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“No. But Elspeth was right that he had told the stranger something.”

Elizabeth copied Mara’s words. Neither account yet told them how the private accusation became the story repeated at the inn.

By the time Mrs. Reynolds was called downstairs, the light had begun to fail. They stopped without opening the damaged leaves at the end. Elizabeth put her fresh copies away separately, then helped cover the journal.

“I have a receipt among the loose papers,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “Elspeth signed it. I should have thought of it sooner.”

“For what?”

“Linen. Mara kept it with her accounts. We may compare the writing tomorrow.”

Elizabeth looked at the covered book. “Tomorrow, then.”

She had wanted all its answers at once. Her eyes ached after the little they had managed.

That night she read an ordinary book before bed. She fell asleep with no remembered dream, and woke to Sally laying a fresh pair of stockings over the chair.

On Saturday morning Mrs. Reynolds brought the receipt.

It was a small piece of paper, creased where it had lain folded among the other records. The body of it was in a cramped hand unlike Mara’s, but the name at the foot was larger and easier to read.

Elspeth Darcy.

They placed it beside Elizabeth’s copy of the name in the journal, then opened the journal itself to the first leaf. The long stroke of the last letter, the peculiar joining of two letters in Elspeth’s name, and a small break in the first capital appeared in both.

“They look alike,” Elizabeth said.

Mrs. Reynolds nodded. “Very much.”

“It might be imitated.”

“By someone who put a book behind your window seat and a receipt in my grandmother’s box?”

Elizabeth considered that.

“I wished to raise an objection.”

“You may have raised a difficult one to maintain.”

Elizabeth smiled, then reached to support the edge of the journal where its cover had begun to sag beyond the towel.

Her fingertips touched the bare leather.

The room altered.

For an instant she saw pale light against a wall much nearer than the one before her. A narrow bed stood where her wardrobe ought to have been. The smell of damp wool filled her nose. Somewhere close, metal scraped against metal, and a key turned.

Elizabeth snatched back her hand.

Mrs. Reynolds caught her arm as she rose too quickly. The chair struck the wall behind her.

“Miss Bennet?”

The wardrobe stood where it had always stood. Her own blue shawl hung over its door. Elizabeth could see the housekeeper’s hand upon her sleeve and the receipt lying safely beside the book.

“I am here,” she said, before Mrs. Reynolds could ask anything else.

“Yes, miss. Sit down.”