“Can you manage, Molly?” Charlotte asked her, rather concerned.

“Oh yes, miss,” Molly said sweetly. “Sometimes Bess gets terrible afraid for no reason and clutches onto a blade, but I shall have them loose in no time, and before you know it, she will be sweet as honey once again.”

“Be sure your sins will find you out,” Bess muttered as Molly carefully prised open her fingers. “Be sure they will hunt you down.”

Liston came in from outside, then crossed at once to take the other knife from Bess and guide the old lady into a chair.

“Where do you keep your good china?” Charlotte asked Molly, who could not take her eyes off Liston.

“I’ll fetch it down, Miss Charlotte,” Liston said, gesturing at the top shelf of the dresser. “Molly, bring the tea directly.”

Charlotte noted how Liston kept his head bowed, making a concerted effort not to look at Catherine, which led her to believe that he too was feeling desperate.

“Polly, put the kettle on,” Bess sang as she watched Liston arrange the cups on the tray. “Polly, put the kettle on. We all fall down.”

“Now, then, Bess,” Molly said, “you’ve got yourself in a muddle again.”

Charlotte and Liston took seats at the table.

“Mr. Bradshaw,” Lady Hartley said, “please, tell me everything you know about the discovery of human remains within this building.”

Bradshaw shook his head, bewildered.

“There’s nothing I can tell you that I haven’t already told Miss Brontë here more than once. Nothing more than all must know, the way folk gossip round here. We found the bones—that was the first I knew of them. I was in error not reporting them to the law or the parson. At first I assumed they were at least a century old. But the boy found a medallion that dates them to but a few years since. And that is all I know. Lady Hartley, you must believe that it was not me who hid the bones in my house, nor took the life of the one who once owned them.”

“I do not believe it, sir,” Lady Hartley said. “In short, I think the opposite is true, and it would be for your own good to admit it to all now. Do you agree?”

At last Clifton Bradshaw looked up from his hands into Lady Hartley’s eyes. Charlotte was shocked to see them brim with unshed tears. “Why do you wish me to, madam?”

“Because it is the truth. Because it is your doing,” Lady Hartley replied evenly.

Bradshaw frowned deeply, his fingers knitted together in distress as he shook his head once.

“I have sinned, madam,” he said. “I have sinned against my wife, my son; I have sinned against my employees—even Old Bess there; I have sinned against God, but I did not murder that child.”

Charlotte sat back in her chair, amazed to discover that in that moment she believed him.