girl, weeping and cursing does no one any good.”
“Makes me feel better,” Tess growled. “She’s right, Mrs. H. You’re all pale and flushed at the same time. Come on. To bed with ya.”
She put aside her ranting to take me by the arm and lead me out. Mrs. Redfern came with us, and Mr. Davis led the way up the back stairs to open the door at the top.
“You sleep, Mrs. Holloway,” he said. “Everything will be well.”
I did not believe him. I tried to break away and walk myself to the next set of stairs, to begin the long climb to my chamber, but Tess and Mrs. Redfern stuck by me.
It was well they did. I was so weak by the time we reached the top of the house I might have tumbled down the stairs without them. They led me into my chamber, and Tess helped me out of my damp clothes while Mrs. Redfern turned down the bed.
Somehow, I had on my nightgown, the garment warm from hanging next to the chimney all day. Tess bundled me into bed, tucking me in.
“You have a sleep, Mrs. H. The mistress can’t turn you out when you’re ill. We won’t let her.”
The mistress could do anything she pleased, and well I knew it. I’d witnessed servants, even the old and infirm, turned onto the streets for lesser crimes than becoming too close friends to one of the family.
For the moment, I had this bed in the little room I’d come to call my own.
An illusion—none of it belonged to me. I hired out my cooking skills to others, and they gave me room and board and a very small salary in return. Nothing was mine but the talent I had for putting together a meal. If no one valued that, I would be out in the cold indeed.
My own fault. I ought to have put my head down and done my cookery and not interfered with Lord Rankin or Mrs. Bywater, or had anything to do with Lady Cynthia and her friends. I should have kept on with my chopping, basting, and simmering and let the world do what it would.
Even in my stupor I knew I could not have. Had I done nothing, a maid might have been ravished, a poisoner allowed to remain loose, and a kind Chinaman hanged for a crime he did not commit. I could not have stood by and done nothing. It was not my way.
But Grace would pay if I could not keep my posts and do my work. The Millburns were kind, but they had four growing children to care for, and Grace was another mouth to feed.
These troubled thoughts stayed with me as my exhausted and too-cold body took over and plunged me into sleep.
I woke to find Lady Cynthia sitting on the foot of my bed.
At first I thought I was dreaming—I had been lost in a whirl of Grace, Lady Cynthia in her stunning ball gown, and Bobby leaning down in front of the gates of Kew Gardens to hand Grace a coin.
The dreams dissolved as I blinked my hot eyes open, my head aching. The room was dark but for the lone candle on my bureau, the simple light too bright.
“Poor Mrs. H.” Cynthia, in a dressing gown, pressed a damp cloth to my head. The cool of it was so soothing I wilted. “This is my fault,” Cynthia continued. “But you’re not to worry. I’ll see to it.”
“My doing,” I croaked. “Your aunt is right.”
“She’s not—never say so. She’s furious with me, and punishing you. Mrs. Redfern told me you were ill, and I said to Auntie that if she turned you out and you took sick and died she’d be forever branded with it. She worries about her reputation among her cold-stick lady friends, so she’ll let you recover before she sends you to the pavement.”
I floated back to wakefulness. “If you’ve come to cheer me up, this is hardly the way to go about it.”
“Forgive me. I am trying to joke because I’m so bloody angry.”
I was too tired to take umbrage or chide her for her language. “The mistress is right. I should not have got above my place.”
“Rot that. I should be able to speak to anyone I damn well please, and take a cup of tea with them without my relations condemning me and sacking you. Ridiculous that a man can share his deepest secrets and best malt whisky with his