_Author’s POV_
Rowena found her nieces in the east sitting room after breakfast.
There were three of them, Miriam’s two daughters and Vicky’s youngest, ages seven through eleven, and they were sitting together on the sofa.
They were dressed, all three of them, in clothes that were clean and entirely wrong for the daughters of an Ashthorne family that had recently reclaimed its standing. Faded colors, worn hems, more like the children came from a middle class home.
Rowena stood in the doorway and looked at them for a moment.
Then she went to find Miriam.
She found her in the laundry room of all places, sorting through a pile of clothes.
“When did you start doing your own laundry?” Rowena asked.
Miriam looked up. Her expression moved through several things quickly b
