Prelude for a Lord by Camille Elliot

for your treasure.”

    Alethea sighed. “I told you I didn’t have any treasure.”
    “If you had treasure, of course you’d say you didn’t have any.”
    Dodd cleared his throat. He stood correctly near the open door, the candlestick held in his hands as if he’d picked it up to polish it.
    “Dodd, could you please explain to my aunt?”
    He nodded and headed back downstairs.
    Margaret’s eyes gleamed. “Did you think I was an intruder? What were you going to do?”
    “If you were an intruder, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Alethea said. “And now, you will pick up everything you have messed up.”
    “The maids will do it.”
    “No, they will not. You created this mayhem, so you will clean up.”
    Alethea was perhaps a touch more exacting in her demands as she directed Margaret to folding and replacing the petticoats she’d dropped, and straightening the bedclothes she’d rummaged around in while searching under the mattress. Margaret grumbled the entire time, and by the time they headed back to the drawing room, Alethea had decided to put the girl on bread and water until she was twenty-five. Or thereabouts.
    Aunt Ebena was more sanguine. She had rung for a pot of tea. When Margaret reached for a jam tart, Aunt Ebena gave a decided, “No,” and a look that would have curdled milk.
    “But I didn’t intend to upset anyone,” Margaret said.
    “You violated your cousin’s privacy,” Aunt Ebena said.
    Margaret sulked and slurped her tea loudly.
    Alethea bit into a jam tart with exaggerated relish. “I apologize for alarming you, Aunt, but what was I to think after the frightening events of two days ago?”
    “It wasn’t frightening . . . ,” Margaret began, but was stopped by her aunt’s harrumph as she cleared her throat.

    “Indeed.” Aunt Ebena, who rarely ate sweets, picked up a jam tart and took a small bite.
    Margaret sighed and stared longingly.
    “Such a violation to have someone going through my things.” Alethea polished off her tart and took another.
    “Really, what were you thinking?” Aunt Ebena sipped her tea.
    “I’m-sorry-I-won’t-do-it-again-could-I-please-have-a-tart-before-Alethea-eats-them-all?” Margaret said in a rush.
    Aunt Ebena tilted her head toward Alethea.
    “I’m sorry for entering your room and looking for your treasure,” Margaret said.
    “For the last time, I do not have a treasure.” Alethea set a tart on Margaret’s plate.
    Margaret bit into the tart. “If I had known someone was in your room, I would have used one of Mrs. Dodd’s knives and stabbed him through the heart.”
    “I had no idea you were so bloodthirsty,” Alethea murmured.
    “That would be extremely foolhardy and dangerous,” Aunt Ebena said.
    “It would be brave. We have no man to protect us.”
    “We have male servants and that is quite adequate,” Aunt Ebena said.
    Was it adequate? “At the time Mr. Golding spoke to me, I did not know I would be putting you and Margaret in danger. If he should approach me again . . .”
    “For a moment, let us consider the highly improbable notion that your violin is valuable enough for someone to acquire it by any means necessary.” Aunt Ebena sniffed. “When men covet a particular item, possessing it is not always adequate. Could you guarantee that the thief would allow us all to live with the raging injustice of having it stolen from us? Would he not imagine us to be scheming to get it back?”

    “Wouldn’t he rest in the belief that he has escaped detection?”
    “Not if he plays the violin in public.”
    “So he would try to harm us even after getting the violin?” Margaret licked jam from the corner of her mouth. “I might still get to stab him with Mrs. Dodd’s knife.”
    “You will stab no one. That is not my point. Use your napkin,” Aunt Ebena added. “My point is that bullies never stop.”
    Alethea had never considered Mr. Golding in light of a bully. Her experience with bullies had been the village