Daniel’s own interest in women became apparent to him shortly after his arrival at Mrs Bailiwick’s Academy. It grew from a fixed fascination with the elder girls to some small flirtations with those his own age around the time when his own bodybegan to betray him. His fellow pupils reciprocated his interest, and he proved rather popular amongst them, for he had, if he were to flatter himself, a certain handsome quality which no amount of frills or flounces could ever quite disguise.
But of all the girls there—many beautiful and talented, most very interested in him—none sparked his notice quite like the arrival of one particular maid in his sixteenth year.
She was of a like age to himself, as he soon discovered. Unlike him, however, her eyes shone a deep amber to match her ebony locks, and the rosebud lips which annoyed him in his own face attracted his admiration in hers. And, unlike his fellow pupils, he had to steal his moments of admiration, for she didn’t sit beside him in drawing or French, or carry his hand or waist in dancing. Whilst he might offer to hold the pincushion of a young lady engaged in embroidery, he knew not how to make himself known to a maid who must keep herself unheard and unseen, lest she lose her place.
Still, he observed her whenever she crept into a room to start tidying-up just as the young ladies left it. More than a few times he glimpsed her in the halls slipping in or out of the servants’ stair. His attic bedroom, attained in his fourteenth year, put him rather nearer to the servants’ quarters than the pupils’ dormitory. Yet her work forced her to keep such miserable hours that she had vanished altogether either before he awoke or well after he fell asleep.
But, on the occasion of one particular afternoon tea, he’d had his chance.
Most of the young ladies ignored the maids, having been brought up to believe staff beneath their notice and expecting only to communicate with those who ranked so high as housekeepers or cooks. Daniel, however, caught the new maid’s eye as she brought in the tea-tray. He leapt up to accept it from her—after all, according to Mrs Bailiwick, he would have toconduct his future husband’s tea service, so why not take charge in the academy as practise? Audacity and confidence shielded him from reproof of teacher and pupil alike.
And, as the maid relinquished the service into his hands, his fingertips brushed against hers.
She glanced up at him, startled.
He gave her his most becoming smile, a bundle of nerves behind it, his heart in his throat.
A heart which flew with joy when she shot him a small, sweet, sincere smile in return.
Then the full weight of the tray bore upon his arms, for she had let go of it altogether and vanished again as though she’d never been.
Daniel retained his composure as he set down the tray and dispensed tea to his classmates. He waited until after he saw them all served, then turned to his headmistress.
“Pray tell, Mrs Bailiwick,” Daniel asked her whilst the girls distracted themselves with tea-cakes. “What is the new maid’s name?”
Mrs Bailiwick blinked at him. “I believe she’s called Sukie. Why do you ask?”
Sukie.The name resounded sweet as birdsong in Daniel’s thoughts. So sweet that he quite forgot to answer Mrs Bailiwick’s enquiry. But Miss Sophronia Wilkinson happened to drop her teacup into its saucer with a splash at that very moment. Daniel gave silent thanks for her accidental distraction of the headmistress and amused himself for the remainder of the afternoon with thoughts of brushing out soft ebony tresses whilst staring into deep amber eyes.
The sweet birdsong kept echoing through his mind all night and on into the morning, when, just before Italian lessons, he glimpsed a black-and-white figure scurrying away down the upstairs hall.
He thanked Providence he wandered the hall alone at that moment and called out in a voice of forced calm, “Miss Sukie, is it not?”
Her steps halted. For a moment, she hesitated with her back still to him, and he feared he’d overstepped. Or, heaven forefend, received her name wrong from Mrs Bailiwick.
Then she turned, and the glance from her amber eyes stole all power of speech from him. She ducked her head and curtsied, saying as she arose again, “Yes, Miss Fairfield?”
The honourific gave him the same twinge of discomfort as it always did, though the voice that spoke it sounded far softer and more sweet than usual. He brushed it aside and approached her until hardly a yard remained between them. She watched him careful all the while.
“I’d like to welcome you to our academy,” he said.
She dropt her head again and murmured her thanks.
“My chambers are upstairs,” he continued. “Just beneath the attic. Not very far from your own, I believe.”
She glanced at him curiously.
“And,” he added, “if you aren’t too preoccupied with your own engagements, I wonder if you might join me in my chambers this evening after dinner. That is, if you’ve the inclination?”
Having made his offer and half-expecting a refusal, his heart only began to beat again when she, with a small and secretive smile, accepted.
Dinner seemed to last a century. He could hardly manage more than a few mouthfuls, until he reminded himself that much of it had likely come from Sukie’s handiwork, and a respect for this allowed him to consume a more respectable portion despite his fluttering stomach.
Then he bid his fellow pupils good-night and climbed the flights to his bedroom with his heart pounding at his ribcage as if it could break free.
He arrived and found no one within. Which was reasonable, he reminded himself. Sukie had a lot to do washing up after twenty-three young women, their instructors, their headmistress, and Daniel. He couldn’t expect her to arrive upstairs until at least another hour had passed. Two, most likely.
And so he lit a candle, opened a book, and settled in to wait.
