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“I suppose that’s possible,” Selena conceded. “Maybe she went to meet a friend.”

“Maybe. But…” Athena paused. “Miss Osborn said that Sally was acting strange last night.”

“Strange, in what way?”

“I didn’t get a chance to ask.”

With a happy, little gasp, Selena said dramatically, “What if she had a secret beau ?”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

At all the great houses where they had been employed, it had been against the rules for a member of the staff to have a beau.

When Athena and Selena had become employers, although they had had understood the reasoning behind the directive—servants who had sweethearts generally became distracted and didn’t focus on their work—they had decided to be more lenient.

How was a young servant to ever hope to marry if they were forbidden to have any relationships of a romantic nature?

They had specified, however, that any such connection must be disclosed to both Athena and Selena, and any meetings they had must be strictly reserved for their time off.

“If Sally had formed an attachment under the previous owner, she could never have disclosed it,” Athena went on.

Her mind darted to the summer she had met Giles Shaw.

She’d been twenty-three years old, on holiday with her employer, and she’d been obliged to conduct that affair—what a lesson she had learned there! —in secret.

“After we took over Thorndale Manor, perhaps Sally was too shy or uncomfortable to tell us,” Selena mused.

“Or maybe the relationship was too new to share. Sally lived at home, so she could have met with a man at any time after her workday ended. Perhaps she saw him again last night.”

“If so, if she died last night instead of this morning, then she was in the water a few hours longer than Mr. Sinclair supposed,” Selena pointed out.

“Which could well be the case. I saw the body.” Athena shuddered at the memory. “She was as white as a ghost.”

“You could ask Sally’s sister about it. Whether or not Sally had a beau, I mean.”

“I will,” Athena vowed. “Something happened on that riverbank. Did Sally end up in the river by accident? Or did someone hit her on the head and push her in?”

“Wait. Athena.” Her sister’s voice was tinged now with disbelief. “All this time, I thought we have been discussing an accidental drowning. Are you honestly telling me that you think our housemaid, that plain, quiet young woman, was murdered? ”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Athena charged.

Selena let out a sharp breath. “That only holds true when there actually is smoke . You’re reading a great deal into a pair of shoes.”

“Am I?” Athena blew out the candle on the bedside table and lay back on her pillow. “Perhaps not. And there’s one more thing.”

“What’s that?” Selena’s voice, heavy with skepticism, pierced the velvet darkness.

“What prompted Miss Osborn to go out looking for her sister in the first place?”

“She said Sally was missing from her bed. She was worried about her.”

“Miss Osborn didn’t say that Sally was missing from her bed. She said Sally hadn’t slept in her bed . There’s a difference.”

“How could Miss Osborn have known if Sally had slept in her bed or not?”

“A good question. But that aside, why was it unusual for Sally to be gone from her bed? She must have risen early every morning, six days a week, before she traipsed off to Thorndale Manor.”

Selena yawned. “Miss Osborn must have simply woken up earlier than her sister was expected to wake this morning. I think you’re grasping at straws, Athena.”

“What I think,” Athena said, mimicking her sister’s earlier phrasing, “is that I need to have another talk with Miss Bridget Osborn.”

*

Rain poured down like a lament from the skies during Sally Osborn’s funeral. More than a dozen mourners gathered at the graveside service where the vicar extolled the virtues of the deceased.

Athena shivered beneath her umbrella. The freezing dampness seemed to penetrate straight through her black, woolen cloak, hat, and gloves.

Although it was a Saturday and school was in session, Selena had offered to teach all the morning classes so that Athena could attend the service and the gathering that followed and pay their respects to the deceased.

“Sally Osborn was a good, quiet young woman who worked hard, loved her family, and never missed a day of church,” Mr. Johnson was saying.

Athena had also thought of Sally as “quiet” and had noticed her work ethic. But surely, Sally must have had other defining characteristics. Had she liked to sew? Had she been fond of children or animals? It bothered Athena that she didn’t know.

After the service, the small crowd gathered at Mr. Osborn’s unpretentious stone cottage, where a traditional wreath of laurel and yew tied with a black ribbon hung on the front door to signal that the household had suffered a death.

The doorknob was draped with black crepe and tied with a white ribbon, to indicate that the deceased had been unmarried.

