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January 1883

I was finishing a pleasant visit on my day out with Joanna Millburn, the friend of my youthful days who looked after my daughter, when I detected that something was very wrong.

The windows of Joanna’s cozy sitting room were already dark, the blustery winter day at an end. The time was nearing when I must reluctantly take my leave and return to Mount Street, where I was a cook in a fine Mayfair household.

Setting down my teacup, I sent Grace from the parlor with the excuse that I wanted a recipe for tea cakes from Joanna’s hardworking cook. Grace eagerly dashed away, closing the door behind her, as she’d been taught, to keep out drafts.

Once we were alone—the four Millburn children were in their father’s study, attending to their books—I turned a severe eye on Joanna. “Tell me quickly, before Grace returns. What is troubling you?”

Joanna started so forcefully that the dregs of her tea splashed from the cup. She wiped the droplets from her wrist with agitated fingers.

“Whatever do you mean?” She tried valiantly to sound surprised, but her voice trembled.

“My dear, I have been your friend since we were tykes in pigtails. I know when something is the matter. You had better tell me at once. Grace will only be a moment.”

Joanna continued to stare at me as though she could not imagine why I thought all was not well in her idyllic world. I continued with my persistent gaze, until at long last, she wilted.

“Kat, I don’t know what I am to do.” Joanna set down her cup and balled her hands in her lap. “Samuel’s firm has threatened to sack him. We eke out a living as it is—if he loses this post, we’ll be destitute.”

My own cup clattered to its saucer. “Oh, darling, no.” I reached for her tight hands and clasped them hard.

Such a situation would be dire. Sam and Joanna had four children of their own. The oldest, Matthew, was a bright boy, and they’d hoped to find a tutor for him so that he might have a chance to attend university in a few years. They also had to pay the rent on this modest home in a lane off Cheapside, an area so much better than the rookeries they’d likely inhabit without Sam’s clerk’s job at a private international bank.

There was another obvious consequence of Sam out of a job, one I knew Joanna did not want to voice. Without Sam’s income, they would no longer be able to take care of Grace.

I sent Joanna as much money as I could for her upkeep, but the Millburns paid quite a bit out of their own pocket. Five children to feed took a hefty toll, and if Sam was dismissed, gone would be the hopes for Matthew’s education. I wouldhave to ease their burden and house Grace elsewhere, but at this moment, I had no idea where that would be.

“Why would they sack him?” I demanded. “I should think Samuel Millburn is a model clerk.”

“They have accused him of embezzling funds.” Tears filmed Joanna’s eyes. “They haven’t stated this outright as yet, but the hints are there. They are trying to shame him into confessing or leaving on his own. But Sam has done nothing wrong. I know it.”

I knew it too. Samuel Millburn would no more embezzle than he would grow wings and fly. I’d known Sam since he’d come to woo Joanna fifteen years ago, when she’d still been living in Bow Lane next door to me and my mum. He’d fallen madly in love with her and devoted himself to her, and nothing much had changed since. I’d been a bridesmaid at their wedding in Bow Bells church, so happy for my friend and yet lonely for losing her.

But I’d never found anything objectionable in Sam. Through the years, he’d proved to be a good friend to me as well. In his professional life, he was respectable, punctual, capable, and dogged, all the qualities any employer would wish.

I read stark fear in Joanna’s eyes. She loved her husband, believed in him, but I saw her flash of doubt, and the misery that engendered.

“Joanna, I will tell you right now that this is absurd,” I said firmly. “Samuel would never do such a dishonest deed. I know it, and so do you.”

“He has been working so hard, and with so little acknowledgment.” The words were faint, ones Joanna must have been repeating to herself, afraid to state them out loud.

“I assure you, it is nonsense. If Sam were annoyed, he’d simply take things up with his head clerk. It would never occur tohim to sneak money from his accounts. There are few honest men in the world, but Sam Millburn is one of them.”

“I believe him.” Joanna sent me the look of someone begging to have their fears proved wrong. “I am his wife. Of course I do.”

“It has nothing to do with being his wife,” I said sternly. “Whether he is married to you or not, he would never steal from his employer.”

Joanna slid her hands from mine and rested them on her brown wool skirt. “You are right, Kat. I know you are. But that niggling voice inside me asks: What if I am wrong?”

“You are not. Samuel would never embezzle, and we both know it.”

“But what are we to do?” Joanna’s question held despair.

What indeed? I unfortunately had witnessed such situations a time or two in my life. An important person committed a crime, and the blame was shoved off onto someone deemed not so important. The insignificant man—or woman—was arrested and made to pay, thus preserving the reputations of the lofty. The scapegoat was inconsequential—except to his wife and children who would be destitute and share his shame and ruin.

I could not let that happen to Joanna and her sons and daughters.