I reined in my flight of fancy when the most intimidating woman I’d ever seen entered the foyer. She was very tall, and she had a strong, square, somewhat masculine jaw, with an equally strong, square brow. She didn’t look like a woman who would tolerate nonsense or inefficiency of any sort. Her severe black dress and tight knot of hair added to the impression. She was more forbidding than my father. I hadn’t believed that to be possible.

But her smile was friendly. In fact, there was a hint of sympathy to it, as though she was thinking “Oh, you poor dear.” I stiffened my spine, prepared to be told that the position had already been filled. Instead, she reached to shake my hand. I hoped Nat hadn’t left my glove dirty enough to smear ink on her bare hand. “Thank you, Mr. Chastain,” she said to the butler. To me she said, “Miss Newton, I am Mrs. Talbot. Please come with me. We can talk in the morning room.” Without waiting for my response, she turned and headed up the staircase. I had to run a few steps to catch up with her.

We passed a white-aproned maid on the landing, and Mrs. Talbot paused to say, “Please serve tea for two in the morning room, right away.” She led me to a very feminine sitting room filled with dainty furniture so fragile-looking that I feared it wouldn’t support a woman as sturdy as Mrs. Talbot, who looked even larger and more imposing in this setting. I felt ungainly there despite my own average size.

“Have a seat, Miss Newton,” Mrs. Talbot said, gesturing toward a small sofa. She took the chair across from it. “Lord Henry was supposed to be here for this interview, but he has not returned yet. We may as well begin in his absence.” She gave me another sympathetic smile. “I must say, you are not what I expected. Based on your letter, I assumed that you were a spinster, but you are very young.”

“I am almost eighteen,” I said, trying to sit even straighter and give the impression of age and maturity. It was less than half a year until my eighteenth birthday, so I felt I was stretching the truth only slightly.

She raised an eyebrow but made no comment. “Your letter says you have tutored young ladies and young gentlemen. You are comfortable with both?”

“Yes,” I said with a nod. “And a variety of ages, as well.”

“Yet you have not attended a university yourself? Nor school of any kind?”

“My father is a professor at Yale. He believed he could teach me more effectively than any school. I had received the equivalent of a university education by the time I was sixteen, and I had begun tutoring younger children long before that.”