Julia worried that Zora wouldn’t be able to sit still for long enough to render an image with any measure of great detail, but the constant working of her fingers kept her focused on the task, but continued to chat and ask questions with all the energy of a hummingbird flitting around the petals of a brightly colored bloom.

  “What will you draw?” Zora asked once she had the first strong lines of the house’s walls and foundation marked in brief sweeps of charcoal on the page.

  “I’m not sure.” Julia stared down at the box of pencils and pastels, her mouth pinched in a tight line. It still felt so unusual to be able to have so many tools and supplies at her disposal, after years of barely doing even the simplest of sketches. She hadn’t wanted to waste the paper — which cost money to replace, money she did not have in abundance — and so it was a frivolity that had been put away along with so many other things during her time living at Mrs. Cochran’s house.

  Her own fingers fluttered before she picked up a pencil and placed the sharpened tip of it to the page.

  She’d never cared much for still-lifes, painting vases filled with flowers or bowls of fruit arranged on a tabletop in the golden light of the sun. And so the lines flowed across the page, faint at first as she began with setting the marks of eyes and nose and mouth, bolder with the slant of cheekbones and brow.

  The morning slipped away as they worked, as they talked, as the sun slipped in and out behind the passing clouds. A chill threatened to penetrate the wool of their shawls and stockings, but Julia hunched her shoulders against it. She finished first, her hands aching from working for so long without a break, and after so many years without steady practice.

  It was not her best portrait. Several places were fudged and shaded where she had made a mistake and not been able to fix it as she’d wanted. But it looked like Mr. Halberd, or it looked as he had the other night, crouched in front of the fire, turning back to gaze at her with a ghost of a smile playing about the corners of his mouth.

  “You’ve made his ears too small.”

  Julia glanced at Zora, who had abandoned her picture of Langford to peer at the portrait of her father. “I’m afraid I have, yes. But I haven’t drawn regularly for several years, so my hands are a bit clumsier than I would like.”

  Zora tilted her head. “But I like how you’ve done his eyes and mouth.”

  “Thank you.” Julia slid the portrait beneath another clean sheet of paper. “May I see your work? Are you finished with it?”

  Zora stepped back, hands clasped behind her. She was proud of what she’d done. Julia could see that in the girl’s posture, in the pursing of her lips as though she was disguising a small smile. And the sketch was rather good, especially considering the age of its artist. There were awkward parts, of course, and she would need instruction in showing the perspective of things, but there was also a natural talent there in every line and stroke.

  “I like it very much,” Julia told her.

  Zora scuffed the sole of her shoe across the bulge of a tree root. “Will Papa like it? I want to give it to him.”

  “I think he will be extraordinarily pleased to receive such a gift from you.”

  Zora smiled, and a little bit of tension released from her face and shoulders.

  They gathered up their things and returned to the house to eat. Marching around outside and sitting in the chill of a sunny autumn morning had given them both a hearty appetite, so they tucked themselves beside the fire in the nursery with bowls of hot stew and thick slices of bread and bacon. Lessons renewed after that, mathematics and French as clouds moved in and the light from the windows grew dim.

  It was already dark when the first strike of rain landed on the nursery room windows. Julia added another log to the fire as the wind picked up and batted against the side of the house. She planned to crochet until it was time for dinner, while Zora shuffled a worn deck of cards and began to build a house with them in the middle of the floor.

  A quiet and cozy evening was all that Julia anticipated for the two of them. What she didn’t anticipate was a knock on the nursery door before Mrs. Holland stepped into the room. Julia winced at the housekeeper’s expression, as dire as if she had come to announce a recurrence of the Black Death sweeping through the village.

  “Mr. Halberd has returned early for the day, due to the storm,” Mrs. Holland announced. “He hopes the two of you will be free to join him for dinner this evening.”

  Zora scrambled to her feet, her half-finished house of cards tumbling down at a sweep from the edge of her skirt. “Mrs. Benton!” she cried, and clapped her hands together. “We can show him our pictures!”

