CHAPTER ONE

      ‘VICTORIA?’ FELICITY, THE textile conservation expert who was doing the annual survey of the displays at Chiverton Hall, stood awkwardly in the office doorway. ‘Could I have a quick word?’

      Victoria’s heart sank. Felicity and her team were checking for anything that might need conservation work over the winter. The fact that she wanted a word must mean she’d found something. ‘Bad news?’

      ‘It’s not all bad,’ Felicity said brightly. ‘There are a couple of rooms where you need to lower the light levels a bit more, to limit the fade damage, but those moth traps have worked brilliantly and there’s no evidence of silverfish or death watch beetle—all the holes in the wood are the same as they were last time round and there’s no evidence of frazz.’

      Frazz, Victoria knew, were the little shavings of wood caused by beetles chomping through it. And that would’ve meant major structural repairs to whatever was affected, anything from a chair to floorboards to oak panelling. ‘I’m glad to hear that.’ Though she knew Felicity wouldn’t have come to talk about something minor. ‘But?’

      Felicity sighed. ‘I was checking the gilt on a mirror and I found mould behind it.’

      ‘Mould?’ Victoria looked at her in shock. ‘But we keep an eye on the humidity levels and we’ve installed conservation heating.’ The type that switched on according to the relative humidity in a room, not the temperature. ‘How can we have mould?’ A nasty thought struck her. ‘Oh, no. Is there a leak somewhere that’s caused dampness in a wall?’ Though Victoria walked through the rooms every day. Surely she should’ve spotted any signs of water damage?

      Felicity shook her head. ‘I think it probably started before you put in the heating, when the humidity wasn’t quite right, and we didn’t spot it at the last survey because it was behind the mirror and it’s only just grown out to the edge. Unless we’re doing a full clean of the wall coverings—’ something that they only did every five years ‘—we don’t take the mirrors and paintings down.’

      ‘Sorry.’ Victoria bit her lip. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound as if I was having a go at you.’

      ‘I know. It’s the sort of news that’d upset anyone.’

      Victoria smiled, relieved that the conservation expert hadn’t taken offence. ‘Which room?’

      ‘The ballroom.’

      Victoria’s favourite room in the house; she loved the way the silk damask wall hangings literally glowed in the light. As children, she and Lizzie had imagined Regency balls taking place there; they’d dressed up and pretended to be one of their ancestors. Well, Lizzie’s ancestors, really, as Victoria was adopted; though Patrick and Diana Hamilton had never treated her as if she were anything other than their biological and much-loved daughter.

      ‘I guess behind the mirror is the obvious place for mould to start,’ Victoria said. ‘We don’t use the fireplaces, so there’s cold, damp air in the chimney breast, and the dampness would be trapped between the wall and the mirror.’

      ‘Exactly that,’ Felicity said. ‘You know, if you ever get bored running this place, I’d be more than happy to poach you as a senior member of my team.’

      Victoria summoned a smile, though she felt like bawling her eyes out. Mould wasn’t good in any building, but it was especially problematic when it came to heritage buildings. ‘Thanks, but I’m never going to get bored here.’ Though if Lizzie, the true heir to Chiverton Hall, had lived, she would’ve been the one taking over from their parents. Victoria probably would’ve ended up working in either food history or conservation but with books, rather than with textiles. ‘How bad is it?’

      ‘Bad enough that we’ll need to take the hangings down to dry them out. We can’t fix it in situ. Hopefully a thorough clean with the conservation vac and a soft brush will get out most of the damage, but if the material’s been weakened too much we’ll have to put a backing on it.’

      ‘Worst-case?’ Victoria asked.

      ‘The silk will be too fragile to go back, and we’ll need a specialist weaving company to produce a reproduction for us.’

      Victoria dragged in a breath. ‘The whole room?’

      ‘Hopefully we can get away with one wall,’ Felicity said.

      Even one wall would be costly and time-consuming. ‘I know the actual cost and time to fix it will depend on what the damage looks like on the reverse side, and the wall might need work as well,’ Victoria said. ‘I’m not going to hold you to an exact figure but, just so I can get a handle on this, can you give me a ballpark figure for the worst-case scenario?’

      Felicity named a figure that made Victoria wince. It was way over the sum she’d allocated for maintenance in the annual budget. And she knew the insurance wouldn’t cover it because mould counted as a gradually operating cause. She’d have to find the money for the restoration from somewhere. But where?

      ‘Short of a lottery win or me marrying a millionaire—’ which absolutely wasn’t going to happen because, apart from the fact she didn’t actually know any millionaires, she wasn’t even dating anyone, and her exes had made it very clear that she wasn’t desirable enough for marriage ‘—I’m going to have to work out how to fund this.’

      ‘Start with heritage grants,’ Felicity advised. ‘You’ll have a better case if you can show that whatever you’re doing will help with education.’

      ‘Like we did when we installed the conservation heating—putting up information boards for the visitors and a blog on the website giving regular updates, with photographs as well as text,’ Victoria said promptly.

      ‘And, if we pick the team carefully, we can have students learning conservation skills under our supervision,’ Felicity said. ‘The ballroom is a perfect example of a Regency interior, so it’s important enough to merit conservation.’

      Victoria lifted her chin. ‘Right. I’d better face the damage.’

      Felicity patted her shoulder. ‘I know, love. I could’ve cried when I saw it, and it’s not even mine.’

      It wasn’t really Victoria’s, either. Even though her father had sorted out the entail years ago, so the house would pass to her rather than to some distant male relative, she wasn’t a Hamilton by birth. Her parents loved her dearly, just as she loved them; but she was still very aware that their real daughter lay in the churchyard next door. And right now Victoria felt as if she’d let them all down. She was supposed to be taking care of her parents and the house, for Lizzie’s sake, and she’d failed.

      Actually seeing the damage made it feel worse.

      Without the mirror over the mantelpiece to reflect light back from the windows opposite, the room seemed darker and smaller. And when Felicity turned off the overhead light and shone her UV torch on the wall, the mould growth glowed luminescent.

      ‘The hangings from that whole wall are going to have to come down,’ Felicity said. ‘With polythene sheeting over it, to stop the spores spreading.’

      ‘And everyone needs to be wearing protective equipment while they do it,’ Victoria said. ‘And we’ll have to measure the mould spores in the air. If it’s bad, then we’ll have to keep visitors out of the room completely.’

      Felicity patted her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll get this fixed so the ballroom shines again.’

      Victoria was prepared to do whatever it took. Fill out endless forms, beg every institution going for a loan. Or find a millionaire and talk him into marrying her and saving the ballroom. After her ex had been so forthcoming about where she fell short, Victoria was under no illusions that she was attractive enough for an ordinary