“Where are we going tomorrow?” she asked. “You were examining the county map very closely at dinner.”

“We are going to a town called Stevening. It is perhaps an hour or two carriage ride away.”

“We don’t have a carriage.”

“I will hire one.”

“Such a lady I am these days, with your nice pelisse and bonnet and now a hired carriage.”

“Do not be too excited. The carriage will be no more than a gig, and you will sit in the back.” She climbed into the bed and turned out the lamp. They lay side by side in darkness pierced by a filmy ray of moonlight slipping between the window drapes. The white plaster walls reflected that light so that the ceiling beams showed black in contrast. Two men had the chamber next to them and from the sounds were enjoying a bottle together.

“Mrs. Drable told me that you left your last position because the husband importuned you,” Minerva said.

Elise did not respond, but her head nodded.

“Was it more than that?”

She shook her head. “I feared him getting me alone, though. He touched me in ways he shouldn’t and I feared one day he would—not stop.”

Probably so. Eventually. “It is good you left. I know without references that obtaining another position is very difficult, but things will be right soon, I’m sure.” She hoped that Hepplewhite’s became successful, and that there was enough work for Elise to keep herself.

“If necessary, you can return to your village,” she added.

“I wouldn’t want to do that. There is no place for me there, except with relatives who don’t want the keep of me. There was a man who offered to marry me, but I did not want to marry him. So I came up to town.”

That twisted Minerva’s heart. She knew Elise’s situation all too well. When her uncle decided to emigrate to America, he had not offered to bring her too. He let her know the cost of it, and how taking her would delay how he established himself and his two daughters. Her future had looked bleak then, adding to the sorrow she felt at losing her cousins who were her girlhood friends. She saw herself as a governess, perhaps, or maybe in service.

Then Mr. Finley had offered for her hand, to everyone’s astonishment and relief. A love match, her uncle called it, since she had no fortune. A miracle.

She had convinced herself she wanted that marriage. In reality she embraced the idea because there was no alternative that appealed to a girl of seventeen years. Algernon was older. Thirty-seven when they wed. If she thought him handsome in a brittle, sharp way, and somewhat unctuous in his manner and speech, those were small objections that she assumed would soon pass.