CHAPTER TWOA candle burned in a little scullery leading off the vast kitchen of Daventry House in West London.
The room was dark and smelled of carbolic soap, the vegetable soup that had been cooked for dinner that evening and the rags the housemaids used to polish the brass fenders every morning.
But to the couple seated at the table, clasping hands on its rough white scrubbed surface, it was a haven of peace and happiness.
Joe Goodall, the Earl’s valet, was only nineteen. He was far too young for such an important post, but like his Master, had been catapulted into his job when the former Earl had died.
Joe’s older brother, Jacob, the late Earl’s valet, had also been killed in the tragic coach accident.
Joe had been an under-footman at Daventry House at the time of the fatal crash,
