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Former owner. Athena frowned. When she and Selena had moved in to Thorndale Manor, those two words had just been a name without a face.

Now she knew more. Mr. Ian Vernon was a bitter man.

The house, Athena knew, had taken months to sell.

Perhaps his efforts to sell the furnishings had been equally frustrating.

Perhaps the pictures he’d left, and the furniture as well, had not been an act of generosity at all, but rather, a means to simply get rid of them. Well, his loss is our gain.

A clattering sound reminded Athena of her mission. She entered the drawing room to find Tabitha, a diminutive young woman with light-brown hair and a trim figure, busily dusting.

“Tabitha, may I have word?”

“Yes, Miss Taylor.” The housemaid paused in her labors and curtsied.

Athena recalled that Tabitha hadn’t been well the other morning. “I hope you are feeling better?”

“Much better, thank you. But there’s so much to be done, what with me being the only housemaid now. I wanted to tidy up in here while I could. I hope I won’t be in your way?”

“Not at all. I’m sorry so much work has fallen upon your shoulders,” Athena told her. “Mrs. Lloyd is looking into a replacement for Sally.”

“Oh! Good.” The maid’s voice went quiet. “Poor Sally. It’s so awful what happened to her.”

“It is indeed. Horrible. In fact, that’s what I’d like you to speak to you about. I’m thinking you might have known Sally better than anyone else on the staff, since you shared a room together?”

“Well, I don’t know. Sally didn’t sleep here very often. Only when there was a terrible storm, or she was too tired to walk home.”

“Still, you worked together for how many years?”

“Sally was here when I got here. So that would make it six years.”

“Did you consider Sally to be a friend?”

Tabitha shrugged. “I suppose. Sally was a bit odd, though.”

“Odd how?”

“She kept to herself and didn’t talk much. Sometimes when we were making up the beds or beating the carpets, we’d have a laugh or two. But everything she did had to be just so. If a bed corner didn’t look tight enough, she’d do it over ten times—she said Mr. Vernon had drilled that into her.”

“Do you mean Mr. Ian Vernon?”

“Oh, no, miss. He is a very nice gentleman. I mean the father, Mr. Arthur Vernon, who passed away last year.”

“I see.” This was a very different description of Mr. Ian Vernon than Athena would have given, based on their recent meeting. She decided to get right to the point. “Can you think of anyone who may have wished to harm Sally?”

“Harm her?” Tabitha’s brows shot skyward. “No.”

“Do you know if Sally had a beau?”

Tabitha shook her head firmly. “No. Beaus are not allowed.”

“I understand that they were not allowed before, but that rule has changed. You only have to inform myself or my sister of the liaison.”

Tabitha chewed on her lip. “I know you both said that, and it was kind of you, but…”

“‘But’?”

“Well.” Tabitha fiddled with the feather duster in hands. “There’s been talk downstairs, and some of us, if we ever did step out with someone, we wouldn’t feel right telling you about it.”

“Why not?”

“For fear that you’d think our work would suffer, or we were planning to leave any minute. Which might not be so at all! We worry that you’d find someone to replace us and let us go.”

Athena hadn’t considered that. “Thank you for explaining that.” She pressed on. “So, you’re saying that if anyone on staff did have a sweetheart, they probably wouldn’t tell us?”

“Probably not. But I don’t have one, I swear!”

The young woman sounded so desperately sincere that Athena believed her. “All right, then. But remember, if you ever did, as long as you tell us and continue to do your job, it will not affect your employment here.”

“Thank you, Miss Taylor.” The maid gave her a nod.

“Now, getting back to Sally. I’m trying to understand what happened to her. You may be honest with me, Tabitha. Anything you say can’t harm Sally now. I suspect she may have had a relationship with a man, and I’d be grateful to hear anything you might know about it.”

“Sally didn’t have a beau, Miss Taylor. Not in all the years I knew her. I can tell you that for certain.”

Athena stared at her. “How can you be certain?”

“A woman knows when her friend is up to something like that. And whenever the subject came up, she swore she’d have nothing to do with a man again.

Because of some heartache she’d once suffered.

Sally kept to herself. She had a horror of breaking rules.

On the nights she did spend here, Sally wouldn’t blow out the candle.

She stayed up reading the Bible. There was one passage I heard her quoting over and over under her breath. It nearly drove me to distraction.”

“Which passage was that?”

“‘ Even a fool is considered wise if he keeps silent, and discerning when he holds his tongue. ’”

Athena recognized the passage. It was from Proverbs 17:28. “You say she repeated it over and over?”

“Yes. Sometimes in her sleep.”

Athena thanked Tabitha and ventured to the study that she shared with Selena, where she sat in deep reflection. If Sally Osborn had not had a beau, why had she gone down to the riverbank the night she’d died?

And what had that Biblical passage meant to her?

*

“I saw you returning from Sally Osborn’s funeral yesterday afternoon,” Miss Russell remarked.

Athena and her pupil were standing in the front drive outside the school, as they did every Sunday morning, waiting for the girl’s parents to arrive.

Mr. and Mrs. Russell ran a haberdashery shop in Thrushcross, about six miles away, close enough that, unlike the other girls at school, Miss Russell was able to go home to visit every Sunday.

“How did you know that I’d gone to the funeral?”

Miss Russell shrugged her shoulders. “You were dressed all in black and wore a black veil.”

Once again, Athena was intrigued by this young girl, who always seemed to have her eyes and ears open.

