Mary’s heart drummed against her ribs.

Suddenly, there were footsteps in the passage, and Mary turned in time to see MacTavish, the lean, elderly butler recently engaged to manage the household pass the parlor doorway.

“No, please, do not open it!” Mary leapt from the window seat and hurried across the parlor toward the passage.

Thankfully, he heard her. MacTavish reappeared in the doorway riding a backward step.

“Might I ask why not, Miss Royle?”

Mary gave her head a frustrated shake. Was it not obvious? “Because…we do not know who it is.”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, but I can remedy that problem by simply openin’ the door.”

Mary steepled her fingers and turned her gaze downward as she tapped her thumbs together.

There was a third succession of knocks.

“Miss Royle? I should open the door.”

Mary looked up and replied in the softest whisper she could manage. “All right. But if anyone should inquire, my sisters and I are not at home.”

“Verra weel, Miss Royle. I understand…a bit.”

As MacTavish headed for the entry, Mary raced on her toes down the passage and slipped into the library, where she found her sisters taking tea.

Flattening herself against the wall of books nearest the door, she strained her ear to discern exactly who had come to call.

“Drat! Can’t hear a word they are saying,” Mary mumbled to herself. Still, the voices were both low, indicating at least that the caller was male. This, however, did not bode well for her.

Elizabeth, whose red hair gleamed in the ribbons of dust-mote-speckled sunlight streaming through the back window, narrowed her eyes at Mary. She slammed closed the red leather-spined book balanced on her lap. “I know that look. What have you done now?”

Mary shoved an errant lock of dark hair from her eye and scowled back. “Hush! Do you wish for someone to hear you? We are not supposed to be at home, you know. Read…whatever it is that you have there, Lizzie.”

“It is a book on maladies and remedies. I found it in Papa’s document box.”

Anne twisted around in her chair. The redness and swelling on her hands and face had subsided, leaving her skin as light and luminous as her flaxen hair. “Why must we be quiet? You’re not making any sense.” Her eyes widened then. “Good God, Mary. Is something amiss? Why, you’re as white as a-”

“Marble statue,” Elizabeth interjected, then both she and Anne exchanged a shoulder-bobbing chuckle at Mary’s expense.

Mary opened her mouth to reply when she heard the metallic click of the front door being pressed closed.

A moment later, MacTavish was standing in the doorway of the library with a square of wax-sealed vellum centered on his sterling salver.

“’Tis for you, Miss Royle.” He raised the tray before Mary.

“For me?” She blinked at it but did not reach for it. “Why, I can’t imagine-”

Both of her sisters were on their feet in an instant.

“Who is it from, Mary?” Elizabeth’s emerald eyes sparkled with excitement.

“I am sure I don’t know.” Mary glanced up at the butler.

“’Twas left by a liveried footman.” MacTavish cleared his throat. “If I may, Miss Royle. Much as openin’ the door will reveal the identity of a caller…the sender may be divulged by simply…openin’ the bloody letter.”

Anne gasped loudly. “MacTavish, your language!”

Her sister’s reaction was a bit overdone, to Mary’s way of thinking, but MacTavish’s language had served its purpose. Mary had gotten the intended message quite clearly.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, miss.” The Scottish butler tipped his bald pate. “If ye’ll excuse me please, I’ll just be poppin’ down to see if Cook needs any help setting the roast to the spit.”

As MacTavish quit the room, Anne leveled a superior gaze on Mary.

Oh no. Here it comes again.

“Why you could not bring yourself to pay a little more per annum to engage a proper butler I will never understand.” Anne crossed her arms over her chest and plopped back down in her chair. “MacTavish is little more than a street thug, and you well know it.”

“I know nothing of the sort.” Mary shook the letter at her sister. “What I do know is that by being thrifty with wages, I was able to engage a butler and a cook, and I have just placed a notice in Bell’s Weekly Messenger for a maid. So unless you would rather handle the cooking, shopping, and emptying of the chamber pots for the duration of our stay in London, you would do well not to mention MacTavish’s minor shortcomings again!”

“Minor shortcomings? The butler and our cook are completely unsuitable. This house would have been far better served if you had kept Aunt Prudence’s existing staff.”

“Please stop, Anne. We’ve had this discussion too many times. The old staff took complete advantage of Aunt Prudence’s age and poor memory. They were robbing her blind, and you well know it.”