  “I think you can show him yours,” Julia said with a smile as she set aside her crochet, dropping it into the basket she kept beside her chair. “I don’t believe mine is fine enough for display.” That, and she had no need for it to become common knowledge that she had begun sketching portraits of Mr. Halberd in her spare time. “When are we expected?” she asked Mrs. Holland.

  “Six o’clock, in the dining room.”

  “Very good. Thank you.”

  If Mrs. Holland bristled at this brief dismissal, she did not show it beyond a tight nod and the sharp snap of the door as she shut it behind her.

  “Six o’clock,” Julia echoed, and checked the time. “You should wash up and change before you go down. Your dress is still smudged with evidence of your artistic exploits this morning.”

  Zora pouted, but it seemed a superficial reaction. The girl’s eyes sparkled in anticipation of having dinner somewhere that wasn’t her nursery, and Julia could not help but share a little in her excitement. She had tried not to dwell on what Zora had told her the previous day, the suspicion that Mr. Halberd might not be her true father. Servants’ gossip, she hoped it was, and nothing more. For both Zora’s sake and Mr. Halberd’s.

  “Now, let us choose a dress for you,” Julia said. “It is already after five o’clock and we don’t want to be late!”

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  They walked downstairs together, Julia and Zora, through corridors paneled in dark wood, past tapestries of golds and greens that fluttered lightly as their hems swept past. And then they were in the dining room, the long table suffused with the light of over a dozen candles, while a large fire crackled in the wide fireplace on the other side of the room.

  “Mrs. Benton.”

  Julia had not sought him out at once. There had been the table, the flickering light, the strange cloistered vastness of the room with the dark colors of the wood and the furniture threatening to close in around her despite the height of the ceiling above them.

  “Mr. Halberd.” She placed her hand at Zora’s back, between her shoulders. It had been an instinctual thing, to reach out and touch her at that moment. To crave the contact and support of another person, even someone as diminutive as the child beside her.

  He looked different from when she had been in the study with him, enjoying a small meal toasted over the fire. He was dressed well, as though he expected finer company than a small child and a drab governess. Zora stepped forward and dropped a quick curtsy, then held out the roll of paper she had carried beneath one arm.

  “What is this?” He took the proffered paper from her, his brow furrowed.

  “A present.” Isadora rocked back and forth from her heels to the balls of her feet. “For you.”

  He unrolled the picture, his eyes gleaming as he studied his daughter’s sketch. “I had no idea you could draw so well.” His smile broadened. “You certainly didn’t inherit your skill from me.”

  Julia inhaled sharply at his choice of words. Did he know about the gossip trailing through the edges of the household, the suspicion Zora held that he wasn’t really her father? If he was aware of it, he made no further sign as to his intelligence as he rolled up the picture again and placed it on the edge of the dining table.

  “I’ll have it framed, hmm? And may I hang it in my study so I will always see it while I am working?”

  Zora nodded sharply. “And perhaps you’ll want to frame Mrs. Benton’s picture as well.”

  His attention leapt to her. “Did she draw a picture of Langford, as well? I would like to see it, if she’s willing to share.”

  “Oh, no. No, it’s—” Julia stammered before Zora interrupted.

  “She drew a portrait of you!” The girl nearly bounced out of her slippers. “It’s very good, but I think she made your ears too small.”

  “Thank you, Zora.” Julia placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders before she could jump out of her shoes entirely. “But I’m sure your father has other things with which to occupy his time.”

  Mr. Halberd cleared his throat. “Well, I—”

  Julia looked at him, her jaw set. If she had been a bolder woman, a different woman, the expression on her face might have been mistaken for determination, for courage. But it was fear that set her teeth together, that he would somehow be able to decipher her thoughts at that moment. He had faltered into silence at that look from her, but still he regarded her, and in a way that made her draw in a long, slow breath. Because her heart had begun to beat faster, because — for a moment — she thought she might burn up at the heat of his attention.

