Of course, it only made her current status even more laughable. Why was Jone even talking to her? Oblivious, he went on.
“And you? Your sister? You’ve been away at school, haven’t you?”
“Yes. We’ve just returned home.”
A pauper’s school, indeed. The misses had the right of it. Two weeks before, Madam Callier had called them into her study and told them to pack their things; their parents had written for them to return. She gave them back their dusty valises and their old clothes, all far too small now for any good, and packed them into a cart much as they had arrived, only this time without their old nurse. A year after their arrival, Michelina had succumbed to a fever, brought on by the damp mountain air of the north. The girls had not mourned their last link to home. Even toward the end, Michelina had made it clear she blamed them for her exile.
Tesara had been eager to come home, but had quickly discovered that everything had changed. Except for Sturridges, of course.
There was a silence between them and Jone made a rueful face, as if he were at a loss to carry the conversation. Still, he did not seem ready to take his leave. He turned toward the window.
“A fine display, isn’t it? Sturridges always goes all out for Saint Frey’s Day. Have you been inside? Perhaps you can advise me on gifts for my mother and my aunt.”
“I’m afraid not,” Tesara said, grateful for a chance to escape. “I’ve only time for window shopping today. But anything from Sturridges – I mean, I’m sure you will find something suitable.”
“Well,” he said. “Then I won’t keep you. Enjoy your excursion, Miss Tesara. It’s a fine day for it. And Happy Saint Frey’s Day.” He made a bow, she curtsied, and then she continued on her way down the fashionable Mile. The street thronged with shoppers and their servants carrying baskets, but no one else acknowledged Tesara, even though the curious turned toward her and then away, as soon as they recognized her.
Jone had it right about the day being fine – the dazzle on the sea almost hurt the eyes, and the white clouds chased across a deep blue spring sky. The merchant fleet bobbed at anchor in the harbor, far below the Mile. She had missed these days during their long years at school in the mist-shrouded mountains of Romopol. She wasn’t nostalgic for the cut direct, given by all their former society. She wondered why Jone had come up to talk to her – surely the return of the “poor Mederos sisters” was the talk of the drawing rooms and salons all along the Crescent and Nob Hill. And there was all the news in the paper – today was the day of the first hearing, to determine if the family had satisfactorily paid for their crimes.
If you counted Uncle’s six years in gaol, and her and Yvienne’s purgatory in Madam Callier’s Academy, the answer was yes. But Tesara knew from the hard-won perspective of all her eighteen years that Port Saint Frey would never forget and never forgive.
A gust of wind came up and blew back the brim of her outdated bonnet. Tesara held it down with one hand and with the other grabbed the front of her old-fashioned pelisse. It had been her mother’s when she was young. The cape was good wool and she kept it well brushed and tidy. You couldn’t even see the darns where she had repaired moth damage unless you were very close.
She didn’t use to care about clothes. She had been a child then, and she hadn’t understood that clothes were very much more than just something to cover one’s nakedness. Clothing signified wealth, or lack thereof. Station or standing. Service – or served.
To anyone walking the Mile who did not recognize Tesara Ange DeBarri Mederos, she was nothing more than a lady’s maid who wore her mistress’s hand-me-downs.
Chapter Two
Tesara let herself in the small house on the edge of Kerwater Street, catty corner to Chandler’s Row. The little house was a two-story brick cottage with three rooms up and three rooms down, a tiny garden in the back, and fireplaces that smoked. Their parents had moved into it six years ago, after they held off the Guild while the girls escaped to Madam Callier’s.
The Guild had been remarkably efficient, Tesara thought, as she untied her bonnet and set it on the shelf by the door and hung up her pelisse. As the fleet had been lost and their bank forbidden to extend a line of credit, Brevart had to borrow the money from the Guild and put up the house as collateral. Another judgment was laid, a civil suit by the city for the wrongful use of harbor services by a ship found to be in breach of Guild laws. The summer house in the wine country to the north was advertised for sale, as was grandmother’s silver plate. Then the unkindest cut of all: the civil suit paved the way for individual suits from each creditor, and House Mederos was flensed of its assets with the same precision with which a whaling ship harvested its prey.
The Mederos family was living on a small annuity paid from a policy taken out by Grandmother Balinchard and all but forgotten in the tumult of the destruction of their life. It was just enough to rent the house, feed them, and pay for a housemaid.
“Hello?” Tesara called out. She could smell the morning’s breakfast of herring and beans, and wrinkled her nose. Had the girl not
