with other duties. Then there can be no mistake, deliberate or otherwise.”

Mrs. Roberts held her gaze a brief, assessing moment, then inclined her head, the edge of a smile at her mouth before it was gone. “Thank you, miss.” She closed the ledger and lifted it, made to turn — then paused. “I do not mean to speak out of turn, Miss Trent. But I believe Lady Warrington would have made the very same decision.”

Blinking back a sudden, unexpected rush of tears, Viola smiled. “Thank you,” she said, and felt a thread that had been drawn too tight begin, at last, to loosen. “That is more welcome than I can say.”

It was that loosening, perhaps, that carried her down the corridor an hour later, to the door she had been passing with her eyes averted since the day she arrived.

She did not go alone. “Mrs. Hartley,” she had said, finding the companion at her mending, “I think I should like to see Lady Warrington’s study now. Would you come with me?” And Mrs. Hartley had set down her needle, looked at Viola a long, quiet moment, and said only, “I hoped you would ask, when you were ready. Not before.”

The door was not locked. That was the first surprise — Viola had imagined it sealed like a tomb, and it opened on an ordinary latch, into an afternoon-lit room that smelled of old paper and beeswax and, faintly, of lavender. The second surprise was how small it was. The grandest rooms of Stoneleigh stood below, and Lady Warrington had done her life’s work in a chamber scarcely larger than Papa’s study at home — a plain desk, much used, a worn chair with its cushion flattened by years, and shelves of ledgers in a neat, strong hand.

Her spectacles still lay upon the blotter, folded, as though she had only stepped out. A novel sat on the desk’s corner with a ribbon marking her place, three chapters from the end.

“She never finished it,” Viola said, foolishly, for there was nothing else to say.