“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” Honoria said.

“I don’t know,” Iris wailed. “It’s just that we were all supposed to be in this together. That’s what you said. Every single day you said it. And if I was going to swallow my pride and humiliate myself in front of every single person I know, then Sarah was going to have to do it, too.”

Just then Daisy arrived. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why is Iris so upset?”

“Sarah isn’t here,” Honoria explained.

Daisy looked over at the clock on the mantel. “That’s rude of her. She’s almost a half an hour late.”

“She’s not coming,” Iris said flatly.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Honoria said.

“What do you mean she’s not coming?” Daisy echoed. “She can’t not come. How are we meant to perform a piano quartet without a piano?”

A long silence fell over the room, and then Iris gasped. “Daisy, you’re brilliant.”

Daisy looked pleased, but nonetheless said, “I am?”

“We can cancel the performance!”

“No,” Daisy said, shaking her head quickly. She turned to Honoria. “I don’t want to do that.”

“We’ll have no choice,” Iris went on, her eyes lighting with glee. “It’s just as you said. We can’t have a piano quartet without a piano. Oh, Sarah is brilliant.”

Honoria, however, was not convinced. She adored Sarah, but it was difficult to think of her planning something quite so unselfish, especially under these circumstances. “Do you really think she did this in an attempt to cancel the entire performance?”

“I don’t care why she did it,” Iris said frankly. “I’m just so happy I could—” For a moment she literally could not speak. “I’m free! We’re free! We’re—”

“Girls! Girls!”

Iris broke off midcheer as they all turned to the door. Sarah’s mother, their aunt Charlotte—known to the rest of the world as Lady Pleinsworth—was hurrying into the room, followed by a young, dark-haired woman who was dressed in well-made yet terribly plain clothing that marked her instantly as a governess.

Honoria had a very bad feeling about this.

Not about the woman. She looked perfectly pleasant, if perhaps a little uncomfortable at having been dragged into a family squabble. But Aunt Charlotte had a frightening gleam in her eye. “Sarah has taken ill,” she announced.

“Oh, no,” Daisy cried, sinking dramatically into a chair. “Whatever will we do?”

“I’m going to kill her,” Iris muttered to Honoria.

“Naturally, I could not allow the performance to be cancelled,” Aunt Charlotte went on. “I could never live with myself if such a tragedy came to pass.”

“Her, too,” Iris said under her breath.