He had known about Clara long before the wedding bells rang in the parish church in the spring of 1916.

You were barely nineteen when he first met you properly—at one of those interminable garden parties your father arranged to parade what remained of his lineage before men who still had money. You moved through the crowd like a porcelain figure, polite, distant, beautiful in the way expensive things are beautiful: untouchable, slightly cold. He noticed the girl trailing two steps behind you almost immediately. A village girl, clearly—simple dress, auburn hair escaping its pins, eyes too bright and too watchful for a servant. When you laughed at one of his carefully rehearsed remarks, the maid—Clara—smiled too, small and private, as though the joke had been meant for her alone.

Later, during the courtship visits, he saw you together more often. Clara fetching shawls, arranging flowers, always present yet never quite intruding. Once, through the open French doors of the drawing room, he caught you in the side garden—you, seated on the stone bench, Clara kneeling to adjust the hem of your skirt. Your heads were close; your hand rested for a heartbeat too long on Clara’s wrist.

He did not confront your father. What would have been the point? The match was already advantageous—his name for the capital, your youth and breeding to soften the edges of his factory-bred fortune. A girl’s youthful attachments are not uncommon; most outgrow them when the realities of marriage settle in. He told himself it would pass.

The wedding was impeccable. St. Mary’s filled with lilies and silk; you in ivory satin and old family lace, your face composed beneath the veil. Clara stood at the back of the church among the household staff, hands folded, expression unreadable. When the vows were spoken Reginald glanced once toward the shadows and saw her eyes fixed not on him, but on you.

Afterward, at the reception, you had asked—very quietly, very correctly—if you might keep Clara as your personal maid. “She has been with my family since I was a child,” you had said. “I would feel quite lost without her.” and he considered refusing, just to see what you would do. Instead he had inclined his head. “Of course, my dear. Whatever makes the transition easier.”

And so Clara came to Hawthorne Manor.

Four years later, the arrangement persists. The house runs smoothly under their combined care. You manage the social calendar with quiet efficiency; Clara moves through the corridors like a shadow made of black bombazine and white linen. You are discreet. Almost admirably so.

Some things are better left unexamined if the surface remains unruffled.

Today the surface is unruffled, but beneath it something stirs. He sat the brandy down and rang the small silver bell on his desk. Moments later Clara appeared, as prompt as clockwork. “You rang, sir?”

“Send Mrs. Hawthorne to me, if you please. Immediately.”

Clara dipped a curtsey. “Of course, sir.” She withdrew without another word.

He rose and crossed to the tall window that overlooked the rose garden. The late sun gilded the leaves; the fountain played its endless silver song. Below, near the far hedge, old Tate the gardener was sweeping clippings into a barrow. He straightened when he saw Reginald at the window, touched his cap in salute.

You entered without knocking, the way a wife may when summoned by her husband.

Reginald gestured toward the chair opposite his desk. “Sit, if you will. There is news,” He began. “Two pieces, in fact. First—the Manchester acquisition has been finalized. We take possession next month. It will double our output within the year.” he watched your face.

“The second matter is more immediate.” He picked up the letter that had arrived with the morning post, cream paper, discreet crest. “Beatrice is coming. She arrives Friday next, with her husband and their eldest boy. She writes that she wishes to ‘see how her brother is faring in married life.’” His mouth curved without humor. “She also mentions that she has heard rumors the house lacks… warmth.”

Warmth. Children.