all times.”
There, she’d admitted it. She was jealous and feared she could not compete.
“I have no designs on the laird,” Cora said. “He’s your husband.”
Anne couldn’t speak. She would not acknowledge Aidan didn’t want her, not to a woman he did want.
“Please, my lady, I know I’m not a good choice for a maid. I don’t even know how to be one,” Cora confessed. “But I’m willing to learn. Everyone says I’m bright—”
“Then why don’t you ask them for a position?”
Cora swallowed and lifted her chin defensively. “Because no one will hire me.” Her hands clenched into fists. The lines of her face deepened and Anne realized she was struggling with pride and shame. “You wouldn’t understand, my lady. You don’t know what it is like.”
The girl’s proud posture struck a chord of recognition in Anne. “Tell me. Tell me what it is like to be you.”
The Whiskey Girl smirked. “If you were my kind, you’d have to become accustomed to people always whispering and talking about you whenever you pass them on the path. They might smile and say hello to your face, but you know they’ll be gossiping about you later.”
Anne understood all too well what she meant. “What else?”
“People think you are stupid…or maybe they are deliberately trying to hurt your feelings.”
“Maybe they don’t believe you have feelings at all,” Anne agreed softly.
“That is true. The women don’t want to spend time knowing you to find out any different, and the men only want you on your back.”
“How will being my maid change that?”
“It will be a chance, you ken?” Realizing Anne didn’t understand the Scottish word, she corrected herself, “You understand? I want to be something else. A want to be one of them. My oldest sister, Meg, is twenty-eight, but she looks fifty. She has a child, my lady, a lovely little girl named Marie who will grow up and be like the lot of us. Pa doesn’t mind. We’re good for his whiskey business. But when I look at Marie and see how precious she is and know someday she will be like me—”
Cora broke off. She stared hard into space a moment, her eyes suspiciously shiny, but she didn’t cry. She wouldn’t either.
Anne understood. You couldn’t cry about the way people treated you. If you did, it would hurt worse.
“I want to raise Marie,” Cora said. “Meg will let me. Marie is in her way as it is now. But I need money to feed and clothe a child. You are my last hope. There is no one else who will hire me.”
For a second, Anne couldn’t speak. Cora was so pretty, of course Aidan would choose her over Anne.
Still…their marriage was in name only. She had no right to be jealous. What did it matter what her husband did, as long as she could stay at Kelwin?
Cora misinterpreted her silence. She retreated a step. “Yes, my lady, I understand. I wouldn’t hire me either.” Before Anne could blink, she turned and started hurrying toward the door.
Anne went after her. “Wait!” She had to say it again before Cora stopped in the doorway, her head bowed.
“I will hire you to be my maid.”
The girl turned. “Why?”
Anne answered honestly. “Because I know how it feels to be the outcast…to be the one not chosen.”
“Yes,” Cora said quietly.
“Back in London, someone wrote something about me in the newspaper once.” Anne had to pause. The pain of the public embarrassment still had the power to hurt. “The person who wrote it was an odious man. He made his living selling gossip. He was completely despicable, although he thought himself clever and witty. He called me a toad eater. Do you know what that is?”
“No.”
“It’s a female relation with no money, who is dependent upon the members of her family. It is not a flattering description and certainly not anything a single, marriageable lady wants printed publicly about her, because no gentleman wants a poor wife.”
“It was cruel of him to print such a thing.”
His column had all but destroyed her socially. She put the pain behind her. “Disagreeable people are often cruel. But we don’t have to abide by their opinions and I’ve managed to survive being refused a voucher to Almack’s. It all seems silly now, when one is this far from London, but at the time it was very serious. I had a friend who was lovely and wealthy. She championed me. She couldn’t obtain entrance to Almack’s exclusive rooms for me, but she