A boy with a document bag ran through the open front door and shouted:
"Answer from Feltham!"
His voice brought Mr. Palmer hurrying out of the house with an expression of quiet alarm.
"You might have knocked."
The boy drew his neck in at the soft but firm tone and held up the bag.
"Sergeant Thornton asked for it this morning! He said it was urgent!"
He had come across Mrs. Parker by chance — she had stepped outside to flag down someone heading to Feltham — while following his father, who was working nearby. By that stroke of luck, the boy had earned himself a well-paid errand before the morning was half over.
"Yes, yes. I know."
Mr. Palmer pressed a finger to his lips. *Please. Quietly.*
The light in Sergeant Thornton's room had burned until dawn. The second floor had shown some movement until midday, then gone still. Mr. Palmer had been hoping he had managed at least a short rest.
"I'm here."
Sergeant Thornton's voice came from above. Mr. Palmer turned to see him descending the stairs, unhurried.
"My apologies. You were probably sleeping."
"No. I wasn't sleeping. I heard the boy come in."
*So he hadn't slipped out quickly because the noise woke him. He had simply been lying there, silent, all this time.*
Ryan came downstairs and took the document bag from the boy.
*Strange.*
He had expected Mr. Severton to come in person the moment the letter arrived. Speaking with him, Ryan had understood clearly how much the man valued Blissbury. But a full day passed with no response — enough that Ryan had been forced to send a second messenger. And now, instead of Mr. Severton himself, a fat bag of documents had arrived.
*Perhaps he's unwell.*
The last time they had spoken at Blissbury, Mr. Severton had said as much himself.
*"Even though I said I'd be back to New York soon, I honestly wish you could stay a little longer. I'm getting on in years, and it grows harder to manage as I once did. Thanks to my daughter's help I'm still keeping up, but without her it would be very difficult."*
He had mentioned the stairs. He had mentioned forgetting things.
Ryan was about to open the bag when he noticed the delivery boy watching him with shining eyes. The money had already changed hands — what was the boy waiting for? He looked more closely and noticed the crumbs at the corner of the boy's mouth.
"I see you were treated to something at the Severton house."
"Oh!"
The boy wiped his lips at once, then, apparently reconsidering, licked the remaining crumbs, and grinned sheepishly.
"Miss Severton's cookies are the best in Feltham! She always gives them to the errand boys. And when the maid isn't looking, she tucks extras into their pockets too!"
Ryan pictured it. Eloise, who had handed him an apple pie with the expression of someone parting with a limb — apparently gave away baked goods to village children without a second thought.
He laughed quietly, shook his head, and turned to Mr. Palmer.
"Give him more cookies to take home and share with the others."
The boy's face blazed with joy.
"Yes, sir. Come along."
The boy fell in immediately behind Mr. Palmer, already talking.
"I have five brothers and sisters! And lots of friends—"
"Yes, yes. Mrs. Parker is going to have my head for this."
Mr. Palmer led him toward the kitchen, grumbling. Ryan watched them go, then opened the bag.
An envelope sat on top. He took it out and read.
His expression darkened steadily as he reached the end.
"Is Mr. Severton going away for long?"
He let out a short breath.
When Julia had mentioned the summer ball, his intention had been to ask Mr. Severton to continue organizing it as he always had. Mr. Severton still held the position; it was only right that the man who had done this every year should go on doing it.
And now he had left because his godmother was dying.
Ryan reread the letter. The handwriting was not Mr. Severton's — he had seen that before, and this was neater, more precise. Eloise's, clearly.
She wrote that everything would be clear from the documents.
That was all.
No offer to come herself, no suggestion that he contact her with questions. She had made her position plain: here are the papers, work it out yourself.
*Ha.*
---
Ryan carried the documents to the library and spread the entire contents of the bag across the table, then went to the filing cabinet and retrieved the folders kept at Blissbury.
Eloise's documents bore the faint brown shadows of water damage. The copies held at the estate were flawless, not a mark on them. It was evident how carefully Mr. Severton and his daughter had worked to preserve everything.
*Well. Since Mr. Severton is gone, I'll have to manage it myself.*
It was a disaster, frankly. He had never organized a ball in his life and had no desire to start.
Then Mr. Severton's words surfaced in his memory.
*"If I'm ever away, you can ask Eloise. She loves Blissbury so much she knows everything about it. Sometimes I think she knows it better than I do."*
That same Eloise had sent nothing but documents via a stranger.
Which was, given the state of things between them, more than he had any right to expect.
And they were not careless documents. The handwriting that crowded the water-stained margins was thorough to a fault: when things had been ordered, how they had been arranged, how they had managed to bring the price down, which supplier in a more distant city had been used when Cambon fell short and through what contact. Nothing had been left to guesswork.
*She really does love this place.*
She had organized all of it from memory, without her father there to consult. She treated the estate as though it were her own.
And yet documents alone could not answer everything.
The summer ball, according to the records, was usually held at the end of July. It was late April now — three months. Preparation was unlikely to take more than one. There was time, and there was money in the bank: his salary, his bonuses, the sum he had accepted from Earl Wallace in exchange for a service rendered. He had spent almost none of it since buying a house in the capital. If he had to throw money at this problem, he could.
But he did not want to. This was a local tradition. Dragging the lavish excess of a capital ball into Feltham and trampling whatever had made this event meaningful to its people was not something he was prepared to do.
He turned the document over again, hoping something useful remained.
*Ah—?*
A sheet of different paper was pressed between the pages. Pale blue, where the documents were creamy white — thin and soft, with faint impressions of pressed flower petals. Postal paper. Writing paper.
*What is this doing in here? Did she run out of document paper?*
He lifted it, puzzled. The next instant his eyes stopped moving.
At the very top of the page, in Eloise's handwriting:
***To my always welcome Ryan—***
He read it again.
Then again.
*"Always welcome Ryan."*
This woman had sent *this* to him?