would she tell them?
She quietly opened the door and shut it softly behind her.
The foyer was silent and empty. Mr. Gilbert must have known to give Mr. Woodsworth a wide berth while being accosted by a duke. The cold metal of the door handle chilled her. She could still hear the rumblings of the two men behind her, casually discussing her future, as if it had nothing to do with her. She was back to where she had started, only worse. Much worse. She had seen written out in bold, careful strokes a plan of happiness spread out over the course of seven pages. And she could never have it.
She pressed her back against the door frame and slid to the floor. The more she tried to calm her breathing, the tighter her chest became. She leaned forward with her head in her hands. At any moment someone could walk past her, but she couldn’t force herself to stand. This was not how it was supposed to end.
The door opened, but she still couldn’t get up. Two strong arms reached beneath her legs and around her neck and lifted her off the floor.
“Come, Patience,” Nicholas said.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest. He smelled like Papa. How many times had Papa carried her like this when she was a little girl?
“I miss him.”
Nicholas pulled her tighter to his chest. “I do too.” Of course he would know she was speaking of Papa.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to be out of mourning yet.”
“It is time, my little dove.”
Papa’s nickname for her. Tears that had been threatening to fall ever since Mr. Woodsworth had pulled out his list spilled out of her eyes and onto Nicholas’s coat.
“Let’s get you home. Where is your room? I will help you fetch your things.”
“Did you get my list?”
“It is in my breast pocket.”
Patience moved one hand and felt it there. She had it. She would at least have one thing to remember Mr. Woodsworth by.
“That should be the least of your concerns. I cannot believe you deceived me so. And living here for weeks, unchaperoned no less.”
“Down the hall, that way.” Patience pointed him in the right direction to her room. She wasn’t ready to listen to another lecture from her brother. She should demand he put her down so she could go herself. If Mr. Gilbert or Mrs. Bates saw her being carried by such a well-dressed gentleman, what would they think of her?
Ah, it didn’t matter anymore.
Mary Smith was apparently dead by snake bite, and Patience the maid would simply disappear.
“Did he see me? When you walked out, did he see me?” Curled up in a ball just outside the door was not the last image she wanted Mr. Woodsworth to have of her.
“No, he stayed at his desk.”
“Good.”
“Did he hurt you?”
Did he hurt her? What kind of a question was that? How could she answer it truthfully? His proposal had been the most painful moment of her life. The most painful and most beautiful.
“Well?” Nicholas’s voice had gone deep with panic.
“Not in the way you are thinking.”
“In what way did he hurt you?”
“I just want to go home. I didn’t make it to my thirty days. I didn’t make it to Bath.” Her words tumbled out one after another, and Nicholas’s expression grew more confused with each addition. “I didn’t even manage to serve under General Woodsworth. He was away from home the entire time. Mr. Woodsworth promised me a letter of recommendation, and I forgot to ask it of him.”
Nicholas furrowed his brow and opened his mouth as if to ask a question. She wasn’t ready to answer any questions quite yet. He must have noticed her reticence, for he snapped his jaw closed and shook his head. “Which door?” he asked after a moment’s pause.
Patience pointed to hers. There were three other doors just like it that opened to three identically small rooms. She would never again have such anonymity. “That one.”
Nicholas set her feet down but kept his arm around her back. He pulled forward one of her hands. Her red, cracked, and ruined hands. “But it looks as if you did learn to work.”
She nodded, afraid that, if she spoke, she would once again start crying. She had learned to work. Not always in the most efficient manner. But she had earned her four shillings a week.
Although she hadn’t yet been paid.
She left Nicholas waiting at the door and gingerly