a/n: I just realized how many typos there are in the last chapter. Sigh. Apologies, I should fix those.

If you enjoy, review! Nice, long, detailed reviews – you don't know how much I appreciate them.

She sighed and closed her eyes, pausing outside of her door. For the first time that year, Haruhi could see her breath in the air, could feel the cold's nip on her nose. She felt it through her sleeves, under her fur-trimmed pelisse, through her mittens, and through all four of her petticoats. It whispered freedom to her. Haruhi only bobbed her head as she picked up the (three? no, four) petticoats and stepped forward onto the street. Yes, I know, I know. Go away. Her heart clenched.

The last day of November, bright and cold like the toll of a bell. Bells – they reminded her of church. Funerals. But never mind that - advent services would begin tomorrow, with the candles and the song. The months of cold would come. Her bones ached just thinking of it. Her stomach rumbled. Someone in the crowded London street may have noticed – although she couldn't say she much cared if they did.

Her steps added up, until she finally found what she was searching for. She paused again, this time to stare at the building before her. In only two blocks, the houses blurred from her own father's year-round, shabbily respectable brick building to this grand, molded white dwelling. She stood for a minute, adjusting her finest hat – not nervous, per se, but thinking. It was imperative that she do this correctly. That she be proper and right. It was hard for her, sometimes. She was nineteen and far from a debutante; she'd come out a year ago to as little fanfare as she could manage from her father. She hardly felt like a woman at the time: only like herself, a year older. Her father said that was because she was independent. But Haruhi wasn't so sure. Now, for the first time, she began to feel something like an adult - not like a woman, with fair, faint gowns and pearls, but like someone who could do things and have an impact on the world around her. Brushing her long, straight brown hair from her face (nothing else so troublesome!) she stepped up the walkway and knocked on the door.

A man opened it.

She talked a little too fast. "Hello, my name is Haruhi Fujioka and I've been instructed to meet Lady-"

"She's gone," the man grinned, and he leaned out a little to look at her. "Miss Fujioka." The corners of his mouth twitched. "Oh, my. Miss Fujioka, is it necessary that your pelisse be such an ugly color? It's dun."

Haruhi blinked at this unexpected development. "Dun?" She looked down at herself. "I suppose it is. Now, have you seen-"

There was a snicker somewhere else in the room, distracting her. Haruhi's eyes flicked into the darkness, trying to see who else was there, but the man was blocking the entire doorway. She returned her eyes to his. They were an odd brown – too light, really, to be brown; more a yellow, perhaps. His hair was a mellowed orange, auburn. He was slight, for a man – on the shorter side, and thin, and there was something in the way he moved that suggested feminine flexibilty - but still much taller than her.

"I'm looking for Lady Spencer. Have you seen her? I'm visiting to apply for a governess position."

"I told you, she's gone." He sounded suddenly bored. "She already left for the country. Left Kaoru and me in charge." He smiled wickedly into the darkness. Haruhi could make out the shape of another young man there. A twin. He came to the door and waved.

"Miss Fujioka," he said, as if he knew her, "So lovely of you to come by. May I ask why your pelisse is such an ugly color?"

Haruhi frowned mildly. They could do a lot worse to her than insult her jacket, but it seemed to them the greatest weapon ever forged by a tongue.

"Well," she said, "If Lady Spencer isn't here, may I leave her a message?"

"Certainly," the twins chimed, exactly in unison. "We can give it to her."

"I would prefer to write it down."

Her pointedness failed to catch their attention.

"It's okay," they said, "you can trust us."

I don't trust any of you rich bastards, she thought. "Tell her I came by, then. I would be happy to start the job on the NewYear."

She walked away. She paused, then, and, suspecting something more, looked over her shoulder. The twins were waving at her slowly and in sync, with identically eerie grins spread across their faces.

She received the envelope a week later, addressed to Miss Fujioka (with the sadly deficient pelisse).

She turned it over in her hands, observed the triangular mark of the Penny Post. Her eyebrows furrowed as her father called from the dining table. Haruhi ignored him, instead thinking carefully. They'd sent it that same morning. Perhaps they were bored. Or perhaps Lady Spencer had somehow gotten word of Haruhi, but Haruhi doubted such. The country was a long way off, and word didn't move quickly.

She tore the letter open.

Come and meet us, White's at four,

Leave your manners at the door.

Haruhi stared at the paper, wondering how they could expose such horrible poetry to the light of day. Not that she could write any better.

Her father was in the room, already preparing himself for their meal. "What was that, Haruhi?"

She tucked it into her sleeve. "It was nothing. Only word from Lady Spencer. She writes that she'll speak to me when she comes back to town in May."

Her father smiled weakly. "Maybe you'll reconsider your convictions to become a governess, then." Haruhi slid back into her seat and stared at him.

"I can't," she said, "I can't possibly. You know that. I have to pay off our debts."

"Haruhi. Those debts are mine. Let me take care of them." The unsaid words hung in the air: I'll take care of your dowry, even though we hardly have enough money for anything else. I'll make it for you, I'll do what it takes.

"Father-" Haruhi chose her words carefully, hesitantly. They'd been over this before, and he just didn't seem to understand.

She was interrupted by the cook, who served the food for lack of any more appropriate servants. She was all that was left – the cook and the maid. Their cook, Mrs. White, was terrible, but perhaps it wasn't her fault. They'd hired her when Haruhi was young, when the old cook wanted to move on to greener pastures and there was nothing left in the kitchen but dusty onions, day-old bread, and the odd bit of meat.

Ryoji shook his head and sighed dramatically. "Haruhi," he said, his voice dropping nearly to a whine, "You're my only daughter. There'll be no one and nothing left for you when I'm gone, nothing but debts and an empty house that's breaking apart-"

-a bit of plaster crumbled from the ceiling right into the green beans. Her father paid it no mind, but Haruhi was secretly miffed. She'd wanted to eat those green beans. Even though they tasted like mush-

"-husband, who will take care of you – children, who will be with you until your death as you have so dutifully been with me!" He sighed again.

"You're not dead yet, Father."

"Sssh! Trivialities!"

Haruhi stared at the ceiling as her father continued his rant. The plaster crumbled again, this time into the Sunday chicken. Haruhi sighed (a sigh much lighter than her father's) and turned her eyes toward her floor, to avoid looking at the destruction of food.

Her father mistook her downturned gaze for shame or modesty. "Good girl. So you'll agree to find a nice young man in the next couple of years, won't you?"

Haruhi's head shot up. "I'm not marrying," she said, "Father, I'm going to become a governess. I'm going to clear your debts."

Her father gave a choked, polite version of a wail. "But Haruhi! Governess? My daughter, shamed for her entire life by being forced to feel inferior? My debts are no problem of yours!"

With a sudden movement, Haruhi stood from the table. "I'm not getting married."

"Haruhi!"

Haruhi nearly tripped on her petticoats trying to get out of the room (curse her clumsiness!), but in the end she stood alone in her room, staring out the window.

The church bell tolled three.

Haruhi had an idea. Knew where she had to be.