She snorted. “Poor Lainey. But my aunt and uncle can’t make me do anything I don’t want to do,” she said, though she was less convinced than she sounded. Wasn’t Prudence in the servants’ hall against her will?
“I don’t think you even believe that.” His voice was kind and she gave him a sideways glance.
“Well, not about marriage anyway. Arranged marriages are against the law, and I am very well aware of my rights. My father made sure of that.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a suffragist?” he said in mock horror. “God save me from a well-meaning suffragist.”
“Of course I’m a suffragist,” she snapped. “All thinking women are.”
He laughed, but it no longer sounded kind. “I find them as boring as the simpering deb. They may pretend to want suffrage, but if a well-born man asked for their hand in marriage, they would give up their political views in a heartbeat.”
She stood. “Which just shows me with what little regard you actually hold women. At least suffragists care about something. I’ve always found those who are bored of everything to be the most boring. Now if you will excuse me, Mr. Kit. I think I should be going back to my room.”
He looked surprised at her reaction and she didn’t blame him. She was surprised herself. She remembered how passionate her father was about everything—politics, art, science, music—and it saddened and angered her that he had died, while a young man, with everything ahead of him, sat here insisting that there was little in the world of interest.
He put a placating hand on her arm, the warmth of his fingers transmitting itself through the thin cotton of her nightdress. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t mean half the things I say, really.”
He sounded surprised and Victoria stopped. “Then why do you say them? You say things as if you believe them.”
“Probably because it’s easier than trying to figure out what it is I really believe.” His voice sounded rather shocked and she laughed.
“It’s much easier to pretend you’re bitter and don’t care than to admit you’re just lazy.”
The corners of his lips twitched. “You have a point. But you are right, we should be going.”
They banked the fire and put the screen up. She was almost sorry their tête-à-tête had ended. She’d rather enjoyed herself. After lighting their candles and putting out the lantern, they walked quickly down the dark hall. It wasn’t nearly as frightening as it had been before.
They reached the main door. “You can find your way from here, can’t you?” he whispered.
“Of course. I was practically raised here.”
He nodded as she slipped out the door. “And you are wrong, Miss Victoria.”
She paused. “How’s that?”
“There is something I find very interesting and intriguing.”
She waited for a moment, her heart speeding up.
“You.”
* * *
Victoria awoke the next morning to the sound of Susie lighting a fire in the fireplace. Last night’s nocturnal wanderings seemed like almost a dream in the morning’s light and she wondered whether she hadn’t imagined her conversation with Kit. Did he really think her intriguing?
She raised up on one elbow, watching Susie. The girl seemed to be having a tough time of it this morning and Victoria could see her hands shaking. “Are you feeling all right?”
The girl startled, dropping the kindling on the floor. “Oh blast,” she said, looking at the mess on the sheepskin rug. “Oh, I’m sorry, miss.”
Her cheeks went so ashen that Victoria thought she was going to faint. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She kicked her covers off and went to the girl, shrugging into her icy dressing gown. “Here, let me help.”
“Oh no, miss. I’ll get in trouble . . .”
“Oh, nonsense. No one is going to find out. Why isn’t Prudence here this morning?”
“Hortense, Lady Summerset’s lady’s maid, told her that she wasn’t supposed to be starting your fires in the morning, that it was my job.”
Victoria deftly wadded up some paper and lay it in the fireplace, then added kindling. Then she reached for a match and lit the paper. “There, that should do it.”
“How did you know how to do that?”
“My father taught me when we went camping in Switzerland once. Is it your job to start the fires in the morning?”
Susie nodded. “Yes, miss. I start all the ladies’ fires and the hall boy starts the men’s fires. But then Hortense told me not to, that Prudence would be doing it for you and Miss Rowena.”
Victoria leaned back on her heels. “Then she told Prudence that you were supposed to be doing it? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
She helped Susie pick up the rest of the kindling on the floor, her mind puzzling. Why would someone do that? As a cruel joke? “Tell me, how does Prudence get along with the rest of the servants?”
Susie’s face puckered up as if she were unsure of what to say.
“It’s all right, Susie. I need to know.”
