She heard the bitterness in her tone, found it appalling that she could so reveal herself to a complete stranger, but couldn’t manage to contain such overwhelming emotion. Better a bit of anger, though, than tears. The tears would come, would have arrived already if she hadn’t been so dazed by this last and worst shock, but hopefully she could hold them back until she was alone.

“I did not say ‘mistake,’ miss,” he corrected her. “I was referring to something else, which cannot be cleared up until your father’s return. So I will need an address where you can be reached after tomorrow.”

The fight went out of her, leaving her shoulders drooping. Had she really thought, just for the barest moment, that his “misunderstanding” might mean they wouldn’t lose the house after all?

“I don’t have an address to give you,” she replied in a near whisper. “I truly have no idea where we will be after tomorrow.”

“A quite unacceptable answer,” he said with some impatience in his tone. He then reached into a coat pocket and handed her a card. “You may stay at this address until your father makes other arrangements for you. I will send my coach in the morning to assist you.”

“Can we not just . . . stay here . . . until this matter you’ve mentioned is settled?”

There was the barest hesitation before he replied succinctly and emphatically, “No.”

She’d had to force that last question out of her. It went completely against the grain for her to have to ask, beg as it were, for anything, and in particular, from a stranger. But if he was going to supply lodging as his card indicated, why could he not supply this lodging? had been her desperate thought. But a foolish thought, obviously.

And his “no” was the catalyst that sent him on his way, a dark shadow quickly fading to nothing in the swirling snow.

It was another moment or so before Larissa thought to close the door and did so. She even managed to take herself upstairs to check on Thomas. He was sleeping fitfully, the fever that visited him each night still lingering.

Mara sat beside his bed, sleeping in the comfortable chair drawn there. Mara Sims had been Thomas’s nanny, and Larissa’s as well. In fact, she had been with them as long as Larissa could remember. She had refused to abandon them just because her wage was a bit tardy, as she put it. Her sister, Mary, had likewise refused to leave.