CHAPTER FOURAn hour later, Novella left Sally’s cottage, her mind reeling. What Sally had told her had both shocked and appalled her.
Even though she had suspected that her new stepfather was a little unscrupulous, and, in the light of what Mrs. Cruickshank had told her, immoral, but she now also believed him to be utterly evil.
She had not wanted to believe what the trembling, former servant had told her – the conversation that she had overheard when she was cleaning the fender in the library and crouched behind a chair – the strange men who were shown around the Hall who seemed to be taking measurements.
“I tell you, my Lady, he was up to no good!” Sally had said fiercely.
And as Novella digested the information, she too came to the same conclusion.
She recalled Sally’s pale face as
