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Judith folded one hand precisely atop another before answering. “I cannot imagine either, my lady. The creature resisted explanation before its demise.”

Uncle Lionel emitted a strangled sound somewhere between a cough and laughter whilst Lady Dunsmore blinked uncertainly, apparently unable to determine whether insult had occurred or whether English people genuinely possessed inferior methods of fish preparation.

Judith rose before the matter could advance further. If she remained seated, she might begin saying exactly what she thought, and Blackthorn already contained enough unrest without adding fish diplomacy to the list.

She moved from the breakfast room with steady composure, though inwardly she was calculating how many days were left to endure these particular guests. The footmen passed quietly behind her, carrying silver dishes, whilst conversation resumed in uneven bursts. Fifteen days of guests had worn visible cracks into her civility.

Fifteen days. Judith privately believed no house party should exceed ten. Beyond that point, people either quarrelled, wept, gambled excessively, or fell in love with unsuitable persons, usually two at once.

As she entered the hall, Simmons materialized beside her with the silent inevitability of long-serving butlers everywhere. “Miss Finch, Mr. Hale reports two of Lord Cranford’s hunters have let themselves out of the stables again,” he murmured discreetly.

Simmons was a spare, erect man in his early sixties, with iron-grey hair, and a long solemn nose. Nearly forty years at Blackthorn had given him the expression of a man who had witnessed every variety of Finch folly and expected several new ones before luncheon.

Judith closed her eyes briefly. “Where?”

“The south meadow, miss.” The last time the animals had escaped, they had reached the village and consumed the contents of a greengrocer’s cart with such enthusiasm that the poor man recoiled at the sight of horses even now.

“Send Tom and Evans immediately,” she said, “and if Lord Cranford inquires after them, tell him his horses are taking independent exercise.”

Simmons coughed suspiciously into one gloved hand. “Yes, miss.”

Judith continued onward through the entrance hall whilst rain beat steadily against the tall windows. Blackthorn’s great hall had once been designed to impress visitors with ancestral splendour. This morning, it chiefly displayed muddy riding boots, abandoned cloaks, and two sleeping spaniels occupying the centre carpet with no consideration for the traffic around them.

The original oak screen still divided one end of the hall, blackened with age and carved with shields no living Finch could reliably identify, while a broad Jacobean staircase climbed beneath portraits of stern ancestors. A vast stone hearth occupied the opposite wall, large enough to roast an ox and presently employed to dry three pairs of riding gloves.

Northumberland in spring possessed a bleak grandeur Judith genuinely loved despite southern complaints that the county bordered lands stained with barbarism. Beyond the rain-streaked glass the hills rolled dark and windswept toward Scotland, heather only beginning to wake beneath weak March light. Somewhere beyond those ridges, men gathered presently in taverns and workshops to speak of reform and revolution. Newspapers arrived daily from Edinburgh, crowded with alarming rhetoric and confident predictions of national collapse. Sir Lionel insisted political unrest merely improved conversation at dinner. Judith suspected it improved recklessness considerably more.

A crash sounded faintly from the morning room. She stopped, inhaled, then proceeded toward disaster. Inside the room she discovered Mr. Pembroke attempting to conceal evidence while Lady Dunsmore’s unmarried sister, Miss Hammond, stared at the carpet in horror. The shattered remains of a porcelain figurine spread across the hearthrug.

Pembroke was a lean gentleman of perhaps two-and-forty, with sandy-brown hair already retreating from a high forehead and the healthy colour of a man who rode often, ate well, and had never doubted his own welcome anywhere. Miss Hammond, some ten years younger than her sister and almost painfully slender, possessed pale fair hair, a long nervous face, and the air of a woman who had spent much of her life standing apologetically half a pace behind Lady Dunsmore.

Mr. Pembroke brightened immediately upon seeing her. “Miss Finch! Excellent. There has been a small accident.”

“So I see.”

“It slipped.”

“From the mantel?”

“Yes.”

Judith looked at him. Mr. Pembroke possessed many admirable qualities but deceit was not one of them.

“Were you trying your hand at juggling again, sir?”

Miss Hammond gasped softly. “How did you know?”

“Because he attempted the same thing with oranges three evenings ago.”

Mr. Pembroke appeared wounded by this betrayal of confidence. “In my defence, I had almost mastered the pattern.”

“With porcelain?”

She knelt to rescue the surviving fragments before the servants arrived.

Blackthorn, she reflected, would collapse entirely without her—not in any theatrical fashion, but quietly, expensively, and with dreadful consequences to the porcelain. She would have the remainder put away until he left.

“Judith!”