“Well, I like her just fine. And Cook does, too, as much as Cook likes anyone. But everyone else thinks her sort of uppity because of her fine manners and such. She acts like she’s never been in service before, so all the maids want to know how she managed to get a good position. So they play little tricks on her and such.”
Victoria stood and wrapped her dressing gown tighter, and she shivered in spite of the fire crackling in front of her. Susie turned away and added more wood.
“What is this Hortense like?”
Susie’s mouth turned downward, hiding her slightly bucked teeth. “Oh, no one likes her at all, but the mistress dotes on her so no one dares cross her.”
“Do she and Prudence get on?”
“They didn’t at first, but now Hortense is acting more friendly like. But Prudence doesn’t know her like the rest of us do.”
Victoria tilted her head, wondering. Perhaps Susie could be useful in figuring out the mystery behind Mrs. Tate. “Susie? Can I ask you a few more questions before you go? I promise you won’t get into trouble.”
The girl nodded, but her pinched face told Victoria that she wasn’t comfortable about this turn of events. Before the girl could change her mind, Victoria ran and snatched the quilt off her bed, then wrapped it about their shoulders. When she sank to the ground in front of the fire Susie had no choice but to follow. “Have you lived in Summerset your whole life?”
“Yes, miss.”
“What kind of strange stories did you hear about Summerset when you were growing up? There had to have been a few. Every old castle has them.”
The girl’s face grew slightly pale. “Oh, I don’t listen to anything bad about a place, otherwise I’d never be able to go in. Then what good would I be?” she demanded. “I crawl all over the house in the early dark morning, lighting the fires and such. But there are some good scary stories about the outside of the place.”
Susie’s thin face contained the excitement of one with a good story to tell, and it took little encouragement from Victoria for the tales to spill out of her.
“You know of the kissing well, right? Well, let me tell you, that does not work . . .”
“Susie!”
“Not from experience! My mum. She found a young girl strung up there on the rafters above the wheel when she was just a girl herself.”
“That’s horrible! But that isn’t a story, it truly occurred. What else?”
“Of course it happened!” Susie spit indignantly. “Did you think I’d lie to you?”
After being assured that Victoria didn’t, Susie continued, while Victoria realized that this girl sitting so close to her—and smelling of body sweat, washing powder, and soot—was probably just a few years younger than she was. Why hadn’t she ever noticed before? She’d seen girls younger than Susie in poverty before, girls with two, sometimes three children, and they had always broken her heart. But it never occurred to her that her aunt and uncle could be perpetuating the problem. She had completely lost the thread of the conversation, but then something Susie said caught her attention again.
“Wait . . . did you say that they found another young woman?”
Susie nodded, her eyes wide.
“At the same place?” Why hadn’t she heard about this? Victoria wondered. A real-life mystery right here at Summerset and no one had told her!
“No. You weren’t listening! She was found in that old chapel by the bend in the creek where they found Lady Halpernia.” Susie clapped her hands over her mouth.
“Oh, no. It’s all right. You won’t get into trouble here between us.”
Susie looked unconvinced as she climbed to her feet. “I’ve got to get to Miss Rowena’s room or she’s going to freeze. But thanks for letting me get warm. I feel much better now.”
“You’re welcome, Susie. And we don’t have to tell anyone we talked about this, right?”
Susie shook her head and was gone.
But talked about what, really? Victoria started out trying to learn some rumors about her grandfather and ended up getting treated to a good old-fashioned horror story instead. Where could she find more information? Cairns might know something, but he would rather die than repeat something negative about the Buxtons, even to a Buxton. She would go to Colin or Elaine and then perhaps to the only person she could think of who could give her some answers.
Nanny Iris.
* * *
Morning came early in the servants’ quarters. Early and cold, to the cruel sound of Mrs. Harper’s short, jarring knocks on the door. And if that didn’t roust one quickly enough, the housekeeper would open the door on her way back down the hall, letting in a draft that seemed to sweep in from Siberia itself. Prudence quickly learned that another five minutes of sleep wasn’t worth it.
