have a valued profession, for which I’m very well paid. If I find I’m not valued, I can leave whenever I like and find a better place. I am not a slave.”
Lucy wondered why Jennings was telling her this. It was interesting, but it made her a little uncomfortable. “No, ma’am. Of course not.”
“Not everyone is in my position, of course. I’ve made sure to acquire the right skills.”
Lucy knew it was true. Fine ladies, duchesses even, fought to hire the best dressers. They stole them from each other and gave them all sorts of privileges to keep them happy.
“The more you know, the more independence you have. I’ve noticed that you like learning things, Lucy.”
Lucy nodded. “That I do.”
“I’m glad you have some ambition. I hate to see a girl with skill waste herself.”
Was liking to learn the same as ambition? Lucy wasn’t sure.
“In time, you might get a post such as mine here in London, at the highest levels.”
Lucy didn’t dare tell her that she longed to go back to country. She was sure Jennings wouldn’t approve.
“Do you have any schooling?”
Lucy nodded proudly. “My mother made sure we all went to the village school every day we could. I can read and write and do some figuring.” She nodded again for emphasis. “I don’t get cheated in the market.”
“That’s good.” Jennings showed one of her thin smiles. “I would be happy to teach you what a superior dresser needs to know, if you like.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Lucy was thrilled at the thought. She had no doubt of one thing—the more you could do, the better off you were likely to be in this world.
Jennings bowed her head magisterially. “I believe learning should be passed along, to give as we have been given to, and in helping others advance themselves. When they deserve it.”
Ignoring the touch of steel in Jennings’s voice, Lucy said, “Thank you, ma’am. Thank you very much.”
“Is she going to tell Cook I was cheeky?” muttered Agnes when Lucy returned to the kitchen for the curling iron. Clearly this had been worrying her ever since Lucy left.
“Who?” Ethan lifted a luncheon tray ready to go upstairs.
“Jennings. I…” Agnes showed him the face she’d made earlier.
Ethan laughed.
“I don’t think she will,” Lucy assured her. Jennings’s mind had seemed to be on other things.
“Do her good to loosen up a bit.” Giving Lucy one of the smiles that sizzled right through her, Ethan went out.
***
After luncheon, Frances Cole invited Charlotte to join her in the drawing room. Lizzy and Anne exchanged speaking glances and disappeared up the stairs, but Charlotte was happy to accept. As she’d discovered on her third day in the house, Frances was engaged in a mammoth embroidery project—a wall hanging for the Wyldes’ Derbyshire home—and always looking for additional hands. The sisters saw it as a penance, but Charlotte enjoyed short doses of fancy work. She and Frances had already spent several pleasant hours in this way, and they had shown Charlotte another side of the older woman. Embroidering, Frances was relaxed and happy, full of stories about her childhood doing needlework with her mother.
She had narrated several such anecdotes, and Charlotte was just finishing a rose petal when Frances said, “I wrote to my cousin Amelia Earnton to tell her that Anne will be able to join the dancing class she has arranged after all. I’m so glad. I feared she would be too ill.”
After a moment, Charlotte remembered the name. This was the aunt married to an earl. “Dancing class?”
“It’s often done. They’ve gathered a group of young people who will be making their bow to society next year.”
“To teach them to dance?”
Frances smiled. In this peaceful mood, she seemed almost another person. “If they need it, but more to introduce them to each other, so they have some acquaintances when they are thrown into the whirl of their first London Season.”
“That is a very good idea.” How she would have loved to have a readymade circle of friends in town, Charlotte thought.
Frances set a complex knot stitch. “Amelia will be taking over supervision of Anne more and more, of course. I suppose I shall hardly see her at this time next year.” She sighed. “It will be just Lizzy and me left. Lizzy will not like that.”
“I don’t think she will…”
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me. We are quite fond of each other—despite what I may say in the heat of the moment.” Frances smiled again. “But Lizzy requires so much activity! She