The Hidden Blade by Sherry Thomas

missionary reports. But there were a good many histories, and he started on the first volume of Gibbon’s
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
.
    Once a week he wrote to Mother at her temporary address in London, reporting truthfully that all was well at Rose Priory, that he had the run of the house and all the freedom anyone could desire. She, in her replies, assured him that she was well, Marland was well, and that preparations for their departure to America proceeded apace.
    Very civil letters—no one would guess that he had accused her of gross immorality and that she had believed him. He always felt like crying after reading one of her letters, and sometimes he did.
    There were no letters from Herb. Leighton hoped this meant he had already left the country and was now far from Sir Curtis’s reach. He had brought all the books Herb had given to him, but only once did he tried to reread one. The moment he opened the book, it was as if he were back where he had last read it, on the bank of the trout stream at Starling Manor, sitting next to Father, both happily anticipating Herb’s arrival the next afternoon.
    He even remembered what they’d had for lunch that day: sandwiches made with braised slices of ham and a robust mustard studded with tiny brown-and-black mustard seeds. And over that picnic lunch, Father, a quiet man by nature, had talked about his first time on a railway journey, going to the seaside.
    Leighton had closed the book immediately. But he could not stop the emptiness in his chest from furiously expanding. He missed Father desperately. He missed Herb desperately. He wished…
    He calculated the exact number of days that remained until he reached his twenty-first birthday, when he would be a man in full in the eyes of the law. When he would be free from Sir Curtis at last.
    Too many days, thousands and thousands, but one fewer with each sunrise. And when he turned thirteen, he would be sent off to school and not have to return to Rose Priory except during holidays.
    He could live with that.
    He could wait.
    For now.

    Despite Sir Curtis’s absence, there was a subtle undertow of unhappiness at Rose Priory. At first Leighton thought it was his own loneliness coloring his perception. Then he realized that he was actually reacting to the servants: The staff at Starling Manor was unobtrusive, but the servants at Rose Priory seemed not so much quiet as subdued.
    Oppressed, even.
    Some of them started at loud noises. Others muttered to themselves as they worked in the gardens. The man in charge of the stable never quite said no to Leighton’s request for a horse to ride, but there had been such dismay in his face, something close to outright fear, that Leighton had not inquired again.
    The man in charge of this skeletal staff was named Twombley. Leighton didn’t think he had ever come across anyone so high-strung and twitchy. Twombley was completely fixated on every little detail of the running of the house. A single speck of dust on the windowsill or one lonely weed poking its head out of the ground in the gardens would somehow summon him from wherever he was to hold a whispered yet vehement conversation with the servant responsible for this dereliction of duty.
    It was as if a state of perfect housekeeping at Rose Priory were the only thing that kept the sky from collapsing.
    The next time Leighton was at the village, he asked Mr. Brown, the clerk at the post office, whether he knew anything about the servants at Rose Priory.
    “So you noticed something odd about them, eh?” Mr. Brown glanced about to make sure that no one else was near. “They are ex-convicts—or at least that’s what I hear.”
    “Are they?”
    “Your uncle is a brave and noble man, he is,” said Mr. Brown. “I would be afraid of having my throat cut in my sleep in a house full of criminals. But Sir Curtis, they say he believes in modern methods, not punishment but rehabilitation. He’s a godly man, so the good Lord must