Athena entered the small, dark, crowded front room, hung her wet cloak and hat on a clothes tree, and squeezed her dripping umbrella into one of several buckets.

The mingled scents of smoke from the fireplace and hot, damp bodies were nearly overwhelming.

The curtains had been drawn. She presumed the veiled object hanging on a wall to be a mirror.

Athena thought the superstition—that the deceased’s spirit could become trapped in a reflective surface, preventing them from moving on to the afterlife—to be absurd.

But after all her years working in households as a governess, she had come to understand that superstitions could help reduce people’s anxiety by giving them a sense of control over the unknown.

In the kitchen, platters of sliced ham, boiled potatoes, breads, cakes, and pies, were spread out on a large, wooden table.

Athena helped herself to a cup of tea and exchanged solemn greetings with the vicar and other villagers.

She offered her condolences to Mr. Osborn, who thanked her glumly and then disappeared into a back room.

Athena waited until all the other visitors had left to approach Miss Osborn.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” Athena sat down on a chair near the hearth across from the young woman. “I regret that I didn’t know Sally well. But I know how hard it is to lose a loved one.”

Miss Osborn wiped her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief. “Who did you lose?”

“My parents and my godmother.”

“I’m sorry.” Miss Osborn coughed deeply. “It’s so unfair, isn’t it? When the people we love are taken from us?”

“It is.” Athena pondered how to best broach her inquiries. “Were you and your sister very close?”

“We were. At least, we used to be. Grew up like two peas in a pod, me and Sally. As children, we did everything together. Always shared the same room.”

Athena smiled at that. It reminded her of her own closeness with her sister. “Always?”

“Always, except when she worked at Woodcroft House. When Sally took that job at Thorndale Manor, it was close enough to walk, so she moved back home.”

“Sally worked at Woodcroft House?” Athena hadn’t realized that. Woodcroft House was Neville Sinclair’s home. The home in which Neville’s brother, Harold, had been murdered. “When did she work there?”

“Started when she was thirteen as an under housemaid. Sally moved up to chamber maid in two years. I was so proud of her.” A smile briefly lit Miss Osborn’s face. “If only Papa could have been proud of her, too.”

“What do you mean?”

Miss Osborn sighed. “All her life, Sally kept trying to please Papa, but he was always yelling at her about something. Sometimes I think he hated her. Maybe it was because our mother died giving birth to Sally, and he could never forgive her for that? It was even worse after Papa lost his arm. He complained that Sally didn’t make enough money as a housemaid.

He called her ‘the useless daughter’ and kept pestering her to work with me at the George and Dragon, but Sally refused.

” Miss Osborn erupted in another cough. “Forgive me, Miss Taylor. I shouldn’t be telling you all this. ”

“I’m glad you told me. I feel so bad for Sally.” Concerned, Athena added, “Are you ill, Miss Osborn?”

Miss Osborn waved the question away. “It’s nothing, just a cough.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing. Have you seen a doctor?”

“Who can afford a doctor?” Miss Osborn’s mouth twisted.

“There isn’t one in the village, anyway.

I saw the apothecary, Mr. Quince, who said I just need some good sea air to clear my lungs.

If I move to Scarborough for the winter, he says, I’ll be right as rain.

Scarborough! For the entire winter! Where’s the money going to come from for that?

” She let out a huff, which evolved into another coughing fit.

“Forgive me,” she said again, taking a sip of water from a tumbler.

If Miss Osborn required sea air, Athena worried, her condition might worsen in the coming months, for Yorkshire winters could be harsh.

Athena wished she could help this young woman, along with all the people in the parish who were in need.

But she was responsible for an entire estate, five students, and a bevy of servants, and other than the modest income from her pupils’ tuition and whatever Captain Fallbrook sent her, she didn’t have a penny in her pocket.

“I do hope your cough improves,” Athena said with feeling.

“Thank you.”

Glancing up, Athena noticed that the clock on the mantel read six o’clock, which didn’t match the time on the watch hanging from her belt. The reason for this suddenly occurred to her. “Did you stop the clock, Miss Osborn?”

“I did—to mark the time of Sally’s death. I had to guess what it might be. The parish constable said it probably happened early yesterday morning.” Tears pooled again in Miss Osborn’s eyes.

It was the ideal opening for the questions on Athena’s mind.