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Cherise came in anyway. Closing the door noiselessly behind her, she advanced toward Jane. “Do you know Mr Churchill?” she asked timidly.

“Mr Churchill? No!” answered Jane automatically, before realising the family must have seen her talking to him when they passed in the carriage on the way to church last Sunday.

“No,” she amended. “He mistook me for Miss Fairfax when I stepped out of the gate for church, that is all. I was wearing my poke bonnet. I only spoke to him because he had brought a textbook for Miss Fairfax and was unaware that she had been injured.”

“You shouldn’t speak to Mr Churchill,” stated Cherise baldly. “He is a bad man.”

Jane was flabbergasted by this summary destruction of Mr Churchill’s character. She cast her mind back over her encounter with the accused, whom she had judged to be a handsome and amiable man, much in the way of Mr Bingley; though, Jane assured herself, Mr Churchill could never hold a candle to Charles. Jane was forced to admit in retrospect that Mr Churchill had been rather forward and insinuating.

Looking again at Cherise, she noticed her charge was shivering.

“Cherise, you will catch your death if you continue to stand there! You should go back to bed.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“I will keep your warning in mind.”

“Miss Fairfax is quite smitten with him, but he will ruin her character, which was quite spotless until he came along! Now, he is trying to win you over and who knows what will come of it?” said Cherise, wringing her hands.

Jane could see that the girl was unusually anxious and was obviously bursting to say more.

“Is there something else you wish to divulge?” she prompted.

There was a pregnant pause before Cherise finally blurted: “Mr Churchill broke Jane’s leg!”

Here was news indeed! There was an awkward pause while Jane considered how she should respond to this accusation. Cherise eyed her governess anxiously; fearful her intemperate outburst had undermined her credibility.

“Perhaps you should get under the covers while you explain,” said Jane, moving aside in the bed.

Cherise scooted under the covers and drew them up around her neck while Jane propped herself against the wall, drawing her cloak around her shoulders.

“I understood that Miss Fairfax broke her leg in this house. Was Mr Churchill then inside?” Jane asked her charge.

“No, but it was his fault as sure as the night is dark!”

“Did Miss Fairfax fall down the stairs?”

“No, that is what we made it appear, so that Jane would not lose her place.”

“We?”

“Felix and me. Jane broke her leg climbing in through that window,” said Cherise pointing at the window overlooking the courtyard.

“Climbing in the window?” repeated Jane in astonishment.

“She arrived back after curfew. This frequently happens and it is all Mr Churchill’s fault! He is always luring her to go on excursions with him, which frequently result in her being late. Frederick usually hangs round the gate, doing chores in the yard, so that he may secretly let her in, but he was called away on some errand that night and she was locked outside in the lane. Felix and I saw Mr Churchill help her climb over the gate and onto the carriage house roof, but it is quite a distance up to the window.”

“So, you were both watching out for her from your separate windows?”

“No, Felix was in my room, having escaped through the pass-through,” said Cherise, indicating the tiny hatch in the wall through which the brass pail of water was delivered every morning. “Nurse locks his door because she has caught him outside his room a couple of times, but he can squeeze through the pass-through to get out.”

“And where was Amabel during this adventure?”

“Asleep, of course. She is but a baby...”

“Go on,” urged Jane, wondering what other mischief her charges were getting up to under her very nose.

“We could not go to help Miss Fairfax straight away because Felix had heard Nurse knocking about in her room. Then there was a bang and a scream. We thought for sure that Nurse would have heard the commotion, but she did not come out, and we began to hope that all might be right. We waited for a bit longer, not being game to step into the hall immediately lest we alert Nurse. But then we heard a slithering in the corridor and some groans...”