Elizabeth turned then, caught Mary’s arm, and guided the letter before her eyes. “Come now, tell us who it is from.”

Mary swallowed deeply, then, her composure regained, broke the crimson wax wafer and opened the letter. She scanned the heavily inked words quickly, then stared for a clutch of seconds as the name of the sender met her eyes.

“Oh my heavens.” The letter slipped through Mary’s fingers to the bare wooden floor.

“Please do not make us wait any longer, Mary-may I read it?” When Mary didn’t answer but simply stared down at it on the floor, Elizabeth snatched the letter up and began to read. When she finished, she backed stiffly to her chair and collapsed into it.

Anne’s mouth fell open. “Will one of you please reveal the contents of the letter? My patience with your drama is growing ever thin. Who is the letter from?”

“Lord Lotharian of Cavendish Square, Marylebone Park. Our guardian.” Elizabeth turned her gaze to Mary. “We must go to him, Mary, we must!”

Mary huffed at that. “Are you mad? Pay a call to a gentleman we do not know? A man we haven’t heard from ever.”

“He claims to be an old acquaintance of Papa’s. I see no reason he would make such a claim if he were not.”

When Mary shook her head, Elizabeth then reached across the small tea table and took Anne’s hand into her own. She peered into Anne’s gold-flecked eyes until she nodded.

“Yes, I’ll go, Lizzie.”

Elizabeth turned her gaze to Mary. “We all must go.”

“Aunt Prudence must be informed of your plan,” Mary noted. Of course, even if she told their dear great-aunt that her sisters were off to call upon a gentleman, their supposed guardian, she wouldn’t remember within an hour’s time. But that wasn’t why she’d mentioned it. She was hoping to appeal to Anne’s great sense of propriety.

Only her ploy did not work.

“Aunt Prudence is napping,” Anne replied matter-of-factly. “I shouldn’t wish to wake her.”

Suddenly Elizabeth rose and raced from the room. She returned with the shiny brass key extracted from the document box’s keyhole. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement.

“According to this letter,” she told them, “this key has a dual purpose-one that may assist us in our quest.”

Mary raised her eyebrows. “How does this gentleman know of our ‘quest,’ I ask you?”

“He was a friend of Papa’s.” Anne’s eyes glittered with excitement. “He may know all about our true parents.”

“I think you both suppose too much.” Mary sighed as she walked over to Elizabeth and pulled the key from her fingers. “You both actually believe that this simple brass twist of metal may in actuality be…the key to the mystery of our births.”

Anne and Elizabeth’s eyes locked, then in an instant, they shot out of the library. The thunder of boots echoed down the passageway floor.

“Mary, do come. We must away-this instant!”

“This is naught but a lark, I tell you-though I will come along, only so I can be there to remind you that I told you so.” Resignedly, Mary turned and started for the passageway.

When she neared the door, her excited sisters flung a woolen shawl around her shoulders and shoved a straw bonnet down upon her head.

“But I will not waste good coin on a hackney for this useless sojourn.” Mary gave her head a hard nod to emphasize her point. “Cavendish Square is not so far away, and the air is mild enough this day. We shall walk.”

Anne opened the front door and stared up at the heavy gray clouds above. “But Mary, it is about to rain.”

Mary turned a concerned gaze to the skies. “Oh dear. That does make a difference. Wait just a few moments for me, please.” Turning, she hurried back inside the house.

Anne and Elizabeth stood in stunned silence for several seconds.

Finally, Anne turned to her sister. “Good heavens. Our frugal Mary is actually going to spend a coin to hire a hackney. Why, I can’t believe it.”

“Nor can I, so let us find a hackney cab before she changes her mind.” At once, Elizabeth rushed into the street and waved her hand madly, finally catching the notice of a hackney driver who stood puffing on his pipe at the corner of the square and Davies Street.

“Elizabeth, we are in London!” Anne rushed into the square and dragged her sister back to the steps. “Your hoydenish ways must end. We are ladies, no longer coarse country misses. Remember that.”

When Mary came back out the door, she was dismayed to find her sisters about to board a hackney.

“No, no! I do apologize, my dear sir,” Mary called out to the driver. “But my sisters shan’t require your services after all.”

Anne and Elizabeth jerked their heads around and stared at Mary, their mouths fully agape.

Mary smiled pleasantly and handed each of her sisters an umbrella. “Since we’re walking, we’ll most certainly need these.”