mother had any idea just how far she intended to rebel during the summer, she would have collapsed in a professional-looking swoon onto an original, perfectly restored fainting couch.
“I like you already,” Lydia said promptly. “We don’t have anything very interesting upstairs, but my husband is fond of antiques. Let me show you his treasure room and you can tell me all the appalling comments your mother would make about his poor collection. I can guarantee there is nothing there to offend your Elizabethan sensibilities.”
Samantha nodded, then left her tea behind and followed her employer up the stairs.
The treasure room was actually much more impressive than advertised. Both her mother and her brother would have been quite happy to poke through things and argue over their value. For herself, she was satisfied to limit herself to identifying the most valuable pieces immediately and heaping praise on her host for their acquisition and the lengths gone to in order to house and display them properly.
Lydia shot her a look of amusement. “It isn’t your era, is it?”
None of it’s my era was almost out of her mouth before she managed to bite her tongue. No, the Victorian era wasn’t her favorite, but that was probably because she’d spent so many hours helping her mother catalogue its remains when she could have been babysitting and making some money. She actually got chills down her spine when she contemplated how many years of indentured servitude she would have been engaging in if she’d actually had to pay for her education instead of getting scholarships and graduate assistantships.
“Gavin would be very impressed, though,” Samantha offered. “He loves nineteenth-century silver.” That in itself was a surprise given that she’d heard her brother vow as he’d left the house for college that he would never, ever have anything to do with anything that needed to be dusted while wearing gloves.
She understood completely.
“We would like to extend our reach back a bit more in history,” Lydia said, “but that would require a better security system, I think. The great houses are very careful about that sort of thing, as you might imagine. Perhaps as time and means allow. And as for you, I think you might want some proper supper before you fall asleep. I’m not sure you’ll want to wake up for it later.”
“Oh, I think the tea was plenty,” Samantha protested. “Or I could go to the grocery—”
“Of course you won’t,” Lydia said without hesitation. “Room and board is part of our agreement, along with the remuneration. And I think we’ll have the odd side job for you now and again. If you can bear to have anything to do with actors or lovers of antiques.”
“My brother has a big mouth.”
Lydia started to speak, then hesitated. “If I can say this without overstepping my bounds,” she said carefully, “I think it’s safe to say Gavin simply wants you to be happy and thought he might spare you discomfort if we had some idea of your likes and dislikes before we unintentionally upset you.”
Samantha looked at her and tried not to sound defensive. “I’m not really fragile. No matter what they say.”
“Oh, I never imagined you were,” Lydia said. “But you do look tired. I think rest might be what you need, if I could offer an opinion. Feel free to make yourself at home in the kitchen if you wake in the night.”
Samantha parted ways with her at the stairs, thanked her, then trudged up the stairs to her garret with as much spring in her step as she could manage. The thought of bed was almost too irresistible to be ignored.
She walked into her room, then sat down with her gear. She unpacked, because she didn’t want her clothes to be too wrinkled, then pulled out a backpack and hung it from a peg. She’d hoped for the occasional opportunity to do a few touristy things and liked to travel light. That would be easier to use than a suitcase.
She took her plane ticket and shoved it in the drawer of the nightstand near her bed. She didn’t intend to be using it anytime soon and didn’t suppose anyone would want to steal it, even if the Cookes’ security system wasn’t what it should have been. She pulled her bag from under the bed, unzipped the secret pocket she’d put in behind the regular pocket inside the lining she’d installed herself—there was no sense in not being a decent seamstress if she couldn’t revamp