It was not customary for a blacksmith's wife to be admitted by the front door. But then Mistress Elizabeth Turner, despite the shocking mésalliance that had made her the talk of the town, was still the Governor's daughter, even if she made the short journey these days in a hired conveyance rather than her own carriage -- still very much the Governor's only and beloved daughter, and known to be the apple of her father's eye.

Indeed, since this was no impromptu social call but an oft-anticipated weekly visit, Elizabeth was more than half expecting to find the Governor himself awaiting her in the entrance hall, hands outstretched and face wide with smiles. She was already moving past the footman who had admitted her, eager for her father's greeting, when the emptiness of the hall became apparent and her own face fell.

Weatherby Swann was a busy man, after all, his daughter reminded herself firmly, summoning a smile for the footman who had known her since childhood, and allowing herself to be escorted across the wide space into the cool propriety of the drawing-room beyond like any morning caller. Left alone, she sat with newly-acquired poise, disposing her skirts around her, and listened to the distant sounds of the house with a little frown of concern gathering between her brows. She could not, in all conscience, expect things to be exactly as she had left them. Mrs Halcombe ran the household now, a woman carefully selected and instructed by Elizabeth herself but doubtless with her own methods of management, to which she was fully entitled. But even allowing for those tiny changes that were more apparent on every visit, Elizabeth thought there was something wrong today. The household was not its usual self.

"Elizabeth!" Her father blew into the room without ceremony in a cloud of relief, just as if it had only been ten minutes since they had last seen each other instead of over a week. "Thank God you're here. That Halcombe woman is quite impossible--"

Elizabeth felt her heart fall, remembering the succession of luckless housekeepers they'd had during her childhood, until she had finally been judged old enough to take the running of Government House into her own hands. Her father was so very difficult to learn to please.

"Oh Father, what is it this time? What has she done?" The possibilities swam up before her in their multitudes: disrespectful, over-obsequious, too extravagant, too mean, dishonest, drunk, male followers brought into the house -- Elizabeth blushed. Surely not that last. The woman was hatchet-faced, after all, and over fifty.

"What has she done?" The Governor's wig was rumpled with indignation. "She hasn't managed to do a thing, that's what I'm objecting to. She can't get a word of admission out of Bessie!"

"Bessie? Bessie the kitchen-maid?" She read the confirmation in her father's face, and gasped. "Bessie in trouble? Surely there must be some mistake. What charge can there be against her?"

"A dozen silver spoons." Weatherby Swann's voice held no satisfaction at apprehending the culprit, only trouble. "Eight found among her possessions. Three missing. The last in her very hand, as she was caught in the act -- I'm afraid there's no doubt about it, Elizabeth. It seems she was seen at it before, but she's been with us so long none of the others thought to question her--"

Bessie. Bessie, whom Elizabeth could have sworn was as honest as the day was long, who had upon a time been comfort and nursemaid and refuge all in one to her little motherless namesake, shielding Elizabeth from the wrath of the awe-inspiring cook who ruled over the warm, sweet-smelling domain below stairs when the child ventured down from the chill corridors of the big house. Bessie, whose husband Amos the ostler, with his slow country burr, had watched over the Governor's small daughter in the stableyard, reassuring her father when he sought to keep the child mewed within-doors, allowing Elizabeth to pet the coach-horses as they stood in the stalls, and even boosting her up onto their warm broad backs, where she sat ensconced like a Queen of the East in her howdah. Bessie, quicker-tongued than Amos, scolding her charge in a constant, loving stream even as she slipped fragments of pastry from the baking into a kerchief or hanging pocket. Bessie, whose ample curves had served in lieu of her mother's own bosom for so many of the tear-storms of childhood...

Her father had understood, Elizabeth thought now, looking at him with the new-found gratitude of maturity. Her mother's death must have left as great an absence in his own life as it had in hers; but he had not sought to whip his daughter from keeping company with the servants nor constrained her to the society of her governess. He had recognised Bessie's good heart even as the child had instinctively done, and he had tacitly permitted Elizabeth's devotion, trusting to her good breeding to wean her from kitchen company as she grew older -- as it had done, Elizabeth realised with a little pang of guilt. As she had grown older and more self-possessed, above all as her mother's memory had faded, she had ceased to run for comfort to Bessie's arms. 'Miss Elizabeth' had become Miss Swann, cool and withdrawn and, soon, mistress of the household, and Bessie had ebbed back out of her life, to be kitchen-maid once more. She could not remember now when they had last exchanged two words.

Bessie had understood, Elizabeth told herself. Bessie had always understood.

"Father, I can't believe it." Her voice was sharp with protest. "Bessie isn't like that, you know she isn't. She wouldn't know what to do with silver spoons if she took them -- she wouldn't know where to sell them, or how to get an honest price, any more than I would myself."

Less than I would, she thought with a sudden guilty jolt, remembering certain unsavoury vicissitudes of the past year. Will and I probably have more shady acquaintances between us now than poor Bessie has ever set eyes on.

"I'm very much afraid there's someone else behind this, " the Governor agreed with a sigh, pulling up his coat-tails and sitting down on a fine brocade-covered chair with an air of distraction. "She can't have been disposing of the stuff herself -- she even admits that. But she won't tell us why she did it, and she won't tell us where the silver is now. Confound it, I don't want to press charges against a woman who's been in the household since before we came, any more than you do -- I've even told that Halcombe woman I'm prepared to forget the whole thing if she can just get out of Bessie where the rest of our dinner-ware has got to. But she's quite useless. Can't prise a word out of her."

He tugged furiously at the curls of his wig, sending the whole edifice askew, and Elizabeth rose from her own seat, gently imprisoning his big hands between her own.

"What will become of her, Father, if she comes up before the law?"

"Not my decision -- thank God." But the Governor didn't look particularly relieved. "A whipping at the cart's tail is the least of it. Maybe a hanging. They can't very well transport her overseas, since she's already here."

Elizabeth cried out. "A hanging? For three silver spoons? Father--"

"A culprit has to be found -- and I can't cover up for her, Elizabeth, too many people already know. If she can't or won't tell who put her up to it--"

"Let me talk to her. Please, Father." She had dropped down to crouch beside his chair as she had when she was a child, dusty skirts forgotten, looking up at him pleadingly with her hands in his. "Please. Mrs Halcombe barely knows her -- perhaps if she has the chance to confide in someone she can trust--"

Then, seeing the look of surprise in her father's eyes, she blushed, feeling a little foolish. Of course, that must have been what he had come to ask of her in the first place.

"I know this isn't your house any more, Elizabeth, but if it wouldn't be too much trouble...." The Governor began what was obviously a prepared speech a little hesitantly, but Elizabeth was up and flying to kiss him on the instant.

"With a woman's life at stake? What sort of daughter would I be even to think to refuse?"