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L eona stared at the contents of the package that young Abraham Tubbs—cheerful and whistling through the gap left by the loss of his two front teeth—delivered to her not five minutes past. His mood was infectious and suited the bright sunny day in March.

Leona couldn’t help smiling and laughing in kind, but the lighthearted mood evaporated when she opened the small box the package contained.

Carefully she set the box on a table and sank into a nearby chair, her eyes never leaving the object before her.

In the box, nestled snugly in a bed of lamb’s wool as if it were a valuable piece of jewelry, was a brass button.

Molded onto the face of the button was the Leonard family crest. The button came from an old suit of Charlie’s, the very suit she had worn one cold sleeting night three months ago.

Leona closed her eyes. She wished it were as easy to dismiss the implications of the box and its contents as it was to banish the sight of it by simply closing her eyes. Regrettably it wasn’t.

She lifted her hand from her lap to see the folded square of paper she held. It came from the box, neatly covering the button. She turned the paper over and over between her fingers, staring at it. She dreaded unfolding it. It could contain threats, taunts—or it could contain nothing.

With her other hand, she lifted the button from the box, her fingers closing tightly about it, imprinting its raised design into her palm.

Then, with trembling fingers, she unfolded the pristine square of paper.

The handwriting prim and slightly rounded, but there was nothing school-girlish about the message.

We knows it was you that meddled.

We won't forget neither.

In the end you pay. And in more than coin.

The past had become the present.

The memory of her promise to Mr. Deveraux leaped into Leona’s mind.

Vehemently she rejected it, her lips stubbornly pursing as she willed the memory away.

She’d been ill that day, too sick to be mindful of her actions.

Deveraux knew she was sick. He had taken unconscionable advantage of her weakened state by forcing her to make a promise to him.

His action was neither gentlemanly nor honorable, and therefore did not deserve consideration.

Not so!

The errant, protesting thought coalesced in her mind. Frowning, she shook her head against it. He was wrong. Not her.

Ignoring the tiny pinprick of conscience that protested her rationalization, she replaced the button and paper in the box, absently massaging with her thumb the area where the crest temporarily incised its design into the soft flesh of her palm.

“Leona? Is something the matter? Did Abraham Tubbs bring you bad news?” Maria Sprockett walked quickly to the mantel to set down a basket of dry potpourri. The scent of lilac rose in the air.

“I don’t know,” Leona said slowly. She shook her head from side to side, her eyes and mind turned inward.

“Whatever do you mean? Are you all right, my dear? You’re a trifle pale.” Maria laid a cool hand on Leona’s forehead.

Leona slid out from under Maria’s hand and rose to her feet, pacing the room. “I’m fine. I merely have a great deal to think about.”

“May I help?” she asked, her pale blue eyes darting over Leona, belying her calm tone. She folded her hands before her as she stood and waited for an answer, worry widening her eyes.

Leona paused in her pacing. “Maria, if someone made a promise to do something, but she was not at her best or not thinking clearly when the promise was extracted, could she later be held to that promise? I mean, if the requestor knew the other person was not at her best, wouldn’t his actions be considered dishonorable?

And wouldn’t that also negate the promise? ”

Maria shook her head vaguely. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. What are you talking about? You’ll have to tell me specifics. I’m not good at puzzles.”

Leona threw up her hands in exasperation, then whirled around to point to the box on the table. “I mean that. ”

“That?” Maria picked up the box and opened it. She took out the folded paper and button. “It’s just a note and a button.”

“What kind of button?”

Maria looked at the face of the button. “Oh, it’s one of the crested ones. What did it come off of? I’ll just get my sewing kit?—”

“No, Maria. There’s no need. The button came off Charlie’s old suit. The one you threw away.”

“The one I threw . . . Oh, you mean the one you wore when you rescued the little Deveraux girl? What—” A look of horrified comprehension stained Maria’s face.

She glanced worriedly at Leona, then quickly opened the note and read it.

She looked up at Leona again, then down to the note in her hand.

