Free Swept Away by Candace Camp

time?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Julia hugged the other woman tightly. “Sometimes I think that it will always hurt, at least a little.”
    â€œI want to prove that Selby didn’t do it,” Phoebe said in a fiercer voice than Julia had ever heard from her. “I want to prove that it was all Stonehaven’s doing and make that dreadful woman eat every nasty word she’s ever said about Selby or you or me!”
    â€œWe will,” Julia promised, setting her jaw. “We will.”
    Â 
    Julia was in the sitting room the next day, her fingers busy letting down the hem on another one of Phoebe’s dresses so that she could wear it. Her mind was occupied with her plan to manipulate Lord Stonehaven into confessing to his crime. She knew that she could not allow herself to be distracted again, as she had been last time by his kiss. She had to be firm and in control, and she had decided that the best way to do that was to plan the things she would say and do to lead him to talk, down to every last word and gesture.
    The housekeeper, a fussy, plump woman in a white mob cap and an equally snowy apron, was standing beside Phoebe while Phoebe went over the menus for the rest of the week. Phoebe was engaged in another of a seemingly unending series of struggles over what should be served.
    â€œYou see, Mrs. Willett,” Phoebe was saying now, “I don’t really like duck.”
    â€œBut, my lady, duck was always one of the master’s favorites.” Mrs. Willett had been used to ruling the London house largely unchecked for over thirty years. The butler might go back and forth from the country house in Kent to London with the family, but the housekeeper stayed in charge in London over the long months—and even years, lately—when the family was not there, running a skeleton staff to keep the house in shape. Her guiding rule in any situation was to do exactly as she had always done.
    Julia glanced over at Phoebe, who was biting her lip and looking worried, and Julia knew that Phoebe was, as Mrs. Willett had intended, feeling like an unloving, ungrieving widow for not wanting to eat one of her dead husband’s favorite dishes.
    â€œNonsense, Mrs. Willett,” Julia stuck in crisply. “You and I both know that duck was our father’s favorite dish, and that is why you served it all Selby’s life. Besides, it doesn’t really matter whether Selby liked it or not. The point is that Lady Armiger does not like it. She does not want it on the menu, and I see no reason why it should be there, when your employer does not wish it. Do you?”
    A look of hurt that would have crumpled Phoebe’s opposition settled on the older woman’s face. She pushed her spectacles back up her nose and said in a resigned voice, “Very well, Miss Julia—if you want it that way. I do work for your family, have done so for over thirty years.”
    â€œYes, I know, and an excellent housekeeper you are,” Julia agreed to soothe the woman’s wounded feelings.
    â€œMy, yes,” Phoebe agreed eagerly, a tiny frown of concern creasing her forehead. “I did not mean to imply that there was anything wrong with the way you perform your duties.”
    â€œOf course you didn’t.” Julia jumped in before Phoebe could get carried away with her assurances and wind up telling the woman to leave the duck on the list. “I am sure Mrs. Willett understands that you merely want a change in the menu. It is the sort of problem at which she is quite adept, isn’t it, Mrs. Willett?”
    â€œOf course,” Mrs. Willett agreed, smiling. Julia knew that in a few more minutes the menu change would have become her own idea, and woe to any of the kitchen staff who objected to it.
    At that moment, there was the rumble of carriage wheels coming to a stop in front of the house. Julia and Phoebe glanced at each other in surprise. A visitor to their house