CHAPTER 1
“Rosa, the curtain has a hole in it.”
Clara stood on tiptoe at the parlour window, one finger hooked through the frayed edge of the fabric where the lining had finally given way. Pale afternoon light poured through the gap and caught the dust suspended in the air between them—tiny, drifting particles that Clara watched with the grave fascination she reserved for things she intended to investigate further.
“I know, darling.” Rosamund did not look up from the mending in her lap. The stocking she was darning belonged to Clara and had already been repaired twice. A third time would hold it through the month, if she was careful. After that, she would need to find another pair, which meant finding another sixpence, which meant finding another afternoon of needlework for Mrs Hewitt’s shop on the Strand. “Leave the curtain alone, please.”
“But I can see through it. I can see the whole street.”
“Then you are the most fortunate girl in London, with your very own spy-hole.”
Clara considered this with the seriousness it did not deserve. She pressed her face closer to the gap, and Rosamund felt the familiar pull beneath her ribs—that small, relentless tightening that arrived whenever she looked at her sister and calculated, involuntarily, the distance between what Clara had and what Clara deserved.
The townhouse was not what it had been. None of their life was what it had been. The wallpaper had begun to peel at the seams, revealing the older pattern beneath like a wound that would not stay dressed. The furniture was sparse—what had not been sold had been rearranged to disguise the gaps, a trick that fooled no one but felt necessary in the way that all small dignities felt necessary when larger ones had been stripped away. The fire in the grate was modest, because coal cost money, and Rosamund had learned to dress Clara in layers rather than feed a flame she could not sustain.
She pulled the needle through the wool and counted the week ahead. Tuesday, Mrs Hewitt’s shop. Wednesday, collect three shillings for the last batch of mending. Thursday, if she was fortunate, the grocer and a little set aside for rent that was already overdue. The art of survival was not complicated. It was simply relentless.
“Rosamund.”
Clara’s voice had changed.
“There is a carriage.”
Rosamund’s needle stilled. They did not receive carriages. They did not receive anyone, except Eleanor on Saturday afternoons and occasionally the landlord’s boy, who knocked with the practised reluctance of a child sent to deliver messages he knew were unwelcome.
“What sort of carriage?”
“A nice one. Black, with gold on the door.” Clara’s breath fogged the glass. “A man is getting out. He has a very tall hat.”
Rosamund set the mending aside and rose. By the time she reached the window, the knock was already sounding—three sharp raps that carried the authority of someone who expected doors to open promptly and had never been made to wait.
She did not recognise the carriage. But when she looked down at the figure on the step—the quality of the coat, the way he held his gloves in one hand with the casual precision of a man who considered even small gestures worth performing correctly—her stomach dropped.
Edwin Vale.
She had not seen him in four years. Not since her mother’s funeral—the second burial in as many months, held in a church so empty the curate’s voice had echoed off bare walls. Edwin had stood at the back, spoken to no one, examined the modestflowers as though assessing their cost, and left before the earth was turned.
He had not written since. Had not sent money. Had not enquired after his brother’s children even once.
And now he was here.
“Clara.” Rosamund kept her voice steady with an effort that cost more than it should have. “Go upstairs to your room, please.”
“But who is?—”
“Now, Clara.”
Clara went without further protest—though she cast a backwards look from the stairs that was entirely too perceptive for a child of six. Rosamund waited until she heard the bedroom door close before she smoothed her dress, pressed her palms flat against her stomach, and opened the front door.
“My dear girl.”
Edwin Vale smiled as though four years of silence were a minor inconvenience—a letter lost in the post, an appointment regrettably missed. He was older than she remembered, or perhaps she simply noticed it now: the grey threading through his temples, the deeper lines around his mouth. But the smile was the same. Warm. Practiced. The kind of warmth that existed only on the surface, like varnish applied to cheap wood.
“Uncle.” She did not step aside. “This is unexpected.”
“I imagine it must be.” He glanced past her into the hallway with an expression of mild appraisal, taking in the bare floorboards, the coat hook with its single occupant, the absence of anything that suggested comfort or prosperity. “May I come in?”
Every instinct told her to say no. But refusing entry to a family member—even one who had forfeited every right to the title—would raise questions she could not yet answer, and the appearance of grace was sometimes the only weapon available to a woman with nothing else.