  And then he blinked, and he looked away.

  Had she imagined it then? That look…

  No, no. Of course it hadn’t been real. It couldn’t be. She was a fool to think he would look at her in such a way. As someone to be wanted, desired. It was only her own lust clouding her judgment, making her believe…

  Julia closed her eyes, her cheeks flooding with warmth. Her own lust. No, she couldn’t think like that. She couldn’t continue to acknowledge how much time she spent thinking about him, how she had always thought of him. Even during the years her husband had still been alive.

  “Shall we be seated?”

  For a moment, Julia couldn’t move. She felt tremendously fragile, that a single step or tilt of her head would crack her open like an egg, and every part of herself she’d kept hidden for the past twelve years would spill out in front of him.

  Zora took her hand, giving her a tug towards the table. Julia stumbled on her first step but recovered quickly, allowing herself to be led forward. Mr. Halberd took the seat at the head of the table, while Zora and Julia sat across from one another on his left and right-hand side. There was soup, to begin with. Something that smelled strongly of leeks and chicken. And there was wine, a servant stepping up from behind Julia to fill her glass with the jewel-red liquid.

  She had not touched wine for years. Yes, she had sipped some sherry in Mr. Halberd’s study, but that had been more medicinal than anything. As the wife of the vicar, Frederick had admonished against her ever imbibing too freely, claiming that it would be unseemly for her to drink, even a small glass with dinner. She had wanted to bristle against his ruling, but then she had discovered that even a single swallow of wine while she was pregnant had always left her violently ill, and so it had become an easy thing to leave behind. And after he had died, wine and other spirits had simply become a luxury she could not afford.

  She picked up her glass, breathing in the scent of it, as heavy as a perfume. One sip, rolling back across her tongue, and she told herself she would drink no more than that, rather than worry about losing her head.

  “So what are you learning?” Mr. Halberd asked his daughter between bites. “Will we be able to converse with one another in French soon?”

  “I don’t like French.” Zora sniffed her soup before she took a tentative sip from the edge of her spoon. Her eyes brightened and she slurped up the rest of it noisily. Julia made a small sound in her throat, and Zora shifted in her seat, her expression guilty but twinkling. “Sorry,” she said quickly, and took a less hesitant — and less cacophonous — second bite. “I like Latin, though. I like to pretend I’m Merlin and can say a few words of it to work some great, deep magic over the land.”

  Julia dropped her chin to hide her smile. Mr. Halberd raised his napkin to his mouth, taking a remarkably long time to wipe a few imaginary drops of soup from his lips. When she looked up, it was to find him watching her again, this time with the unmistakable glint of humor in his eyes.

  “And what else has Mrs. Benton been teaching you? Tell me everything.”

  It was a daring invitation. Zora rarely needed prompting to speak, and so the majority of the dinner conversation came from the child’s detailed descriptions of life under her new governess’s tutelage.

  Julia kept waiting for the moment when Mr. Halberd would grow tired of his daughter’s chatter, to scold her for being too loud or to speak over her about things he deemed more important. Children were to be seen and not heard, were they not? It was the belief Frederick had held, one that he often prefaced with the statement of “When we have a child…”

  But their child had never arrived. And with each failed pregnancy, Julia craved the sound of a bright young voice in the house, one that would never cease with their questions and observations. She’d had enough of the loss of babies who had never found their voice, never found their breath. Let the living ones talk and giggle and shout as much as they wished. She was not sure she had it in her heart to tell them to be quiet.

  They retired to the drawing room after dinner, Mr. Halberd walking Zora through the finer points of backgammon while Julia set herself apart from them in an oversized armchair with her crochet in her lap. She had made the mistake of taking too much wine at dinner, and she felt a bit too warm and a bit too fuzzy, as though her mind was made of the same wool that slid through her fingers with every stitch.

