The girl, whose name Imogen now knew was Isla, stood over the bed with her hands planted firmly on her round hips. Her apron was wetter than it had been that morning, and her face was set in a grim, practical line. She didn’t look at the tear-stained pillow. She looked at the empty space on the bedside table where a purse should have been.
“Well? Did the fine lady in the silk wrap leave ye a fortune, or just a bad taste in yer mouth?” Isla asked, her shrill voice cracking like a whip.
Imogen didn’t look up from the wall. “She left me nothing but a warning.”
“Aye, they’re good at that, the gentry. Warnings are free. Bread isnae,” she snapped. She stepped closer, the floorboards groaning. “The innkeeper has been at the ledger, lassie. He’s seen no coin in his palm. He says if the rent isnae settled by tomorrow, yer trunk stays here and ye go out the door. He’s a man of his word when it comes to bein’ a bastard. I am… I am sorry, lassie.”
Imogen finally pushed herself up, her brown curls a tangled halo in the gray light.
“I have almost nothing, Isla. Three interviews, and they looked at me like I was a leper. It is hopeless. I have a shilling and a locket.”
Isla’s expression softened, just a fraction, as she gave a pirate smile and pulled out a rolled cigarette. She lit it on a nearbycandle and reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled scrap of newsprint, tossing it onto the lumpy duvet.
“Want a cigarette, love?”
“No, thank you,” Imogen said. “I do not smoke.”
“Well, there’s one way to keep a roof o’er yer head, though it’s a roof made of soot and misery,” she said quietly as she puffed on her cigarette. “My cousin works the laundry at the St. Jude’s Union. It’s the workhouse.”
Imogen’s eyes grew heavy as she looked at Isla with a frown.
“Ye cannae look at me like that! It is a roof. They’re desperate for able-bodied women for the picking and the wash-tubs. Ye look like ye ken yer way around a maid’s duties.”
“Sadly, I do.” Imogen stared at the paper. “The workhouse? Isla, while I have no qualms about hard work… I am a governess now. I have taught Virgil and calculus. I have talents and passion and?—”
“Yewerea governess,” Isla interrupted, her voice hard. “Now, ye are a girl in a rat hole with a debt to a crabby innkeeper. At St. Jude’s, they’ll take ye without a reference. They daenae care who yer father was or which Duke wanted to bed ye.”
“It wasn’t like that!”
“Regardless, they only care if ye can scrub until yer fingers bleed. Sound wages, a bed, and a bowl of gruel. It is better than the river, is it nae?”
Imogen picked up the paper, her fingers trembling. “They take your clothes. They cut your hair. They separate families.”
“From what I can see, ye have nay family left to separate, lassie. Just tryin’ to help ye.”
“Thank you,” Imogen whispered.
“That woman who was just here? She’s yer enemy, nae yer kin,” Isla said, walking toward the door. “I can get ye in the side gate tomorrow mornin’. Me cousin owes me a favor. It’ll keep ye off the streets while thetonforgets yer name. But ye have to decide. The street or the tubs?”
Chapter Thirty-One
Ambrose sat at the head of the long dining table, the silver candelabra casting flickering shadows across the vast, empty space. A plate of roasted pheasant, root vegetables, and crusty bread sat untouched before him.
“The boys, Mrs. Higgins?” he asked, his voice hollow even to his own ears, as she entered the room with a somber expression.
“Still in the nursery room, Your Grace,” the housekeeper replied, her mouth set in a thin, disapproving line. “They refused the shepherd’s pie that the cook had made especially for them, just as you requested. Lord Arthur said it tasted like dust, and Lord Philip… well, he threw his spoon at the footman.”
Ambrose let out a long, ragged sigh as he reached for his wine goblet. “I will speak with them now,” he roared as he downed the last of the glass and slammed it onto the table with a thunk. “I have no appetite.”
He climbed the stairs, his boots leaden as he trudged up the steps. He had spent the afternoon interviewing three more candidates, women with impeccable references and starched collars, but the sessions had been more disastrous than the first four he had seen. One woman had fled in tears after Philip told her she smelled like “rotting cabbage and despair,” and another had been physically barred from entering the schoolroom by a barricade of heavy toy soldiers and overturned chairs.
He pushed open the nursery door. The room was dark, save for a single lamp that flickered in the corner. Arthur and Philip were huddled together in one bed, looking small and fragile, whispering to each other before falling silent at Ambrose’s presence. They looked up at him with sad, searching eyes.
“I thought we might read,” Ambrose said softly, holding up a volume ofRobinson Crusoe. “It was your favorite, wasn’t it?”
“Miss Lewis read the voices better than you can,” Arthur muttered into his pillow, not looking up.
“I will try my best, boys.”
