Pleasance took this opportunity to lean close to Cecilia and whisper, “Are you all right, miss?”

“Perfectly fine, dear,” Cecilia said. “It was only a bit of dust.”

“I meant about your murdered mother and hideous, evil father,” Pleasance said, and then flushed as she watched Cecilia’s eyes widen. “Beg pardon, miss, I said the wrong thing, didn’t I? I’m ever so sorry, sometimes bad spirits possess my voice and I just can’t stop them. I meant, ‘your dearly departed’ mother.”

“That’s quite all right,” Cecilia murmured and, glancing up, caught Jane scowling at her a moment before returning to her book.

Cecilia shifted to open the teahouse door. A little bell sounded, and the smell of freshly baked scones wafted from within. Cecilia looked in at what appeared to be an Impressionist’s fever dream. Ruffles, ruches, bows, feathers, laces, furs, faux flowers (and the blanched faces of the teahouse staff) informed her that the rest of the Wisteria Society were already present.

“Aunty,” she said, standing aside and gesturing so that Miss Darlington might precede her. The group entered the teahouse.

Which is to say, they closed parasols, sheathed swords, disembarked parents, determined precedence, angled, then reangled the wheeled chair, pardoned one another for any inconvenience, thanked one another for any assistance, and then entered the teahouse.

“Ahoy!” the children shouted.

“Ahoy!” the crowd cheered back. Teacups, cake forks, and pistols were uplifted in greeting. The staff cowered.

“Cecilia dear,” Miss Darlington said as she waited for Essie’s husband to obtain her a seat at the long table, “why don’t you see if the teahouse has a library? I’m sure you will find the chitchat of old ladies tedious—it will be all about firming lotions and bulletproof eyeglasses and the best guns to use when you have arthritis. Pleasance can attend to my needs.”

“A library in a village teahouse?”

“It’s worth investigating. Perhaps they have scintillating novels about—er, Victoria sponges. This is not really an occasion for young people.”

Cecilia watched the children clamber onto chairs so as to better reach a plate of cakes. Jane Fairweather was pouring tea for her grandmother. Clearly Miss Darlington wanted to be rid of her for the duration of the meeting and was snatching at the merest excuse.

Cecilia felt unsurprised. Every time someone had tried to discuss Morvath this week, Miss Darlington had sent her from the room on a spurious errand. Cecilia had fetched more handkerchiefs, cups of tea, cursed goblets, snuffboxes, and shawls than she even knew existed in Darlington House. More than once she’d heard the ladies whisper, “Don’t talk about him in front of the poor girl, she’ll be disturbed,” and she’d struggled to repress a smile.

Actually, she rather appreciated being kept in the dark, for that meant the ladies were themselves blind to her own scheming. In a secret copy of Agnes Grey, tucked beneath her bed’s mattress, she had written notes on her various plans for patricide. Every night she read them through, added ideas, sketched diagrams, and tried not to remember a sword falling, a woman screaming—