Page 85 of The Housekeeper's Secret

‘Nice try, but I don’t think so.’ Henderson looked down at Jem’s bare feet with a sneer. ‘Wait by the back door. Tempting as it is to send you out there like that, I’ll do you the kindness of going up to the attic to get you some shoes myself. It is Christmas, after all.’

Joseph wasn’t sure what woke him.

There was no loud noise, no obvious disturbance, no intruder standing over him with a cosh and a crowbar to break into the silver cupboard. And yet, his heart was beating a rapid warning and his scalp prickled with fear, just as it used to all those years ago, on the nights when his father came in from the alehouse.

He squeezed his eyes shut and pushed his fists against them to try and halt the jerky picture reel that had started up in his head. In the daytime he kept it shut away, but at night the door swung open, and he couldn’t make it stop. There it was, flickering across the darkness of his memory.

He moved his hands to his ears to shut out the sound, but it echoed across the years and bounced around inside his skull. (The baby’s frantic cry, the rhythmic thud of his father’s fist… his mother’s head against the wall…) Scrabbling at the blanket, he sat up and groped for the chamber pot. He hadn’t wet the bed for ages, and the very real fear of doing it now was enough to bring him back to himself.

Just in time.

He let out a pent-up breath and was just yanking up his trousers when a pale glimmer of movement in the passage caught his eye. The ghost boy, passing silently through the dark basement where he had once lived and slept—

Blood roared in Joseph’s ears and the night closed in on him. And then, through the woozy panic he heard another noise—the chink of china from the scullery and the scrape of things being moved on the shelf. He stumbled to the door and peered into the dark corridor, one way, then the other.

The scullery door was open, as always. The cold from the icy floor came through his socks as he crept towards it, pressing his eye to the gap by the door’s hinges.

Relief tumbled through him.

It was Jem. Just Jem, replacing the vase that Joseph had seen him drop something into earlier—the one with the Chinese scenes painted on it. Joseph was about to ask what he was doing when a noise along the passage set his heart clanging again. Footsteps on the stairs. He made it back to the butler’s pantry just as the door creaked open.

The footsteps advanced along the corridor. He recognised them even before he caught the waft of hair oil and cigar smoke. Frederick Henderson had his shoes handmade in London—Joseph had cleaned them often enough to be able to picture the horseshoe of tiny silver nails around the heels, which made that thin metallic tapping sound when he walked.

Dread sloshed in his stomach. Stifling a whimper, he pressed himself against the wall, praying that the footsteps would pass.

A bar of lamplight fell briefly across the floor and slid away. He heard voices; Henderson’s low, harsh laugh and Jem’s bitter retort, the scuffle of movement. This time they went in the other direction, towards the back door. Joseph felt a draft of frozen air billow along the passageway as it opened, then shut.

The kitchen clock ticked into the silence.

It wasn’t right—none of it. Jem had never actually said he hated Mr Henderson, but he didn’t have to; just as Mr Henderson didn’t need to spell out what he thought of Jem. So what were they doing, going out into the snow together in the middle of the night?

Joseph had to clamp his teeth together to stop them rattling. Supposing Frederick Henderson had somehow tricked Jem, or blackmailed him? Supposing Jem had left a note in the vase, hoping Joseph would think to look there after seeing him with it earlier? Supposing he was relying on Joseph to help…?

On trembling legs, he darted into the scullery, where the moonlight silvered the stone flags and gleamed on the jars of salt and sand on the windowsill, the rows of vases on the dresser shelf. The vase with the Chinese figures was high enough that he had to stand on an apple crate to reach it. Putting his hand inside, he let out a grunt of triumph as his fingers closed around a square of paper.

He jumped down from the crate. His fingers were shaking, making it hard to unfold the paper, and the gloom was too thick to make out the lettering on it. He was squinting at it closely when a beam of lamplight fell across the page. It threw the words into sharp relief and catapulted his heart into his throat.

‘Thank you, Joseph. I’ll take that.’

Henderson held out his hand. The lamp lit his face from below, casting shadows that made it look like a carved wooden mask, with dark slits for eyes and a strange, cruel smile.

Joseph’s guts turned to water. He handed over the note and watched it vanish into the pocket of the valet’s waistcoat.

And he took the silver sixpence that appeared in its place.

Kate woke slowly.

It was a gradual coming back to consciousness, putting off the moment of opening her eyes, savouring the suspended time between sleeping and waking; between the secret, sensual night and the brisk business of daytime. Stretching her body, she felt its pleasurable ache, and was aware that she was smiling.

For the first time in months, she had slept long and deeply. It wasn’t a surprise to find herself alone in the narrow bed; thank goodness Jem had been more alert than she and got himself back to where he should be before the house awoke. Through the frosty window the sky was lightening. The girls would have been up for an hour already, rising in the dark to get the day’s work underway.

Christmas Day, she remembered, sitting up drowsily and shaking her hair from her face (no plait last night…). Getting out of bed she looked for her chatelaine to check the time.

It was where she had left it on the table in the corner. The silver was cold on her bed-warm skin as she unclipped the watchcase (a quarter before seven!) and it took her a moment to realise that there was something wrong. Something missing.

One of the chains that hung from the Indian silver clasp swung down, its clip empty. She blinked blankly for a second, wondering when she’d removed the scissors, the buttonhook, the pencil… and then realised that they were all still there.

The keys.

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