Rose knew what they were going to say before they had even opened their mouths. She looked across at her parents, sitting upright next to each other on the sofa in that way they did when they wanted to be “proper” parents. They looked like salt and pepper pots, she thought to herself. Her mother’s black hair in a bun beside her father’s shock of white could not have fitted the mental image better if she had them placed in the centre of the dining room table whilst she ate.

“I suppose you are wondering why we called for you?” Mr. Winter asked, motioning for Rose to sit.

“To interview me for a position on the staff?” she replied, doing her best to keep a serious expression on her face. She failed.

“Wipe away that grin, little lady,” Mrs. Winter snapped. “This is not a laughing matter.”

“I heard you two talking,” Rose said, fiddling with her hair. “I know you want a tutor to take me on.”

“Oh, eavesdropping were you? How very like you.” Mrs. Winter turned to her husband. “Aren’t you going to say anything to her?”

Of course,” he replied. “You know I don’t like you listening to our private conversations, Rose.”

“You listen to mine.”

“That is not the point. I am your father.”

“So you can break the rules but I can’t?”

“What about the rule about not sneaking out at night? You left despite me expressly forbidding it.”

“Your father expressly forbade it,” Mrs. Winter echoed. “Care to explain why you ignored his command?”

Rose shrugged. “You have no proof I went out.”

“There is your dress covered in grass stains which may never come out. It sickens me to think how those stains got there. I tell you, I have had enough. Either you tell us both the truth this instant or you face the consequences.”

Rose shook her head. She had absolutely no intention of telling them what had happened in the park. She had no intention of ever telling anyone. “I slipped in the garden,” she muttered after a long silence.

“Lies upon lies. One of the maids saw you come back in, she said you were in floods of tears. What happened to you?”

“Nothing, I told you.”

“You remember what I said would happen if you kept lying to us?”

“You’d hug me and tell me you forgive me? Oh, and buy me a new pony too. You definitely said that.”

“Nice try. I told you that a tutor would be hired to keep you in line.”

Rose smiled. The threat of a tutor had been made so many times, she had lost count. Let them talk of tutors and move away from asking about what happened last night. Every single time they threatened a tutor for her, they backed down, or they forgot, or she was able to bat her eyes at them and they shrugged and gave her one more chance. All she had to do was knuckle down, act as if she were sorry for a few days, and all would be well.

She was confident enough that no tutor would be hired that she was willing to go along with them when she was invited on a carriage ride the next day. Her parents never usually rode out on a Thursday. They had a solid routine of bickering in the morning, tennis in the afternoon, and then recovering in the evening. “We fancied a change,” Mrs. Winter said when Rose asked about it. “Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“No,” Rose replied, wondering why her mother wouldn’t look her in the eye. “Nothing at all.”

The carriage rolled away from the house with the three of them inside. They had barely reached the end of the street before her father coughed and turned to look at her, taking her hands in his. “I want to tell you something, Rose, and I don’t want you to get cross, all right?”

“What is it?” Rose asked, feeling trapped all of a sudden.

“We are not just going for a drive out.”

“Oh, really?” she asked, pulling her hands away from his. “And where, pray, are we going?”

“We are going to meet a gentleman by the name of Titus Burlingham.”

“Are we indeed?”

“I think you’ll like him. He has a superb reputation.”

“Stop the carriage.”

“Excuse me?”

Rose lowered her voice to a whisper, putting emphasis on each word. “Stop. The. Carriage.”

“Oh, Rose, please don’t do this,” Mr. Winter said, a hint of panic in his voice. “It is for your own good. You need a tutor.”

“Do I?” she replied, lashing out with her hands, her voice rising to a scream. “Stop this carriage right now. I will not hear of it. You treat me like some kind of slave, as if you can do what you want with me. Well I won’t stand for it. I’m getting out and going home. You can go meet this man on your own. I want nothing to do with him.”

Mr. Winter turned to his wife. “My dear, perhaps we should…”

“Obadiah, we are not letting her win. Not this time.”

“But look at her, she is upset. You know I hate to see her upset.”

Rose managed to squeeze out tears as she continued to beat on her father’s chest with her clenched fists. “You hate me,” she sobbed, attempting to push past him to open the door.”

“Stop it,” Mrs. Winter snapped, grabbing Rose and pushing her back into her seat. “We warned you about lying to us. You continue to do so. I have had enough. So has your father.”

“Father?” Rose asked, widening her eyes and looking at him in the most plaintive way she could manage. “Say you won’t let her do this to me. I don’t need a tutor, do I?”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Mrs. Winter snapped. “Don’t fall for it, Obadiah. I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss, Rose. It is not the sky falling in on your head to have a tutor. Many a respectable girl has a tutor. Some have several.”

Rose scowled across at her. She knew all about tutors. They were all seven hundred years old with bad breath and bald patches. Either that or scowling sour faced women with a ruler ready to rap you over the knuckles if you forgot to conjugate the verb. “You think I’m an idiot don’t you? You must do if you think I need a tutor. You think I’m a dunderheaded fool, a dunce with no brain in my head. That’s right, isn’t it?”

“No, Rose, of course not. But you must admit you can act like a child at times.”

“I do not!”

“You are a nineteen-year-old girl and you are currently having a tantrum in front of your parents. What part of that seems grown up to you?”

Rose didn’t want to do it but she couldn’t resist. She stuck her tongue out at her mother and blew a raspberry in her general direction. “Fiddlesticks,” she said, folding her arms and scowling at both of them. “I don’t even care if I have a tutor or not. I don’t care a fig.”