pages spread like a bird had crashed mid-flight. Ink blots upon paper scattered across the round table reminded Alice of insects on flower petals.
No one had told her how much they expected her to tidy up and what she could leave for a maid.
The children ate their dinner with her in a small room near the kitchen, as would be the custom unless their father invited them to the formal dining table. Then they disappeared for their baths and beds.
She alone stood in the schoolroom.
Picking up the book, Alice saw from its title it had to belong to Lady Rosalind. At twelve, the girl should have known better than to leave it out like that.
The children and Alice had spent the afternoon looking through the schoolbooks to find topics that interested the children. If Alice could build an educational schedule around things that made Lady Isabelle, Lady Rosalind, and Lord James curious, she would have a better time at keeping their attention.
The idea had struck her when she thought about the gardener, and how interested he seemed in insects. If a gardener could study the creeping things of the earth as well as flowers, why shouldn’t children learn of things that mattered to them in addition to the work everyone expected them to do?
She needed to put some books aside for her own study and make lists of what they had discussed to see if the duke’s library had more books they might use.
“Miss Sharpe? Are you in here?” When a maid came into the room in a rush, Alice looked up from the table, over a stack of books nearly as tall as she was when sitting down.
“Here I am!” She waved her hand in the air above the books. “Is anything wrong?”
“Wrong?” The maid spluttered. “Miss Sharpe, Her Grace sent for you to join them at dinner this evening. One of her guests is ill, and now the table is all put-out and uneven.”
Alice froze, mid-way out of her seat. “Dinner with His Grace and their guests? You must be mistaken. Even if the numbers are wrong, they cannot want a governess.”
“They do, Miss Sharpe.” The maid gestured to the door. “Hurry. I’m to send you down straight away, but it took me too long to find you.”
“But—but—” Alice’s hands went up to her hair, then she touched her skirt. “I am not dressed for dinner.”
“Then get dressed. Hurry.” The maid came forward, took Alice by the arm, and pulled until Alice started walking. “You must hurry. There’s no time for frippery. You’re just an extra body at the table. Nearly everyone else is titled.”
Alice knew well enough that the maid spoke the truth. Her presence would be ignored, most likely. They meant her to keep numbers even, the way some might put a block beneath a table leg to keep it from tilting too much to one side.
With the maid’s help, Alice was out of her midnight blue dress and into one of the few evening gowns her great-aunt had told her to pack. There would be times when she must be present, if the children were invited to important events or performed in musical entertainment, and she had to dress properly for that.
“But never can you compete with a guest in your finery,” her great-aunt had warned, casting all of Alice’s favorite gowns into a trunk bound for the attic. She had left Alice only two evening gowns. One was the color of a crushed and wilted lilac, a shade Alice found rather mournful, and the other was a pale pink that did nothing for her complexion.
Alice wore the wilted-lilac that evening. It made her appear rather without color. They hardly touched her hair, except to loosen a few strands from the unfashionable bun. She kept on her spectacles and her father’s ring, sliding gloves on to wear down to the table.
With no other adornments, Alice practically ran down the corridors to the main floor. She arrived in the corridor outside the dining room, where a footman waited for her.
He bowed when she approached. “Miss Sharpe. The guests are about to leave the drawing room to enter the dining room. You must wait here until all the guests have walked by, then you join the last gentleman at the rear of the party.”
“Thank you.” Alice gifted him what she hoped would appear as a confident smile. On the inside, her nerves started to twist, and her stomach clenched around the dinner she had already eaten with