Miss Barlow’s performance on the pianoforte was technically excellent, but in keeping with her overall demeanor, it was timid. This halting quality meant that mistakes that a more confidant performer could easily have glossed over were magnified, and I raised my eyebrows as each hesitant error made itself known.

It couldn’t have helped that she was likely still recovering from her grandfather’s very ugly display of her true character. No matter how accustomed to the family secret the young Miss Barlow may have grown, having it exposed in front of a relative stranger must have been horrifying.

Indeed, it was still horrifying to me. As I applauded for the girl, I longed to touch my breasts. It felt as if they had been burned, contaminated by the old man’s lecherous grasping.

“Mama,” Miss Barlow murmured, “Please let me be finished.”

Mrs. Barlow assented. “We had really better be off to bed, all of us,” she said, looking about nervously. “Perhaps we could all go upstairs as a group. I want to be sure you know your way, Miss Quinton.”

We all watched Miss Courtenay walk over to the instrument and sit down, settling herself in front of the keys as if she had not heard a single one of Mrs. Barlow’s words.

“Miss Courtenay?” I said. “Are you not ready to turn in?”

She turned as far as her rather tight stays must have allowed. “Not without singing!” she insisted, sounding rather scandalized. “After all, Miss Barlow loves to hear me play.”

Lillian Barlow looked like the most exhausted person in the room, and she looked down at her knees after hearing this. It seemed that she would be more than ready to pass up the “treat” of the other young lady’s music. But Miss Courtenay forged ahead anyway. I was fairly convinced that she would not have been able to hear a single objection.

And, surprisingly, there were few who could object to her performance. Her playing was skilled, though not extraordinary. Her voice, though, was golden and sweet, rising above the tinkling of the keys like some bird of paradise. I waited for the moment when nerves or chance would cause her to slip up, perhaps making a flat a little too flat or missing a grace note. Nothing of the sort happened, and I found myself applauding at the end of each aria just as sincerely as Mrs. and Miss Barlow.

She stood after she finished playing, and though I was too proud to offer additional compliments, she smiled down at me.

“I am glad I was able to play for you, Miss Quinton. Would you like a turn yourself?”

“No,” I said. “Indeed, I could hardly compare to either of the ladies who has gone before me.”

“Nonsense,” said Miss Barlow, with some feeling, but Miss Courtenay cut her off.

“We had the best governesses,” she said, giving me a meaningful glance. “After all, the musical taste of a governess is a mark of her overall quality, would you not agree, Miss Quinton?”

Not having grown up with easy access to an instrument, I knew little of singing and almost nothing of playing. All I could definitely say was that I loathed Handel’s arias, now that I had been forced to listen to the perfect little voice of another woman making them whole.

“I think that music is part of a complete education,” I told the woman. “But, since all sorts of playing and singing goes on in houses of ill repute, we need hardly pretend as if nothing more is required.”

Miss Courtenay stood, trying to decide whether she’d understood what I’d said and if she should be insulted. “I’m sure you do not need to say anything rude about my family, Miss Quinton,” she managed.

“Of course not!” I reassured her. “After all, I have never met them.”

Smiling to myself, I reflected that if I were to meet Miss Courtenay’s family, I might well have all sorts of scathing things to say of them.

“Well, that must be because of the circles in which you have moved,” hissed the girl, still standing.

Mrs. Barlow was quick to take Miss Courtenay’s arm. “Oh, my dears, what an exhausting evening! You must favor us with your songs again very soon.”

As soon as the pretty pair had exited, the younger woman fairly dragged off by her trembling mother-in-law, I asked my young charge what on earth was going on in her family.

“Miss Courtenay does not seem like she will be an easy sister-in-law,” I said, raising my eyebrows.

Young Miss Barlow’s smile was much more wry than I would have expected. “She is willing to be the next Mrs. Barlow, though, and that is good enough for us. It is not many women who would come here and endure the, well, the peculiarities of my family.”

She was flushing so deeply that I considered not saying anything else to her, but I could not let the subject rest.

“Why is your granddad allowed to wander about?” I asked her. “He is mad.”

Little Lillian Barlow looked at the floor, as if it would give her an answer to her family’s impossible question. “He is not right in his mind,” she said gently. “But he is still the head of the family. We haven’t the right to displace him.”

She looked so cut up over it that I hadn’t the heart to chastise her the way I had snipped at her brother.

“He is quite awful,” she said, nearly in tears. “Oh Miss Quinton, I am sorry.”

“Well,” I chortled, “At least we should be thankful that he is not dangerous.”

“Not dangerous,” said Miss Barlow, and she twisted her long shawl as she said it. Her tone was doubtful.

“Tell me,” I said to her. “Am I right and thinking that your granddad is not dangerous, or is it worse than I supposed? Is he running at night to rattle the doors of your maids?”

“The servants’ quarters are closed off at night, Miss Quinton,” said poor Miss Barlow, sinking back into a chair and squeaking out an explanation. “Grandfather cannot get near them.”

For a moment, I wondered if I was being too hard on the young girl. It really should have been her mother’s duty to keep the old man away from the young woman, and she could hardly do so without locking him away somewhere.

“It is our rooms that are the trouble,” Miss Barlow said, her voice low. “He broke through my door last week, though it was locked.”

“How does your mother not protect you?” I cried, rising up. “Your grandfather broke down your door!”

“Please, Miss Quinton,” said Mrs. Barlow, returning to the room. “Do kindly keep your voice low.”

I did as she asked. In a growl, I asked her why she did not protect her only daughter.

“I sleep in her room now,” said Mrs. Barlow. “So you see, I do protect her.”

It was all of the information I needed to understand the way that the household was run. “But you do not protect me. I shall be quite defenseless.”

“Miss Quinton,” simpered Mrs. Barlow. “I was given to understand that your upbringing had not been, well, one of luxury.”

I was shocked. Did the woman think that, because I had to go out and work, I might have some magical solution to the problem of vicious men?

“And what has that to do with any of this?” I asked, glaring at her.

She sniffed. “It was my understanding that you would be more than able to protect yourself.”