Twee tributes to a mythical past, Ruby thought but did not say.

His father and stepmother retired to the country a few years ago, he told her. Beatrice, his half sister, had gone off to New York City to become an actress but ended up in Schenectady. His half brother, Ned, married an older heiress and moved to Piccadilly, where he dabbled in . . . something. Real estate? “I regret to say that we’ve fallen lamentably out of touch,” he said, pouring more tea through the strainer into Ruby’s cup. “So. Perhaps you might tell me what happened to Evangeline.”

She took a sip. Lukewarm. She put it down. “I’m not sure where to start. How much do you know?”

“Very little. She worked here only for a few months, as I recall. I went off to Venice on holiday, and when I returned, she was gone.”

Ruby gave him a sidelong look. “She was accused of stealing the ring you gave her.”

“Yes, I do know that.”

She felt a pit of anger in her stomach. “You never . . .” She pressed her bottom lip with her teeth. “You never told the authorities that you gave it to her?”

Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck. “My stepmother knew. Of course she knew. Before I left for Italy, she’d warned me to stay away from the governess. But then . . . apparently Evangeline flew into a rage and pushed Agnes down the stairs. So it wasn’t even about the supposed theft, in fact; it was a charge of attempted murder.”

“Agnes. Your housemaid?”

“Yes. Still here, after all these years.”

Still here. Alive and well. Ruby shook her head. “Did you ever try to find Evangeline, to hear her side of the story?”

“I . . . didn’t.”

Ruby remembered how Olive had described Evangeline in prison, holding out hope that this man would come, and felt close to tears. “She was in Newgate for months. And then sentenced to transportation for fourteen years and locked inside a slave ship. She was murdered by a sailor on the voyage over, an ex-convict.”

He breathed in quietly through his nose. “I did not know. That is truly . . . unfathomable.”

“She was a woman alone, with no means and no one to speak for her. You might’ve at least vouched for her character.”

He seemed a little startled at her nerve. She was surprised, herself. It occurred to her that Dr. Garrett’s bluntness may have worn off on her.

He sighed. “Look,” he said, “I was told in no uncertain terms to let it be. That it was not appropriate to get involved. That I had narrowly avoided bringing scandal to the family, and they had taken care of it, and I was not allowed to make a mess of it again. If it’s any consolation, I felt wretched about it.”

“Not wretched enough to defy your stepmother. You were an adult, were you not?”