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A Diamond in the Snow
by Kate Hardy
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.’