Page 39 of To Treasure an Heiress
“Oh, that smells divine.” Tommie Briggs was at her elbow, her smiling face wreathed in freckles. “If none of the masters favor the heel, I claim one. I can already taste it with your mother’s strawberry preserves and a pat of butter.”
Senara laughed and shut the oven door before its heat could do more than dampen the curls at her temples. She wasn’t certain where Ainsley and Collins had taken themselves this morning, but it had been just the girls in the kitchen when she bustled in a few minutes ago to check her loaves—not that Mam would have let them burn. “I can’t speak for the visiting lords, but Ollie and Beth never cared for the heel, and Mrs. Tremayne always joked that it was the fairies’ portion, so it oughtn’t to be eaten.”
“Which,” Mam put in from the table, “was her way of saying she didn’t like it either. You’re welcome to one, Tommie.”
Tas would claim another, no doubt, when he came in from the grounds for his midday bite. That would be in another twenty minutes or so, if he stuck to the pattern he’d observed all her life.
Senara drew in another yeasty, golden breath. And wished she could just enjoy this—the everyday, the routine, the simple and lovely—without the specter of the unknown looming before her. When did Rory mean to show up? When he finally did, she’d have a few questions for him.
In the meantime, she was determined to impress his cousin, which was as close as she could currently get to making a good impression on his mother and sister. But she was finding that Ainsley and Rory were about as different as two cousins could be. Where Rory was allenergy and passion, Ainsley was steady and stoic. She had no idea what he thought of her, or if he even knew that she would soon be his cousin by marriage.
But Rory had surely mentioned her. Hadn’t he?
“There she is.”
At Beth’s voice, Senara and Tommie both turned round, though Tommie’s smile froze on her lips. Beth wasn’t alone in the kitchen doorway. She had Lady Emily with her.
Tommie dipped a quick curtsy, transforming instantly from bread-craving young woman into emotionless lady’s maid. “My lady, forgive me. Did you have need of me?”
Senara sighed. It was a transformation she’d witnessed countless times with the staff at Cliffenwelle—they all had it perfected. Their own feelings neatly buttoned. Their own lives folded away. Their own identities traded in for starched aprons and pressed livery. Half the time even their names were checked at the door like an umbrella and something simple like Alice or Sally or Abigail picked up instead.
She’d witnessed it countless times, but never inthishouse. And it made Mam frown as surely as it made Senara sigh.
Beth gave her friend an elbow to the ribs, and Lady Emily stepped forward, looking everywhere but at Tommie. “No, no. I don’t need anything, there’s nothing to apologize for. Or rather...” She made a face, as though she’d tasted something sour, and then forced her gaze to Tommie.
Senara planted a hand on her hip. Was it really so difficult to look upon her own maid? With Tommie as sweet and bright as a jar of the strawberry preserves that she loved?
“I’ve a question, but you mustn’t feel put upon to answer. It’s about my brother.”
Tommie went stiff as a tombstone. “Beg pardon.”
Emily’s eyes squeezed shut. “I’m bumbling this.”
Which was more than Beth had the patience for. She huffed and gave Tommie a warm smile. “It’s like this, Briggs. We all knowhe’s a cad, and worse—a criminal, at least in his associations if not outright in his dealings. But quite possibly in both. And I have a feeling you and every other employee of the Scofields know it. Am I right?”
Pale as a ghost, Tommie said nothing. But her silence said plenty, as did the knuckles gone white as she gripped the workbench.
Even Lady Emily must have noticed. She’d opened her eyes again, and her face went fierce. It transformed her instantly from pampered miss to the sort of girl who could live out a legend in one of Beth’s favorite tales. “We’re going to stop him. He’s going to answer for all he’s done.”
Beth’s smile flashed again, this time with pride at the lady, before turning to Tommie again. “But we need to know what he’s about. There’s no chance Em’s parents will tell us anything....”
But not a thing went on in a master’s house that the servants didn’t know about. Senara studied Tommie’s profile. They were asking her—all the Scofield employees—to take a risk. The question was whether it was one they’d deem worth it. Whether there was any benefit to them.
Apparently, Tommie thought there was. “What do you need me to do?”
Beth and Lady Emily seemed to think it the right question. They tumbled over each other in their answers, asking for letters or telegrams and for friendships to be leveraged.
Senara bunched the towel into her fist and then tossed it onto the counter and stepped between them, a hand held up.
Emily blinked in surprise. But Beth knew well what the raised hand meant. She fell silent, yes, but also tilted her head to the side and looked Senara in the eye, waiting.
Senara lifted her brows. “She’ll need a guarantee. Security. A promise that if this goes awry and they’re caught scuttling around behind the masters’ back and end up sacked or, worse, facing charges, someone’s going to step in to protect them.”
Lady Emily looked as though she might faint dead away, andeven Beth frowned, perplexed. Clearly neither of them had thought this fully through.
Good thing they’d invited Senara into their adventures, for sure.
“I’ll offer it.”
