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children for her. Now she was on her own.
    “I’ll ask the footman, ma’am,” she repeated, and saw the
woman’s eyes narrow with dislike.
    “What a singularly unhelpful creature you are,” she said
contemptuously. “I will be sure to mention your insolence to Lady Grant.”
    “Ma’am.” Margery dropped the slightest curtsy, enough to
fulfill convention, but so slight as to be almost an insult.
    She walked slowly, head held high, to the terrace doors. Once
inside the parlor she shut the doors against the laughter and chatter on the
terrace, then locked them for good measure and drew the curtains closed. Her
hands were trembling and she felt tears pricking her eyes. She knew that it was
foolish. Spiteful comments from people like the lady on the terrace were common
in a servant’s life. She tried to disregard them. Most of the time the
aristocracy ignored those who waited on them. Margery was accustomed to being
considered a part of the furniture but it did not make cruelty or rudeness any
more tolerable.
    She slid a hand into her pocket and felt the prick of the
cravat pin against her fingers. Already the waltz on the terrace felt like a
dream. She had stepped out of time, forgotten her place as lady’s maid,
forgotten her black woolen gown and practical boots, and had stolen a moment of
pleasure in the arms of the most handsome man at the ball.
    She took the cravat pin from her pocket and ran her fingertips
over the entwined initials, H and W . She wondered who he was.
    She knew she would not see him again.

CHAPTER THREE
    The Hanged Man: Reversal and sacrifice
    “C OME CLOSER , H ENRY , so that I can see
you.” The voice was dry as tinder but the tone was still commanding, bearing
overtones of the man the Earl of Templemore had been before illness ravaged his
body. He sat in a chair before the fire, a fire that roared despite the high sun
of an April day. The bright morning light made the red-flocked wallpaper look
faded and dull, and struck blindingly across the rococo mirrors, reflecting back
endless images of the earl hunched in his chair, a blanket shrouding his
knees.
    Henry Wardeaux came forward and formally shook the old man’s
hand, just as he had greeted him for the past twenty-nine years. They had never
been on more intimate terms, even though the earl was also Henry’s godfather.
Lord Templemore was not a man given to displays of affection.
    “How are you, sir?” Henry asked. It was a courtesy question
only. He knew that the earl was dying; the earl also knew that he was dying and
never pretended otherwise.
    A dry rattle of laughter was his reply.
    “I survive.” One white-knuckled hand grasped an ivory-headed
cane as the earl sat forward in his chair. “If you have good news for me I might
yet feel quite well. Did you meet my granddaughter?”
    For a man who showed little emotion there was a wealth of
longing in his voice. Henry felt a simultaneous jolt of pity and exasperation,
pity that the old man was so desperate to find his daughter’s lost child that he
would grasp after every straw, and exasperation that this very desperation made
a shrewd man weak.
    Mr. Churchward was still working to establish whether Margery
Mallon was definitely the earl’s grandchild. Churchward was not the sort of man
who liked to make mistakes, particularly not over something as important as the
lost heir to one of the most ancient and prestigious earldoms in the country.
Lord Templemore, however, had been certain of it from the start because he had
wanted it to be true.
    Henry took the seat that the earl indicated. “I have met Miss
Mallon twice in the past ten days,” he said, taking care not to commit himself
over whether the girl was the earl’s granddaughter or not. “In point of fact, I
first met her in a brothel.”
    The earl’s gaze came up sharply. Gray eyes, so bright, so cool,
a mirror image of Margery Mallon’s clear gray gaze, pinned Henry to the
seat.
    “Did you?” The earl said