Athena had spent half the night thinking about her conversations with Miss Osborn and Tabitha and had awakened convinced that there was more to Sally’s death than Bridget Osborn or the parish constable believed.

However, when Athena had mentioned her concerns to her sister, Selena had insisted, “I still say it is a long stretch of the imagination to suspect that someone deliberately took Sally Osborn’s life, based on the state of her bed and her choice of shoes.”

“You disappoint me,” Athena had retorted. “What happened to the girl who used to see a clue to a mystery in every corner?”

“ She has grown up. The likeliest explanation is usually the simplest, you know. Which is that Sally made her own bed and decided to wear different shoes.”

“Something tells me that’s not what happened.”

Selena had pursed her lips and shaken her head. “I wouldn’t go down this road, Athena, if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“Because Thorndale Manor’s history is already tainted by a long-ago murder. Do you really want to suggest that another killing has taken place, this time even closer to home? It has been hard enough to get students as it is, Athena. Leave it alone.”

“Did you learn anything useful at the funeral?” Miss Russell’s inquiry broke into Athena’s thoughts. “Anything that might help solve Sally’s murder?”

Athena considered her reply. Although she admired the girl’s observational skills and sense of curiosity, Athena didn’t want her to fixate on an unhealthy subject.

“Miss Russell, no one is saying that Sally was murdered. Her death is reported to be an accident. I urge you to put the matter from your mind.”

“Even though you haven’t?”

Athena started. How could Miss Russell know what Athena was thinking? She really was uncanny. “You must focus on your schoolwork, and the lovely day you’re about to share with your parents.”

Miss Russell lowered her gaze and sighed. “Yes, Miss Taylor.”

Moments later, the Russells’ carriage pulled into the drive, and its occupants descended.

“Hello there!” boomed Mr. Russell, a portly, bespectacled man whom Athena guessed to be in his mid-forties, and whose light-red hair was streaked with grey.

He wore a serviceable brown suit and shoes that looked recently polished.

“How’s my favorite little girl?” He lifted Miss Russell in his arms and gazed at her with warmth.

Miss Russell giggled. “I’m fine, Papa. But I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m eight years old. You must put me down.”

“Your wish is my command.” After setting the girl gently on her feet, Mr. Russell removed his derby and gave Athena a polite bow. “Miss Taylor.”

“Mr. Russell. Mrs. Russell.” Athena dipped a curtsy.

Mrs. Russell, neatly attired in a gown of dark-blue-and-white plaid cotton, her pale hair pinned up beneath a plumed hat, nodded courteously to Athena and then bent down to embrace her daughter. “I have missed you, dearest. How is school?”

“Very interesting,” Miss Russell replied matter-of-factly. “Our maid was killed on Friday.”

Mrs. Russell’s mouth fell open. “ What? ”

Mr. Russell stared. “Did you say ‘killed’?”

Athena’s chest tightened. Regardless of her own thoughts on the subject, it was clear that her sister had been right.

The last thing they needed was for a rumor of this kind to spread.

“I’m afraid your daughter misspoke,” she said hastily.

“One of our maids took a misstep down by the river. Her drowning was an unfortunate accident.”

“Even so.” Mrs. Russell’s brow wrinkled as she rose. “That is disturbing to hear. This house is already associated with a great tragedy. A woman who once lived here committed murder, isn’t that right?”

“Oh, stop being hysterical, Ellen,” Mr. Russell declared with a sigh. “ That happened ages ago.” To Athena, he added in a stern voice, “However, the river sounds like a dangerous place, Miss Taylor.”

“I hope you don’t allow the girls to go down there unaccompanied?” asked Mrs. Russell with a worried frown.

“Of course not,” Athena assured the woman, even though she knew it was a lie. She had allowed Miss Russell and Miss Jones to do exactly that the other morning. That was a mistake and now she was paying for it. She darted Miss Russell a silent look, hoping to convey her warning not to speak of it.

Miss Russell appeared to have received the unspoken command. “Don’t worry, Mama. I would never go down to the river alone .”

“Well, thank goodness for that,” Mrs. Russell responded. “Shall we go, then? Cook is making roast beef and Yorkshire puddings for dinner, your favorite, Lucy. We’ll bring her back by seven P.M. as always, Miss Taylor.”

Athena voiced her thanks and watched the carriage speed off down the drive. That was a narrow escape , she thought. She was still determined to get to the bottom of what had happened to Sally. But , she reminded herself, you will have to proceed quietly and carefully .

*

“What time did Mr. Chapman say he was coming?” Selena inquired later that afternoon as she parted the drawing room curtains and gazed out front.

After escorting their four other pupils to church and supervising luncheon, Athena and Selena had released the girls, as per their Sunday tradition, to read or draw, walk in the courtyard, or otherwise occupy themselves on their own until dinner.

“Two o’clock.” Athena tidied a stack of magazines on a low table and checked her watch. “Any minute now, in fact. He said in his letter that he would be arriving by coach at Darkmoor Bridge this afternoon.”

“Our new music master is a punctual man,” Selena declared with a smile. “He is walking up the drive as we speak.”

Athena heard some bustle in the front hall and in short order, Tabitha entered the drawing room.

“Mr. Peter Chapman to see you,” the housemaid announced, her cheeks unusually bright. She glanced beneath her lashes at the newcomer, who rewarded her with a smile before she hurried from the room.

Athena felt the same unsettled response to the newcomer.

Mr. Chapman was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen.