“You’ll share this bed with Henrietta,” Mrs. Harper said. “Teresa and Sara sleep in the other. You’ll have one drawer for your things.” She gestured to a simple wooden bureau in the corner. “Your uniforms are already inside. Dress—mind you take care—and be down for supper at the hour.”
Mrs. Harper shut the door without another word, leaving Leah alone in the rapidly darkening attic room. She dropped the empty, beaten leather bag that Avery had produced to lend authenticity to her role as applicant for housemaid onto the floor beside her and crossed to the single, tiny window. After pulling it open, she ducked her head out to look at the city of London below.
She bit her lip, excitement thrumming through her veins. Carriages rolled down the cobbled streets, beautiful horses tossing their heads as Londoners called greetings to one another. Lamp boys scurried along, propping small ladders against the posts and touching their lit wicks to the lamp heads. A baker’s boy ran past, his arms loaded with golden-brown loaves. It was picturesque, beautiful, everything she’d imagined.
Her happy sigh echoed through the room. Who’d have thought that she’d be living such a dream?
“From the country, are you?”
Leah nearly swallowed her own tongue in shock at the high-pitched voice behind her. She whirled and smiled.
“Hello. Who are you?”
The girl didn’t answer at first, just tilted her head quizzically, causing her too-big mobcap to flop over one eye. She shoved it back with a motion that was clearly of longstanding habit.
“I’m Henrietta. You must be the new maid. Mrs. Harper sent me up to help you get settled.” The girl gave a small smile, revealing crooked front teeth.
Faint discomfort nestled at the back of Leah’s spine. This girl looked only a few years older than Leah’s drama students at Concord Magnet Elementary School. She couldn’t be more than twelve, thirteen years old, and she worked here? Reminding herself that child labor laws were still a work in progress, Leah nodded.
“Nice to meet you, Henrietta. Or do you go by Henry?”
“What a daft question. I am a girl, so I am Henrietta. They said you was a sight dim, and weren’t they right and all.” The polite smile was gone, and in its place was a look of dislike that was more suited to Mrs. Harper’s drawn cheeks than Henrietta’s apple-shaped ones.
Well well well, thought Leah as she drew herself up to her full height. The little match girl is more of a little spitfire. “Well, Henrietta, why don’t you show me around?” Leah kept tight eye contact with the little demon, daring her to challenge further.
Aha, she thought as Henrietta looked away and marched to the bureau. Round one to Ramsey.
“Your uniforms is here, caps and aprons there. Hair tucked all beneath your cap. You’ll be scolded if it’s not done to Mrs. Harper’s liking. Oh”—the girl turned—“and one more thing.”
She might as well have a blinking neon sign on her cute little forehead that read “I’m about to try to screw you over.” Leah crossed her arms and waited.
“Mrs. Harper said to tell you that supper has been delayed. You’re to remain here until quarter past the hour.”
Leah inwardly shook her head. Poor kid. She had talent but no control. Overplaying a part was worse than underplaying it. “Hold it right there.”
Henrietta had been about to turn the doorknob to make her escape, but Leah’s “freeze or you’re dead meat” voice had been fairly well honed over the years. The girl turned slowly, a wary look in her wide brown eyes.
“If supper is delayed, then you can help me settle in.” Leah plopped down on the bed and patted the faded covers beside her. “Sit down with me.”
Henrietta’s look of repugnance would have been funny if it wasn’t so damn depressing. Leah began wishing she’d stuck closer to Avery. Clearly the female staff wouldn’t be giving her as warm a welcome as he had.
Leah sighed and rubbed at the temple that was beginning a steady throb. What a damn depressing thought.
Five
It had been easier than Avery had thought to convince Mrs. Dearborn, the cook, to pretend Leah was her relation from the colonies. An older woman with a softer heart than anyone else in the house, Cook had been Avery’s only confidante. Despite their cordial acquaintance, he’d expected much more of a fight from her when he suggested the plan. But once Avery had explained that Leah would be out on the street if she couldn’t provide a reference, Cook had agreed to the charade and bustled Leah away to meet Mrs. Harper and apply for Fannie’s recently vacated position.
As Leah waved a cheerful farewell from the kitchen doorway, an odd twinge took up residence in Avery’s chest. Turning, he’d thumped at his ribs, trying to dislodge the feeling as he’d exited the main house and walked out toward the stables. It hadn’t worked. The buoyant, almost excited sensation cast an unfamiliar lightness to his walk.
Her tale was difficult to believe, but she had appeared sincere. Was it possible that she had come from nearly two hundred years in the future? The gravel crunched beneath his feet as he considered the notion.
When he was just a boy in the village of Chelmsford, their neighbor, Mrs. Comstock, had dabbled in the Old Ways. Though his clergyman father forbade him to speak with the old woman, he knew from her that strange things were possible. He’d seen her making potions and curing folk in ways that no normal person could, so it stood to reason that this stranger’s outlandish claim could prove true.
His father was dead, and he was no longer a boy. Would he heed the warnings he’d been given as a child, or discover more about this beautiful stranger? Whether she’d come from the future or no, she stirred an interest within him that she should not. And he could not afford any distractions.
Once he’d reached the stables and tossed the hounds some scraps he’d gotten from Cook, he rounded to the back of the buildings into the lean-to shed he used for training. As he reached for the leather door strap, he could have sworn that his lips were stretched oddly, in what almost felt like a smile. Shaking his head, he tried to clear his thoughts of yellow hair and summer-sky eyes as he entered the shed. It was damn near impossible. She haunted him like a wraith.
The scents of dust, hay, and sweat hung heavy in the air, a reminder of the sole purpose of this room. Imagining the way she’d felt for that brief moment pressed against him, he methodically stripped to the waist. Streams of late-afternoon light reached through gaps in the slat wall, lying in wicked angles across the straw-dusted floor. Dust motes floated in the air as Avery carefully hung his valet’s waistcoat, shirt, and jacket on iron hooks by the door. A rip, another, and then he wrapped thin linen strips around his knuckles, knotting them securely. Stretching his rib cage with a heavy breath, Avery turned and faced his opponent—a canvas bag filled with sand, hung with thick ropes from a ceiling beam. Settling his weight squarely on the balls of his feet, Avery’s fists tingling and ready, he pulled back for his first swing.
The ghost of an impish smile with twinkling eyes winked at him, and he missed the bag completely. Overbalanced, he staggered forward, nearly plowing directly into his former employer’s tall form.
“Oy, Russell, you’ll never win another tourney with a pitiful showing like that.”
Avery righted himself quickly, bringing his fist upward in defense. “Prachett. What are you doing here?”
Thomas Prachett laughed, moving closer to Avery. His heavy boots thudded on the straw-strewn floor. “I’ve need of my best man, is all. I told you I hadn’t finished with you.”