“Absolutely not.” She stepped back before Sylvie could pin anything decorative to her. “I’m not there to be looked at, and don’t want to draw attention to myself.”
Sylvie’s mouth flattened, but she let the matter drop. However, they both knew where Eliza’s words stemmed from—a night not that long ago when her life would have changed again for the worse.
Eliza shuddered. Despite the warmth of the small room, a chill chased down her spine. The fog. The reek of his breath. The weight of his hand on her arm as he’d shoved her to the ground. The way her heart had thudded, frantic and helpless, because she had known, every woman knew, what might come next if no one heard her. But someone did.
She swallowed. It was done with. In the past. She was safe today thanks to a large Scotsman called Mungo who had appeared out of nowhere like some furious guardian angeland hauled the man off her as if he weighed no more than a sack of flour.
After that night, Eliza had braced the chair against the door each evening. She’d also walked about with a sewing pin stuck cleverly in her lapel, ready to jab the next man who thought to corner her. She wondered if the fear would ever leave her completely even as she refused to let it rule her life.
“Go on, then, before Mrs. Holton finds out you were late for your first day.”
Eliza hesitated, then abruptly dropped her bag and wrapped her arms around Sylvie, holding on tight. Sylvie’s arms came around her, too, just as fiercely.
“Thank you for being my friend,” Eliza whispered. “For giving me a home.”
“Always,” Sylvie said, her voice muffled against Eliza’s shoulder. “We’re each other’s family now, remember? We said so. Blood or no blood. You’re stuck with me. Now go before I cry, and you know how much I loathe doing that.”
In truth, Sylvie was one of the softest-hearted people Eliza had ever met. She just preferred to hide it beneath sarcasm and formidable glares. When Eliza had finally told her about her parents and brother, about the fire, Sylvie had fetched the thin, worn shawl that had been Eliza’s mother’s and folded it around her shoulders.
“We’ll carry them with us,” she’d said. “In memory and along with all the things they taught you. But we’ll not let grief swallow us whole, do you hear me?”
Eliza heard her now, the echo of that kindness a steadying weight in her chest.
She picked up her bag once more. At the door, she risked a last look back. The red curtain. The narrow bed with its mismatched blankets. The trunk with its stubborn dent in the lid. It was all shabby and small, and yet it had been thefirst place since her parents’ house where she’d felt something like safety.
“Goodbye,” she whispered to it.
“Not goodbye,” Sylvie said behind her.
Eliza stepped out into the corridor, then down the narrow stairs, her boots scuffing on the worn treads that had carried a hundred other girls to and from work.
Miss Dot popped her head out of the parlor as Eliza passed. “Goodbye to you, Miss Downing,” she said. “First impressions, remember, are the most important. You make them see what you are, steady and capable, and they’ll treat you as such.”
“Yes, Miss Dot. Thank you,” Eliza said, bobbing a small curtsy.
Outside the boarding house, the door clicked shut behind her, and the chill of the day wrapped around her like a damp cloak. The sky was a low, sullen gray, threatening rain, and the air carried the mingled smells of the city.
Eliza drew in a deep breath and looked up and down the street. It had become familiar to her. The crooked row of houses, the lamppost leaning a fraction too far to one side, the cat who eyed passersby from the top of the wall as if judging their worth. Somewhere, a costermonger called out his wares.
She shifted her bag to her other hand and set off, her boots clicking on the damp cobbles. She knew the directions to Crabbett Close because she’d walked there just yesterday to ensure she wouldn’t get lost.
Turn left at the bakery with the striped awning. Follow the curve of the road past the little park with the black iron railings. Each landmark was a step away from everything she had known these past two years and a step toward something entirely different.
Something made her stop and look behind her, a pricklingsense that she was being watched, but Eliza did not see any familiar faces. She was unsettled, clearly.
What if she failed?
She’d worked as a governess before, in houses where she’d been no more than a shadow, praised when the children recited their lessons perfectly and blamed when they did not. She knew her letters and sums well enough. She knew how to curtsy, how to pour tea without rattling the cups, how to speak when spoken to and not before. But this position was… more. She was preparing young people to enter society, which she’d never stepped foot in.
Eliza had read book after book on the subject until she was sure she knew all she needed… but still there were those kernels of doubt.
What if I fail? What if I am not good enough?What if they don’t want me?
CHAPTER FIVE
“The new governess starts today,” Bram said as they left the parlor.
“I didn’t get to meet her at the interview, and I’m not pleased about that,” Mungo said. He had come home and found they’d employed someone without him.
