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Mrs. Bromley was clearing the table when Maisie entered. It seemed to Maisie that color was heightened all around when Mrs. Bromley turned to greet her—after all, Maisie was now her employer.

“Miss Dobbs, I thought I’d bring down a spot of cottage pie for Mr. Dobbs—I made it fresh this morning, and it was too much for one. I really didn’t expect you today.”

“I should have telephoned, I’m sorry.” Maisie smiled, anxious to bring a sense of calm to what was obviously a very pleasant lunch—until she arrived. She reached down and ruffled Jook’s ear; the dog had emerged from slumber to greet her. “Well, if there’s any left, I wouldn’t mind some myself—though if it puts me to sleep like Jook, I will be out for the count for the rest of the day.”

“Here you are, love.” Frankie pulled out a chair. “Bren—Mrs. Bromley made a fair old pie there, and even though I came back for more, there’s plenty for another helping or two.”

Mrs. Bromley put a plate of cottage pie and vegetables in front of Maisie, while Frankie poured tea from a large brown teapot.

“I suppose I’d better be off now—” Mrs. Bromley untied her apron and reached for her basket.

“Oh, no, don’t go—I’m sure you’ve already got a pudding ready, Mrs. Bromley, I know you too well. My father will not wish to miss a sweet. Come on, sit down.”

Frankie poured again, fresh cups of tea for himself and Mrs. Bromley, while the housekeeper placed a bowl with a slice of apple pie with custard in front of Frankie, and the same in the place where she had been sitting before Maisie arrived.

“This is lovely, Mrs. Bromley, just what the doctor ordered.”

“You look a bit drawn, love,” Frankie spoke up, as he often did when he was worried about his daughter.

“Oh, busy, Dad. Busy. Driving a lot, too.” Maisie pushed another piece of pie onto her fork. “Did you tell Mrs. Bromley about the time you caught the stable boy from another trainer putting something in your horse’s feed?”

“Oh, that was a fine to-do. It was the third race of the day at Newmarket . . . ” Frankie leaned forward, and as Maisie tucked into the pie, she smiled, watching him look from her back to Mrs. Bromley as he told the story of a day’s racing when he was a stable lad at Newmarket in the years before he’d met her mother, before he’d become a costermonger, and before the much-wanted child had been born. And as he spoke, Maisie felt a tear in her heart—one she had become so very used to accommodating—begin to mend again, as the glue of her father’s intermittent laughter sealed the jagged edges of unspoken grief.

Later, Maisie returned to The Dower House, excusing herself while Mrs. Bromley assured her that she would be up at the house as soon as she’d finished with Frankie’s kitchen. She’d asked if Frankie might be joining her for supper, to which Maisie replied that of course he would—in fact, why didn’t they take supper together, all three of them, in the kitchen? In truth, she was still trying to get used to being at The Dower House, and was now quite thrown when she considered the unusual nature of her domestic arrangements. She had often spent the day at the house, only to return to her father’s cottage in the evening, except when James was at home.

She had, eventually, arranged for the large bedroom at the back of the house to be redecorated in a color that reminded her of smooth buttermilk, and had pale-yellow curtains made to add light to the room. She and Mrs. Bromley had moved the furniture around, though they had summoned a couple of the gardeners from Chelstone Manor to help with the bed and an armoire of some girth that had been brought from Maurice’s house in Paris several years before. The housekeeper had made a skirt of the same yellow silk as the curtains, to surround the dressing table, and soon the room was rendered more feminine, without resorting to frippery.

Now Maisie lay down on her bed for a few minutes’ rest before going down to the library, where many of the boxes containing Maurice’s papers had been consigned. There were still more