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outside marriage. I had a vague idea of his having a son and a daughter, five or maybe six by the time I’d been arrested.
    But Nathaniel looked at least late twenties, more likely early thirties, and not easy ones. There were no wrinkles on his skin, mind, not even the sort of very fine ones I’d traced on my own face yesterday, in front of the mirror. But he looked like his face was all angles and hollows, the sort of sculpted, spare features that you didn’t get before your late twenties, or later than that. Or perhaps he suffered from bad insomnia.
    It was his eyes that stopped me cold, though. They were haunted and strange, as though he were looking at some horror no one else could see in my face. But in shape, in dark color, in the way his eyelids opened very wide for a moment as though he tried to but couldn’t absorb the reality of my existence, they were Ben’s eyes, staring at me from this stranger’s face.
    I became aware that I’d stared at Nathaniel much too long and possibly too intently, and that he was staring at me in a definitely odd way, somewhere between fright and hatred, with his throat working, as though he were fighting hard not to make a sound.
    And Sam looked from one to the other of us with a puzzled expression.
    I managed enough control over my wayward body to say, stiffly, “Pleased to meet you, Nathaniel. Am I to assume you have been trained in business and are your father’s assistant?”
    “Not business primarily,” he said, but his voice came out squeaky, as if he were a too-young boy just at the age when voices change. “More law, though I am learning the business administration from my father as fast as I can.”
    “I see,” I thought. So, crazy and a lawyer, par for the course. And of course his eyes looked like Ben’s. They would. He was Ben’s nephew. Which probably explained the hatred in his eyes. He probably knew I’d killed Ben. Fine then.
    Something like a wave of mingled nausea and grief hit me full force, because I hadn’t been back in this house without Ben, and it felt like Ben had just died, all over again. “I . . . I will look forward to working with you,” I managed, then looked over Sam’s head, at Savell who stood by, hovering. What I wanted to do was run through the crowd, screaming, run away from all this, from the servants staring at me, from the much-too-full hallway, from the press of bodies, their smell, their heat far too close after my life as a recluse. From Nathaniel Remy’s all-too-explicable hatred. But I couldn’t. The Good Man might be an absolute dictator—most are—but he’s also a prisoner of his house and position.
    My throat had constricted, my body hurt with the effort of my holding in place, but my voice sounded calm and composed in my own ears. “Savell, if you would order a bath run, I need to change into”—I looked down and made a small self-deprecating shrug—“more appropriate clothing.”
    “Ah, sir, of course, only—” He looked like he was about to say something, then bowed. “Of course, sir. I shall order your room cleaned and prepared.”
    “Forget it. I just need a bath. Now.”
    There was scurrying and moving, as Savell clearly gave instructions to his underlings by gesture and look.
    And Sam was still there, still staring at me. Something in his expression was unreadable. I thought I saw surprise and a faint disgust, but most of all there seemed to be pity. Why he should feel sorry for me was unfathomable, but I was sure that he felt it nonetheless. “Sir,” he said, “you will need to speak to Nat. There are legal issues which must—”
    “You mean someone will dispute my right to be the Good Man?” I asked, and hoped my voice sounded more incredulous than I felt.
    “Oh, not that, sir,” Sam said. “But we must make sure everything is watertight all the same. And as quickly as possible. Before the council of Good Men meets.”
    I realized what he meant by that. The retainers had been living in