“Let him in,” Charlotte said, standing, only knowing that she had to get the letters—and Joseph and Martha—out of the room as quickly as possible before Lady Hartley retracted her offer of friendship.

“Miss.” Joseph came in, bundled up in what looked a coat cast off from his father and great boots that had certainly seen better days. And yet his eyes were bright, his smile broad and he had an air about him of a boy who had not been caught red-handed in the dead of night, trying to catch a glimpse of the bones. Charlotte couldn’t help but admire him for it. “Here is your correspondence.”

“Thank you,” Charlotte said, slipping the letters out of sight behind the mantel clock. “Martha will give you a farthing on your way out.”

“Not a ha’penny, miss?” Joseph asked. “For there are four letters there, miss, each of them addressed to the Messieurs—”

“A ha’penny it is.” Charlotte waved him away. “Now, be off home, back to your mother.”

“Thank you, miss,” Joseph said in his poshest voice, bowing first to Charlotte and then to Lady Hartley. “I look forward to doing business once again.”

Charlotte repressed a smile as she resumed her place beside Lady Hartley. Though Joseph seemed always to appear at exactly the worst possible moment, he took a certain joy in life that was very heartening to see.

“I have come up with a plan of action,” Lady Hartley said without mentioning Joseph, or the Mr. Bell letters, for which Charlotte was eternally grateful. “In the course of my charity work, I have met with the great and the good, prime ministers and princes, and I speak to all as plainly as I speak to you, for I resolved when I was very young that all should know my mind whether they liked it or not. By conducting myself in this way, I have found that very soon I have the measure of whomever I am conversing with. And just as I have found you to be an intelligent and resourceful lady of exceptional character, so shall I divine the true nature of Clifton Bradshaw. You and I shall visit him, and he will open up his very soul to me, Miss Brontë—you wait and see.”

“Lady Hartley, you are so very kind,” Charlotte said, “but I couldn’t possibly ask you to visit Top Withens Hall—not in this weather. It is a rough, cold and isolated place, more so in this snow. And Clifton Bradshaw is an unpleasant, coarse man whom someone as fine and as gentle as you should never meet.”

“Nonsense, Charlotte.” Lady Hartley seemed adamant. “He is no match for me. I shall return tomorrow after breakfast. My carriage shall take us up to Top Withens, and Clifton Bradshaw will find he has met his match.”

“I’m sure he will, Lady Hartley.” Charlotte thrilled with admiration. “I am certain of it.”