I found Madame Leticia in the linen room.
This was not where I had expected to find her, which was the kitchen or the entrance hall or one of the formal rooms conducting the quiet, continuous work of managing a house of this scale with the invisible efficiency that made the managing look like it was not happening at all. The linen room was at the end of the east wing corridor, small and warm and smelling of cedar and the specific clean scent of fabric that had been stored properly, and Madame Leticia was inside it with her sleeves pushed up and her reading glasses on, conducting what appeared to be an inventory with the focused, unhurried attention she brought to everything she considered worth doing properly.
She looked up when I appeared in the doorway.
She did not look surprised.
I