“I’m up!” Prudence called rather crossly to Mrs. Harper’s knock. And she was, too, up and already in her chemise, staring at the clothes in front of her. As she fingered the soft, warm wool of the dress she’d laid out, yesterday’s conversation with Hortense played through her mind.
After lunchtime, Hortense had told Prudence that she needed to speak with her. Prudence waited until she was done with lunch and they walked up to the family rooms together. Taking her arm in an uncomfortably intimate way, Hortense had whispered to her, “That work you do in the mornings? The scrubbing of the pans? The rest of the labor they give you? As a lady’s maid, it is not your job.”
“What?” Prudence hadn’t understood her meaning.
“They resent you, you see.”
When Prudence asked why they resented her, Hortense had laughed. “We are different from the rest of them, yes? We are more or less friends with our employers. Educated. This is our choice. It is not as though we do not have other choices.”
Prudence found the older woman fascinating and strangely threatening. Her hair, her severe yet rich clothing, even her very Frenchness, seemed exotic. “Other choices?”
Hortense had tilted a shoulder. “I could have married. Opened a dress shop. Many things. But what do I want of that? Here I am paid well, my efforts are valued, and I do not have to answer to a man. Lady Summerset and I get on very well, even when she is vexed. And trust me, I have ways of reminding her how much she depends on me when she does treat me badly. I do not always follow her instructions to a T. Sometimes I even do just the opposite of what she asks and then pretend ignorance. Other mistresses have made it clear they would love to have my services and have offered generous sums of money for me. I am . . . how do you say? A union of one.” She’d smirked.
Prudence had hesitated over her next question, but she needed to know the answer. “Aren’t you afraid or, you know, scared of being alone?”
The other woman looked at her in amazement. “
Non!
I
dream
of being alone! But then you are young and you must be careful now. The others will try to make trouble for you. If you have any problems, just come to me, yes?”
Prudence had nodded. “Thank you,” she’d said carefully, for she trusted Hortense only one shade more than she trusted Lady Summerset herself..
“And Prudence? Wear a different dress. You see what I am wearing? It is up to you girls to decide what you wear, not Mrs. Harper. Surely you have other clothing? The things you are wearing now?” The older woman made a spitting noise with her mouth and moved away.
So now Prudence stood, a big decision in the form of a dress lying in front of her. Was Hortense right? What would Mrs. Harper or Mr. Cairns say? But on the other hand, if Hortense was correct, what right had they to say anything? Her pulse raced as the truth dawned on her. She was Rowena’s and Victoria’s servant,
not
a Summerset servant. Why hadn’t she realized that before? When guests had stayed overnight in their London home, they’d occasionally brought servants, and no one had any authority over the servants except their employers. Relief came over her as she finished dressing, in her pretty black mourning dress. She would comply with Summerset rules, of course, but they were not in authority over her. Only Ro and Vic were!
She went downstairs, her new knowledge lightening her step. So the servants didn’t like her, poor devils had to stay here under the combined iron fist of Cairns and Mrs. Harper. She, thankfully, did not.
The young men had left late yesterday afternoon, and even though they’d stayed for only a few days and she’d barely seen them, the house now felt as if all the air had been sucked out of it. Victoria had told her, in a rather animated way, that they were all returning for the holidays. Prudence wondered whether that meant Lord Billingsly, as well. Her heart skittered at just the thought of him. She twitched her shoulders, annoyed with herself. What was it about him that made her feel as if she’d melt every time she saw him? Was it his ever-so-slightly crooked smile? The sound of his laughter as it filled a room? Or was it the way he looked into her eyes as if he wanted to know every thought and feeling she had ever had on everything? Her attraction to him grew every time she saw him, which only strengthened her resolve to avoid him should he return. She knew very well what happened to servant girls who had gone wrong. Her mother had been very opinionated on the subject, and Prudence’s work with the poor had also imparted grim lessons. Of course, girls went wrong with all sorts of men, but dallying with a man from the upper classes only assured there would
not
be a fairy-tale ending. She knew there was no future for her and Lord Billingsly. The romantically lurid tales of poor maids marrying dukes only happened in the penny dreadfuls. In reality, the scandal of such a marriage usually ruined any chances for happiness such a couple might have.