“I’ll start packing at once,” she solemnly said as she put the button and note back in the box, her slender hands trembling.

“No.”

“Leona, this is what Mr. Deveraux feared, or at least something of this nature. This is why he made you promise to go to Castle Marin. I would never have thought it. Like you, I thought the Norths gone for good. Mr. Deveraux is a clever man, a very far-sighted and clever man.”

“Maria, I am a grown woman. I do not start at shadows.”

Maria blinked. “But this note is no shadow!”

Leona dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “It is most likely a simple scare tactic. I’m safe enough here at Rose Cottage.”

“What about your promise?”

“Mr. Deveraux knew I was unwell and not in a position to think clearly.”

To anyone else, Leona’s tone brooked no argument.

Maria had been with Leona too long to be intimidated, however.

She stiffened, her hands again clasped before her.

“I don’t know about that. You seemed to be thinking clearly enough the entire time you argued with him.

” Her manner was reminiscent of the one she used in the schoolroom when her pupil proved recalcitrant

“Well, I wasn’t,” Leona said peevishly, irrationally vexed that Maria would not automatically accept her stand when she knew her foundation was shaky.

“He took undue advantage of my incapacitation to wring that promise from me. Under the circumstances, I cannot see why I should be held to such a promise.”

“Nonsense. Where is your sense of honor, Leona Clymene Leonard? Where is that family honor that you are so fond of tossing in everyone’s face?”

Leona turned to look at a small framed picture that hung on the wall. It was a hand-colored engraving of the family crest, done many years ago, the heavy paper stock stained and spotted with age. “I have my honor, and my honor will not let me be taken advantage of when I am ill,” she said tightly.

“Are you certain you’re not confusing honor with pride?”

“Do not be ridiculous,” Leona snapped, thoroughly nettled at the gentle sting of truth.

She sighed. “But if it will make you feel any better, I’ll take the note and button over to Sir Nathan.

He has come by often enough in the last two-and-a-half months to prove his concern.

” Her mouth twisted wryly, for she strongly suspected there was more on the lonely widowed magistrate’s mind than a three-month-old kidnapping, though she swore she’d neither done nor said anything to encourage him.

“We can set out tomorrow afternoon if you like.”

“Today.”

“Now, Maria?—”

“Don’t!” She held up her hands and turned her head slightly away. “Don’t even start your cozening ways with me. My mind is made up. I know where my duty lies. We go to see the magistrate today, or I’ll write to Mr. Sharply and advise him of all your activities.”

“What?!”

Maria winced but stood firm. Her thin face remained implacable.

“That’s—that’s blackmail!” Leona glared at her, two high spots of color blazing on her cheeks.

“Yes, I know,” her friend calmly responded, but her hands trembled at her audacity, and Leona was confident that with a little more pressure, Maria would relent.

Leona stared, thinking, but Maria merely compressed her lips firmly and stared back.

Then again, maybe she wouldn’t relent, for it appeared gentle Maria had the bit firmly between her teeth.

The parlor was quiet save for the steady tick-tock of the clock on the mantel.

Finally, Leona burst out laughing and stepped forward to hug her companion and friend.

“All right, I concede. We’ll go see Sir Nathan Cruikston today.” Better him than Deveraux, she silently rejoiced. Though why she should think that she refused to examine.

The drive to Sir Nathan Cruikston’s home was made in uncomfortable silence.

Despite Leona’s efforts to ease tensions between Maria and herself, Maria—as she vowed earlier—was having none of her cozening ways.

In disgust, Leona gave up and slumped back in her seat, contenting herself with staring out the carriage window at a countryside showing early signs of throwing off winter’s mantle.

It left her uncomfortably alone with her thoughts, which Leona considered acidly, was precisely what Maria intended.

Though years away from the schoolroom and her governess role, there were occasions when Maria still played the governess with unerring alacrity.

Allowing a student to puzzle through a problem independently, particularly a knotty philosophical one, was an old governess ploy.

Ploy or not, Leona vowed it would not work.

She was the one wronged and had nothing to be sorry for.