“This is the new maid, Anna.” Marie curtsied.
Marie had been right. The woman was terrifying. She had a sharp nose, cold eyes, and hair pulled back so tightly that the skin at her temples looked strained. She regarded Pippa from head to toe, then lifted a finger and twirled it.
Pippa blinked at her, uncertain.
“Turn,” Marie hissed.
Oh. Pippa turned on her heel until she made a full circle and faced Frau Benedikt again. A wave of humiliation swept over her.
She lifted her chin defiantly and met the woman’s steel-grey gaze, only to remember too late Marie’s warning not to. Well, she refused to be afraid. She was her father’s daughter. He had taught her that all men and women were created equal and that the distinctions of class and rank were inventions of man. She would not feel intimidated.
Frau Benedikt seized her chinfirmly and lifted it.
“A girl with spirit, I see,” the woman said.
Pippa shivered. The housekeeper turned her face from side to side and tightened her grip when Pippa tried to pull away. “It remains to be seen whether that will aid or hinder you. If you let your temper rule you, you will be dismissed, and it will be noted in your papers that you are unfit for employment anywhere else. Is that understood?”
Pippa swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
The woman released her. “Marie, take her to the servants’ quarters. She will receive a uniform, the cost of which will be deducted from her pay.” Her gaze lingered on Pippa. “Well?”
“Curtsy,” Marie whispered urgently.
Pippa dropped into a reluctant curtsy.
“I see this one needs to be taught proper etiquette. Marie, that will be your responsibility.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Marie replied, curtsying again. Frau Benedikt left the room.
“You must curtsy every time,” Marie said.
“Why?”
Marie stared at her as if she had grown three heads. “Because we are at the bottom of the social ladder. We are maids, and cleaning maids at that. Everyone else is your superior. Including me.”
As they walked through the endless corridors again, Marie continued, “You will receive your assigned tasks and working hours. You are to remain invisible at all times. If you happen to meet a noble, you must turn to face the wall. The high and mighty rarely notice us, anyway.”
Pippa frowned. “So I do not enter any rooms at all?”
“Oh no,” Marie said. “We clean the corridors, polish the grates, and empty the fireplaces in the common areas. The archduchesses’ private apartments have their own maids. Such posts are highly coveted and nearly impossible to obtain. You will never set foot in the archdukes’ apartments.”
That would be a problem. How was she to spy if she could not even reach the rooms?
She squared her shoulders, gathered her humble bundle of clothes, and followed Marie to an attic room she would share with four other maids. Her narrow cot sat wedged beneath the window.
She would simply have to outwit them all.
Quickly.
It was the only way for her to survive. To escape this place. To find Klemens.
Chapter Five
Pippa’s dress was heavy,dark wool, with a coarse linen apron and a white cap perched on her head. The cap bothered her most. It was far too big and kept slipping into her eyes, so she had to shove it back every other step.
“You will have to alter it yourself,” Marie remarked, eyeing her up and down. “And shorten the hem too, unless you want to tumble down a staircase.”
Alter it? Pippa suppressed a groan. She was hopeless with a needle. Her father once forbade her to mend his socks after she sewed one shut.
