Did you take your medicine?

Amarante looked up at the big house and steeled herself, before striding towards the side gate that would lead them to the servant's entrance. It was the biggest house she'd ever been invited to, if the terse note she'd received could be considered an invitation, but she refused to be intimidated.

'You all right, mama?' Harry asked, reaching up to take her hand.

Amarante let out a sigh, and tried to quiet her nerves. 'Yes, baby.' She gave him a reassuring smile, though she could tell he wasn't convinced. In an attempt to distract him, she gestured to the garden around them. 'Look at the pretty garden.'

Harry scrunched up his nose, but indulged her by looking around. Amarante shook her head; he was too sensitive for his six years.

When she came to the back door, it was answered by a man in a pressed uniform. He had warm brown eyes that reminded her of her husband's, but Amarante tramped down that thought before it could take hold. With a smile, he led them to a sitting room.

Mrs. Emily Bracewell, the matron of this house and Amarante's potential patron, remained seated when she and Henry were announced. She was a thin woman in her sixties, imprisoned in a heavily embroidered, black dress. She also had a wave of determination rolling off her, which trampled on Amarante's hope that this summons would result in a simple request.

'Mrs. Snider, please sit,' she said. 'Gilmore, perhaps you can take Mrs. Snider's son to the kitchens for a biscut while she and I speak.'

Harry turned his big eyes on his mother for permission, earning himself a nod.

Gilmore, the manservant, offered a hand to him and a reassuring grin to her, before he took them both off. Amarante was grateful; while she often allowed Harry to watch and learn this trade, she doubted that Mrs. Bracewell's case would be an appropriate study for a child.

Mrs. Bracewell gestured to a tray of refreshments and took a cup of tea for herself. 'I understand that you have a special service, Mrs. Snider.'

Out of politeness, Amarante took a cup of her own that was lukewarm at best. 'I have been known to be able to supply medicines to solve unusual problems,'

Medicine was the furthest thing from what she supplied, but in this country even the word magic sent upper class ladies such as Mrs. Bracewell into hysterics, it was best to speak in such codes. Amarante had no desire to be arrested by the shadowy Black Guard, defenders of the crown against undesirables like her. She also had no desire to live on the street or starve, or allow her son to do the same, otherwise she'd never have risked selling her skills at all.

Mrs. Bracewell took a sip of her tea, and Amarante forced herself to do the same.

'I'll be frank, Mrs. Snider, my unusual problem is a man named Neal Lawson.'

Revenge then was what she wanted. Amarante wasn't surprised. 'I see. You have a solution in mind?'

'I want him to kill himself.'

'Mrs. Bracewell,' Amarante started to protest.

'Let me explain first,' she said, cutting Amarante off. She gestured to a picture a picture hanging on the wall of a teenaged beauty. 'My granddaughter, Anne. Her mother is dead, and her father swanning about the world doing who knows what, so I raised her here.' She placed her cup on the table beside her and clenched her hands together in her lap. 'Neal Lawson courted her. He passed himself off as a moneyed and gentle individual, and Anne was enamoured of him, so I gave them my permission to marry. Six months later, she had her second miscarriage and confessed to me he was violent towards her. I was unable to convince her to leave him then, but recently I felt she was reaching a point where she might accept my help. Two weeks ago, she was found drowned in her bath. Or the police have concluded it was suicide.'