“I don't know!” She leaned forward and her full skirts touched and spilled over the fender. She seemed not to notice. “Perhaps it would be better than selling. Then all our present employees could remain. There is that to consider.” She was ardent to convince him. “And it would be a continued source of security for us . . . something for my sons to inherit. That is better than a sum of money which can disappear alarmingly quickly. A piece of misguided advice, a young man willful, unwilling to be counseled by those who are older and he considers staid and unimaginative. I have heard of it happening.”

He bent over and moved her skirt, in case a coal should fall or spark and set it alight.

She barely noticed.

“Aren't you looking rather far ahead?” he said a little coolly.

“I have to, Mr. Monk. There is no one to take care of me but myself. I have five children. They must be provided for.”

“There is Lord Ravensbrook,” he reminded her. “He has both means and influence, and seems more than willing to be of every assistance. I think your anxiety is greater than it need be, Mrs. Stonefield.” He hated it, but his suspicions were wakened. Perhaps the relationship between herself and her husband was not as ideal as she had said. Possibly it was she whose affections had wandered elsewhere, not he? She was an extremely attractive woman. There was in her an element of passion and daring far deeper than mere physical charm. He found himself drawn to her, watching her with fascination, even while his mind was weighing and judging facts.

“And I have already tried to explain, Mr. Monk, that I do not wish to forfeit my freedom and become dependent upon the goodwill of Lord Ravensbrook,” she went on, her voice thick with emotion she could not hide. “I won't have that, Mr. Monk, as long as I have any way at all of preventing it. I am growing more afraid day by day, but I am not yet beyond my wits' end. And whether you believe it or not, I am doing what my husband would have wished. I knew him well, for all that you may think perhaps I did not.”

“I don't doubt you did, Mrs. Stonefield.” It was quite out of character for him to lie. He barely knew why he did it, except some need to comfort her.

He could hardly touch her and he had no instinct to. It did not come to him naturally to express himself by touch. Whether it ever had, he could not know.

“Yes you do,” she said with a pinched smile, a bitter humor of knowledge.