  An ache settled in her chest as she watched father and daughter play together, a twinge of grief at the loss of something she’d never had. But what if one of her children had lived? Would the roads of fate still have taken Frederick from her? Would she have still been a widow, but with a child in her care, living in Mrs. Cochran’s spare rooms with a babe on her hip?

  Ah, no. If there had been a child, no doubt she would have gone to live with one of her sisters. Those happy women with their living, loving husbands and their passels of children and-

  She stopped crocheting and looked down at her work. Her last row of stitches had come out too tight, and she was pulling on the yarn hard enough to nearly break the thread. She unraveled the ruined part, considered trying again, then gathered it all up and set it aside before she could be tempted to toss the lot of it into the fire across the room.

  “I think it’s time for Zora to prepare for bed.” She didn’t check to see what time it was, but the storm outside had yet to abate, and between the sounds of the rain and the wind lashing at the sides of the house, Julia wanted nothing more than to be tucked up warm and comfortable in her bed. Preferably with a book. Or just blessed solitude.

  Zora said goodnight to her father, giving him a kiss on his cheek before he could stand and see them out of the room and upstairs. Julia nodded her own farewell without meeting his eyes, holding her crochet to her chest and rushing to keep up with Zora as she rushed up the main staircase two steps at a time.

  Julia helped her undress and wash and change into a clean nightdress. There would have to be stories, then. There were always stories, Julia found. It had swiftly become one of her favorite parts of each day, tucking Zora into bed, settling in beside her with a book from Langford’s library or maybe only the spark of her imagination fueling tales that would slowly, eventually lull the child into a deep slumber. But the excitement of the evening must have exhausted Zora more than usual, and after only a few minutes of reading she was snoring softly with her head pressed against Julia’s arm.

  It had been a long day. Julia set aside the unfinished book, her head tipping back against the headboard while the sound of the rain worked as an accompaniment to the slowness of her breathing and the steady beat of her heart. She closed her eyes even as she told herself she shouldn’t, that she should return to her own room and lie down in her own bed. But it felt good to remain where she was, with the warmth and peace of a sleeping child beside her.

  And of course, as her eyes drifted shut and the first threads of sleep wove through her, all of the questions and anxiety that had been held at bay for the majority of the day bombarded her. That perhaps it had been a mistake to come here. That perhaps she should have remained where she was, snug in her tiny rooms at Mrs. Cochran’s house, teaching weekly at the school, counting her pennies over and over until she’d rubbed their surfaces smooth. It hadn’t been much in the way of a fulfilling life, but perhaps she didn’t deserve more than that. She who had never really loved her husband, who had not mourned his death but for the loss of home and income that came with it, who had found herself looking at another man with lust in her—

  “Mrs. Benton?”

  Her eyes flashed open. Had she fallen asleep? She blinked rapidly and tried to catch her breath. Above her stood Mr. Halberd, a candle in his hand as the lamp beside her on the nightstand had run out of oil.

  “Oh.” She sat up so quickly she nearly struck her head against his arm. “I’m sorry. I must have dozed off. I didn’t realize how tired I was.”

  He stepped back to give her room as she stood up, her hand gripping the edge of the bed for a moment as she waited for a brief spate of dizziness to pass away. The wine, she thought, and regretted that second glass.

  “I glanced in to check on Zora,” he explained as she rubbed the sleepiness from her eyes. “I couldn’t decide whether or not to wake you, but in the end I was worried you might roll off the edge of the bed or wake up with a ferocious crick in your neck.”

  There was a cramp in her neck, or at least the beginning of one. She poked at it self-consciously, then found that several pins had fallen out of her hair, leaving her braid to slide out of its bun and trail over her shoulder like a tangled horsetail. “I’m sorry,” she said again, unaware she’d taken to repeating herself. “I shouldn’t have…” She cleared her throat and tried to take a step back from him, but ended up knocking the backs of her thighs against the side of the bed instead. “What time is it?”