I was almost relieved when the kitchen door flew open again.
But my rage spiked when I saw it was only the new stable hand on his way back to the mews with a sandwich in hand. Not surprising. That young man ate more than any three men combined, though you’d never know it by the lanky look of him.
“Good morning, Mr. Wyck,” Abigail called out in a singsong voice. “The farmer’s girl didn’t deliver the cream this morning, so we’re off to collect it. Care to join us?”
It had become a game among the maids to try to win Mr. Wyck’s favor, or at least get closer to that flop of chestnut hair and those scowling nutmeg eyes.
I don’t know what they saw in him. There was nothing charming in the way he strutted through the kitchen whenever he pleased, pretending to be oblivious to the fuss and fluster he created among the young women. He was a nuisance, and a smug one at that.
“Jane Shackle! There you are. What in the world are you doing out here? Mr. MacDougall won’t wait all day.”
Mrs. Crossey leaned out the door and waved me in with a sweep of her thick, fleshy hand.
I resisted the urge to glance at Marlie, Abigail, or Mr. Wyck. If they observed this humiliation, I didn’t want to know. It was better to think they were on their way to wherever they were going and that they weren’t taking the slightest interest in me.
It was wishful thinking, to be sure. If my dragonfly were here, she’d laugh and tell me to expect a thorough account to be conveyed in whispers from maid to page, footman to cook, and underbutler to valet before the evening meal.
And she’d be right, of course, because that’s how things worked around here. Servants know everything.
~ ~ ~
I stood at Mr. MacDougall’s closed office door, staring into the whorls of the wood grain. There was nothing exceptional about them. The door was as plain as any along this narrow hallway.
It was just far too familiar. Every disagreement, every complaint lodged against me—they all led me here. I’d lost count of the times I’d faced this door and the man within.
“Go on, then,” Mrs. Crossey whispered, her wide, ruddy face appearing at my shoulder.
Though we stood eye to eye, she still treated me like a child instead of a young woman nearly eighteen years old. I shook her off, tugged at my gloves, and knocked twice.
“Enter!”
The baritone command carried the man’s typical rise at the end of the word that always set my nerves on edge.
“Don’t just stand there,” Mrs. Crossey prodded.
“I know.” I didn’t mean to be curt, but fear was getting the better of me. I didn’t want to lose my job. I didn’t want to end up in a workhouse. I’d already endured Chadwick Hollow School for Orphaned Girls, a dumping ground for unwanted daughters with nowhere else to go. I’d received adequate food and lodging, and a serviceable education, but it was no place for a girl with secrets to hide. I learned that early enough, and I imagined a workhouse would be much the same.
I wouldn’t survive it again.
“Go!” Mrs. Crossey reached around, turned the brass knob herself, and gestured forward.
I had no choice. I smoothed my apron, steeled my nerves, and slipped in with my head held high.
Mr. MacDougall sat behind his desk, scratching something into a leather-bound ledger. He dipped his nib in the inkwell and scribbled again before looking up at me through those ruthlessly tangled brows.
I dropped my gaze to the worn toes of my black boots, but every muscle, every nerve remained riveted on the skeleton of a man before me. “Can I just say again,” I said, grasping for a thread of hope, “how sorry I am about the trouble with Abigail’s locket? It was a misunderstanding, truly. I don’t know why she would accuse me.”
“This has nothing to do with Abigail’s locket.”
The voice was behind me. I whipped around to see Mrs. Crossey standing in front of the closed door, fussing and fidgeting like the time the oven’s firewood refused to light or when I’d added sugar instead of salt to her soup.
Why was she still here? She’d never stayed for my interrogations before. I wanted her to leave.
But she intended to stay. I could see it in the soft crease of her forehead and the distress tugging at her hazel eyes. She looked from me to Mr. MacDougall and said, “Shall we begin?”
She was part of this? My stomach churned.
Mr. MacDougall leaned back into the embrace of his wingback chair with nothing but contempt in his dark eyes. Then he rose from his desk and settled his arctic glare on Mrs. Crossey. “Madam, I must caution against it.”
She straightened to her full height and jutted her chin, which was usually lost in the soft folds of her jaw. “I understand your hesitation, but I must insist.”
I stared at her, too perplexed to speak. Within the castle—among the kitchen servants, at least—Mr. MacDougall’s word was law.
My fear for myself became fear for her. Had she lost her mind?
Yet I saw no outrage in his cavernous eyes, only a flicker of something I didn’t recognize. As I watched, he seemed to shrink where he stood, like a wild dog suddenly, inexplicably tamed. He pivoted and considered his reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece behind his desk. Licking one finger, he ran it across his brows, straightening the wiry hairs, then laid a hand on one of the two protruding dragon heads carved into the corners of the mantel’s shelf and stroked it between the ears like a pet before turning back to us.
His grimace landed on me, making it clear that Mrs. Crossey had nothing to fear. I did.
My fingers hid in the folds of my skirt.
Mrs. Crossey gestured to the pair of wooden chairs in front of the desk. “Take a seat, dear.”
Motherly concern laced her
