and snap a retort. She merely scowled and said, “Yes, Mrs. Redfern. Sorry, ma’am.”
“Make certain you never say it above stairs, or let it come to Mrs. Bywater’s ears that you have. Mrs. Holloway, I am afraid Mrs. Bywater wishes to speak to you.”
“Now?” I scanned the kitchen, which was in turmoil, poor Tess trying to cope with entirely new demands at the last moment.
“I am afraid she won’t wait. She’s unhappy with you for being out past six.”
It was twenty minutes past. “The weather,” I said quickly. “I could not find a hansom, and—”
“Mr. McAdam happened to pass?” Tess sent me a cheeky look.
Mrs. Redfern’s lips pinched. “And make certain there’s no mention of that. Mrs. Bywater is waiting, Mrs. Holloway—”
Sara, the upstairs maid, darted in, her eyes wide. “No, she’s here. She’s come down.” Sara scurried from the kitchen across to the servants’ hall, barely making it inside before we heard the determined click of heels on the slates of the corridor.
“There you are, Mrs. Holloway.” Mrs. Bywater sailed in, her imperious glare all for me.
Tess plunked down her knife and dropped into a curtsy, eyes on the floor. Charlie scrunched into a ball by the fire, trying to remain unseen. Elsie, startled by the woman’s arrival, dropped a plate from her soapy fingers.
The plate shattered on the floor. Elsie squeezed her hands together, her cheeks going red with mortification as she managed a curtsy. Mrs. Bywater closed her eyes, pained, then opened them to fix her glare on me.
“If I may speak to you.” She paused, as though the rest of the staff would instantly clear out of the kitchen, but then swung around, marching rigidly to the servants’ hall. I nervously followed. Sara, trapped inside, curtsied hurriedly, mumbling something.
“Sara, please go upstairs and see if you can persuade my wayward niece to open the door,” Mrs. Bywater said. “Tell her she’ll starve there if she persists.”
Sara fled. Mrs. Bywater barely waited for her footsteps to fade before she turned on me.
“Cynthia refused to have a meal with my guests,” she announced.
“Tess has told me,” I said, trying to sound subdued.
“My niece defies me at every turn. Defies her parents and runs with lewd women—and who knows what else she gets up to? The best thing for her is to marry, but the company she keeps persuades her otherwise. I include you in that company, Mrs. Holloway. I have told you on several occasions that you and she have become far too friendly, and I will not have that in my house.”
“I know my place, ma’am,” I said as deferentially as I could. She had indeed scolded me for my camaraderie with Lady Cynthia not long before this. “I have not spoken to Lady Cynthia very much lately.”
“Not true. She scurried down to the kitchen to see you, and she inserted her artist friend among my domestics. Ridiculous. Cynthia will never obey me as long as she has refuge downstairs, a very odd place for her to find it. She’s a grown woman and ought to have a household of her own.”
Mrs. Bywater began to splutter, losing the thread of her argument. She drew a breath and fixed a steely eye on me.
“To that end, Mrs. Holloway, I am dismissing you. I ought to have done so long ago, but I was persuaded otherwise. But no more.” She lifted her chin. “You are to go. I have written to Lord Rankin about this, and no doubt he will agree with me. Lady Cynthia is a trial to him as well.”
I gaped at her, the world falling away. The suddenness of her statement, after I’d left today so complacent of my position here, my awareness that I worked to keep Grace, left me breathless. To be cast out, to leave behind the friends I’d made—Tess, Lady Cynthia, Mr. Davis . . . Word would spread, and finding a decent house to work in would be very difficult.
“Please,” I heard myself say. I, the dignified and haughty cook, was happy to beg. “I have no intention of encouraging Lady Cynthia to be disobedient—”
Mrs. Bywater raised her hand. “I do not wish to have an argument about it. I will write you a reference, as I have no complaint with your cooking, but you ought to remain below stairs and have nothing to do with those above it.”
At this moment I agreed with her. If Cynthia had not come to the kitchen when I first arrived, thrown herself down at