The Tutor's Daughter by Julie Klassen

perusing the Royal Cornwall Gazette and the West Briton.
    In local news from a week past, she read of the ongoing investigation into a shipwreck earlier in the spring off the North Cornwall coast. The ship owners were complaining of missing cargo, despite dispatching agents to salvage the crates of tinware and silver cutlery.
    She also found a mention of Henry Weston of Ebbington Manor traveling to Helston as guest of Mr. Trengrouse to watch a demonstration of a new invention—a rocket apparatus to shoot a lifeline out to ships in trouble. Emma wondered how the demonstration had gone.
    In the current edition of the West Briton, she read a brief article about the Ebford village council voting down Mr. Weston’s proposal to acquire a lifeboat from the Plymouth dockyard. She wondered why. One more article caught her eye:
    Wrecking at Godreavy
    The brig Neptune was driven on shore in St. Ives Bay. Some of the ruffians who assembled under pretence of protecting the property actually robbed the captain of his watch and plundered all the unfortunate seamen of their clothes. One of the crew, who got on shore almost naked, saw a number of miscreants employed in carrying off some rope and remonstrated with them on the atrocity of their conduct. He was told that, unless he immediately departed and refrained from molesting them, they would strangle him on the spot.
    Emma shivered. “Uncivilized Cornwall” is right, she thought, recalling Lizzie saying the phrase.
    She set aside the local news and began reading the latest Times. In the advertisements, Emma skimmed past notices from milliners and modistes, but her gaze was snagged by a London auction house advertising the auction of a new shipment of tinware and silver cutlery. That was a strange coincidence. Or was it?
    A knock interrupted her. She looked up, self-conscious to be found sitting at Sir Giles’s desk as though some fine lady. She was relieved to see it was only the hallboy.
    â€œDinner is served, miss.”
    â€œThank you.” Emma rose, taking the London paper and one of the local ones with her, planning to read more later in her room.
    She walked back down to the steward’s office, relieved to find only Mr. Davies and her father within. Setting the papers aside, she joined them for a hearty meal of steak-and-kidney pie, green salad, fruit, and fig tart. While they ate, Mr. Davies told her father about the meeting that had gone later than planned. The men had met to consider plans to extend and reinforce the harbor breakwater. They had also discussed the idea of building a canal and sea lock, which would allow larger vessels to enter their port, regardless of tide levels. This would bring in much-needed trade for the area.
    Emma listened with interest, impressed to hear Henry Weston was involved in such important projects, though she would have been loath to admit it aloud. She wondered if she would have the nerve to ask him about his various endeavors. Probably not. She had seen little of him since his return, and he seemed to prefer it that way.
    During a lull in the conversation, Emma brought up what she had discovered in the library. “I was reading the newspapers earlier and noticed a strange coincidence—an auction notice for tinware and silver cutlery, less than two months after a ship’s cargo of the same went missing here in Cornwall.”
    Mr. Davies looked at her sharply.
    What had she said? She added with a lame little laugh, “Is that not interesting?”
    Mr. Davies stared at her. “Why would you bring that up?”
    Emma faltered, “I . . . was only making conversation.”
    Mr. Davies held her gaze. “Were you?”
    â€œYes. What else?”
    Her father looked from one to the other, bemused.
    The steward glanced at her father, then back at her. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Nothing. Merely . . . curious.”
    After the final course, Mr. Davies abruptly excused