The Winter Companion (Parish Orphans of Devon #4) - Mimi Matthews Page 0,4

was unheard of for one in Clara’s position.

That single act had shone a blazing light on her. Had drawn attention to her that was both unseemly, and unwanted.

Though she couldn’t blame it all on Bertie.

The fact was, her disposition was not at all suited to her profession. She was too forthright, that was the problem. It was a formidable flaw. Companions were meant to be good listeners, not good talkers. And they certainly weren’t permitted to speak their mind.

But paid positions didn’t grow on trees. Not for women of her class. She would simply have to cut her dress to fit her cloth. To alter her disposition. To—in short—endeavor to become invisible.

Her parcel would have to wait.

She carried it to her carpetbag. The leather closure was equipped with a simple lock, its key suspended from a long, thin silver chain worn round her neck. She retrieved it from inside the bodice of her gown. The lock was tricky, but after some wiggling, the key turned it with a snick. The carpetbag opened and she dropped her parcel inside. It landed on top of a heap of near identical envelopes, each of them stuffed full to bursting.

She closed the carpetbag and locked it shut.

Soon.

Soon she’d be done with Mrs. Bainbridge. Done with being silent and subservient. With being a ghost. Soon she would shed the trappings of a lady’s companion.

And then her real life could begin.

Clara sat, as still as a statue, in her silk-upholstered chair in the drawing room, a teacup and saucer held motionless in her lap. She wasn’t very imposing to begin with—only five feet three inches in her stocking feet—but she endeavored to make herself appear even smaller. She’d drawn enough attention to herself today. It wouldn’t do to attract any more.

Far better to be still and quiet. To drink her tea, and enjoy the warmth from the blazing fire in the hearth. It crackled and sparked, taking away the chill she’d felt since first stepping down from the train at the railway station in Abbot’s Holcombe.

Mrs. Bainbridge’s nephew, Mr. Edward Hayes, appeared to have the same idea. He sat to the right of her in his wheeled chair, a tartan blanket draped over his legs. He was still a boy, really. Not more than twenty, by Clara’s estimation.

During the journey from London, he’d been attended by a manservant. A brawny fellow who was kept far busier hauling about Mr. Hayes’s art supplies than in hauling about Mr. Hayes himself.

As for Mrs. Bainbridge, she’d been too irritated with Clara to make any demands. “You never mentioned a dog, Miss Hartwright,” she’d said in arctic tones. “Had I known…”

Clara had held Bertie all the tighter.

She wished she were still holding him now, truth be told, as much for her own comfort as for his.

Greyfriar’s Abbey was an unsettling house, for all that it had a comfortable interior. The skies outside of it were too gray, the sea too thunderous. One felt as if one was sitting inside the eye of the storm.

“It often rains in Devon.” Their host, Mr. Justin Thornhill, stood beside his wife’s chair, a tall, imposing gentleman with raven black hair and a rather forbidding collection of burn scars on the bottom right side of his face. “One becomes used to it after a time.”

“Do they indeed?” Mrs. Bainbridge drank her tea. She was a lady of magnificent size, clad in unrelieved black crepe, and as regal as Queen Victoria herself. “I must say, it’s a relief after such a summer as we had in Surrey. We could scarcely move for the heat. I was quite undone by it.”

“The climate in the South of France is said to be far more temperate.” Lady Helena refilled her cup from a delicate painted porcelain teapot. A whisper of steam rose into the air. “I understand you’ll be relocating there in the new year, to live with Mr. and Mrs. Archer.”

“Nothing has been decided yet,” Mrs. Bainbridge said. “My nephew wishes to go of course, but a woman of my age can’t be too hasty. There is still much to be settled