Page 1

Chapter 1

Anna was on her knees, vigorously scrubbing the grate in a bedroom when the bell of the front door sounded sharply, breaking the stillness of the morning. Who on earth could be visiting at this hour? She paused, wiped her hands on her apron, and rose from the floor when she heard light, swift footsteps descending the stairs.

A soft murmur of voices drifted up to her, followed by the quiet closing of the main door. A second pair of distinctly heavier footsteps caused the floorboards to creak, and the sound of an unfamiliar deep, rumbling voice in the foyer informed her that the visitor had been admitted into the house, and that he must be male.

Anna exhaled, relieved. It was good that someone else had opened the door. She would have been in a right fix otherwise, having to scramble to change her sooty apron, wash her hands, and hurriedly smooth her hair before hurrying downstairs to admit the unexpected visitor. She would have had to take a moment to collect herself so that she could greet him with her usual smile and exaggerated fake French accent.

Oh yes, Anna was French, and she did speak the language fluently, though she’d had little opportunity to do so lately. Hardly anyone knew that she was more than capable of speaking accent-free King’s English, which was unusual for a maid of her status. But the domestic staffing agency in London had advised her to put on an accent nonetheless.

“It would be more charming,” the man perusing her papers pointed out, after he’d observed with a lift of his shaggy eyebrow that she was born in France. “Consider the school’s perspective,” he added. “For what could be better for a school’s image than French domestics? It makes the school appear more worldly, and that attracts patrons, and the school, like any other institution, needs patrons.”

Hence, she’d assumed the accent. If that was what would secure the position, Anna was happy to oblige.

Miss Hilversham’s Seminary for Young Ladies at Paradise Row, Bath, the renowned girls’ school, was usually bustling with life, but now, during the midsummer holidays, the building was eerily quiet. Miss Hilversham, the headmistress, who, despite her marriage to the Duke of Rochford, had insisted on keeping both her position and old name, had travelled to Scotland, and Miss Grace Thomas was in charge of the school until Miss Hilversham returned.

All the pupils had gone home for the holidays, except for one, Phoebe. Phoebe was an orphan and had always been something of an outsider at the school, and maybe because of that, Anna had developed a strong streak of sympathy for the lonely fifteen-year-old. Yet, from the sound of it, Phoebe, too, would soon be leaving. It was likely her guardian who had just arrived. Well, it was about time.

It would be good not only for Phoebe if she left, but for her, too. An empty house meant less work, perhaps even a few days off. She could use her own free days to visit her twin brother, Jules, in London. His last letter had been cheerful enough, but it was clear he was struggling. Debt, he had written. Could she possibly send some money? Anything would help.

Anna drew her arm across her forehead to wipe away the sweat and sighed. Jules believed she held a respectable position at Miss Hilversham’s Seminary for Young Ladies as a French instructress.

How little he knew! Circumstances had changed, and she found herself in service instead, working as a housemaid. It had been the only employment anyone had been able to offer her. Not even as a lady’s maid, which might have given her more status. No, a simple, lowly housemaid. It was that, or nothing.

“What’s it to be, miss?” the man at the employment agency had said, tapping a finger impatiently on the desk. “It is a good position at a fashionable seminary. Immediately available.”

She’d have to clean, sweep, dust, polish, make beds, drag wood, make fires, clean grates, and scour chamber pots from dawn to dusk. And not for a genteel family of merely five or six, as she’d envisioned, but for an entire school with thirty pupils, not counting the instructors and the headmistress herself.

She hardly knew where to spend the night, for she’d spent her last coins on buying herself a bonnet and a new pair of boots. For appearances mattered if one wanted to obtain employment at a respectable place.

“The fare to Bath is included.” He pulled out a pocket watch. “The coach is leaving in an hour. Well? What’s it to be?”

She really had no choice. It was this, or the workhouse. What else could she have done? So, an hour later, she found herself in the coach to Bath.

Afterwards, she counted herself lucky to have found that position, for Miss Hilversham had turned out to be a strict but kind woman. She was given a small, clean room, two cotton dresses, and three warm meals a day. What more could she possibly ask for?

To Jules, later that night, she wrote that she’d been employed in the seminary, which was true. She conveniently forgot to mention that it was as a housemaid, not as an instructor.

* * *

The door burst open with a bang, so violently that the little frames hanging on the walls rattled, and Miss Phoebe Winmoth came rushing into the room, her face pale, eyes wide with panic.

“Anna! It’s a disaster!” Phoebe’s voice trembled as she wrung her hands. “My uncle has come to take me away! Oh, oh, oh. What am I to do?”

Anna blinked. “But, miss, isn’t that good? You can finally go home, no?”

“I have no home!” Phoebe wailed. “I have no one at all! And that man, he’s awful, and I will never go with him, not ever!” She burst into a flood of noisy tears.

Anna patted her shoulder awkwardly. Seeing Phoebe wipe her nose on her sleeve, she pulled out a clean handkerchief and handed it to her. “But miss, he’s your uncle. He can’t be all that bad?”

Phoebe blew her nose noisily. “He was just dismissed from Bedlam, where he had been an inmate for who knows how long.”

Anna’s jaw dropped. “Bedlam! Surely, that can’t be true?”

“It is true.” Phoebe stared at her darkly. “My uncle is a stark raving lunatic. He’s so mad, not even Bedlam wants him. So, when he came into a title and fortune, they used that as an excuse to get rid of him. Doesn’t look good to keep on a nobleman, I suppose.”

Anna wanted to say that was arrant nonsense when she remembered the rumour of how Phoebe’s mother had died. Dressed up as Ophelia with flowers wound into her hair, drifting down the River Avon. A very Shakespearean exit, indeed.

“Mad as a hatter, that mother of hers was,” Bessie, the cook, had said, tapping her wooden spoon against her temple. “Something must run in the family, for the uncle, they say, is completely dicked in the nob as well. And now he’s her guardian. Poor Phoebe.”