“I have enough set aside,” Miss Crowell announced smugly. “And the boy will drive you into Upper Pelham, where you can catch the stage, either to Plymouth or back to London. It’s your choice.”
“But I have to see Nanny first . . .”
“I can’t allow that. She doesn’t need the extra worry. Better if you simply leave.”
“Without a word to her?”
The elderly Miss Crowell had a gleam of triumph in her faded blue eyes. “She has no illusions about you, my dear. Everyone knows you’re a shallow, selfish beauty who thinks of no one but herself.”
Sophie gave her a feral smile, and Miss Crowell took an involuntary step back. “Yes, I am pretty, aren’t I?” she said smoothly. “I trust if I send a letter to Nanny from . . . Plymouth, you’ll give it to her?”
“Of course,” Miss Crowell said, clearly affronted. It would go in the fire, Sophie thought.
She would have fought more, but Miss Crowell really was going to give Nanny the life she deserved. They were good friends, and Miss Crowell’s income even afforded a couple of servants. Nanny would live out her life in grand style.
“It shouldn’t take you long to get ready,” Miss Crowell continued. “You don’t have much—I gather when your father stole all that money, his creditors stripped you of everything, including most of your clothing. Young Jacky will be by with his cart in a few hours—you should be ready.”
Young Jacky’s cart smelled of dung. “Of course,” Sophie murmured, plotting revenge. “I’ll be ready.”
The fool woman believed her.
It didn’t take long for her to pack her two plain dresses—dyed black and now laundered to an indiscriminate shade between brown and dark blue—her hairbrush and toiletries and the fine lace undergarments that they hadn’t been able to take from her. Her emerald ear bobs that had been a sixteenth-birthday present from Papa made up the sum of her earthly possessions—she, the toast of London, the beautiful, gay, young heiress who’d had a personal maid, a laundry maid responsible for the ornate gowns that were long gone, and a hairdresser she shared with her sisters. Her siblings had managed well enough with their own hair since their fall from grace—she’d had nothing but trouble with her unruly mane of blond curls.
She was just about to fasten the small satchel when at the last minute she threw in Nanny’s voluminous aprons. Nanny wouldn’t need them when she moved into the comparable lap of luxury that was Miss Crowell’s village home.
She snapped the satchel closed, taking a long look around her. The answer had come to her, simple and obvious. She hoisted up her bag and started the long walk across the fields she had once known, down the lanes, to the house that had been her own such a short time ago.
Sophie went unerringly to the kitchen door, making her way through the neat gardens full of vegetables a
nd herbs. Bryony would be glad of that, Sophie thought as she marched by. The new servants the usurper had brought in were keeping the place in good shape.
She knocked firmly on the door. She could hear noise beyond, the clanging of pots and pans, and for the briefest moment her courage failed her.
But only for a moment. Anything Maddy and Bryony did, she could do as well or better. It had been more than a month since she’d heard from either of her sisters, and she couldn’t wait forever. She rapped on the door again and, receiving no answer, pushed it open.
It looked as if a whirlwind had hit the large kitchen of Renwick. Chaos reigned, servants were rushing to and fro, and no one even noticed the young woman standing there.
A stocky, rough-hewn man who could only be the butler was busy fanning a harassed-looking woman who’d collapsed in a chair, red-faced and weeping. Three kitchen maids stood in the background wringing their hands, rather like a Greek chorus in one of those interminably long plays she’d seen in London. On the wide table in the center of the room stood a huge bowl, dough rising over the top, three pastry crusts half rolled out, the corpses of half a dozen pheasants still with their feathers, and the place was blazingly hot from the huge stove, which seemed to be cooking absolutely nothing.
People rushed past her, ignoring her, and Sophie, who preferred to be the center of attention, dropped her valise, walked into the center of the kitchen, and took a large wooden ladle from the table, clanging it against an empty iron pot.
There was instant silence as all eyes were on her. Sophie straightened her back, wishing for not the first time that her height were a bit more impressive. She was about to embark on a series of unlikely little lies in order to find a place at Renwick, when the properly dressed butler dropped the fan he’d been using, straightened his waistcoat, and stepped forward. He looked more like a prizefighter than a butler, but his manner was perfection.
“I beg your pardon,” he said with great deference, shocking Sophie into a prolonged silence. No one had treated her with deference since her father died. “Of course you must be Madame Camille. We were afraid you weren’t coming.”
Madame Camille? Should she attempt a French accent? Their mother had been French, so there was the likelihood that she could manage it, but it would be difficult. “You were?” she said in a nondescript voice, neither French nor English, neither haughty nor subservient.
The butler didn’t appear to notice. “When you failed to appear at the inn, Mrs. Griffiths was quite put out, and we were afraid you’d changed your mind. But you’re here now, thank God, and I apologize that you were forced to find your way here on your own. I hope you’re not too tired.”
Everyone in the kitchen was following this polite inquiry in fascinated silence. “It was quite easy,” she said with great truthfulness.
“I am relieved to hear it. Where would you like to start?”
All right, his attitude was respectful bordering on obsequious, so Madame Camille clearly had some authority. If the current owner’s stepmother was put out, did that mean she was supposed to be a lady’s maid? She was supposedly French, after all. She wasn’t quite sure why she’d decided to approach Renwick—perhaps it had been the distant hope that she could find some sort of employment, but the idea of being a maid most definitely did not appeal, though she supposed she could manage, having had her own maid for most of her life. While she was useless at taking care of her own hair, she had managed to do a creditable job with her sisters’, and she could put together a flattering toilette, though her laundry skills were definitely lacking.
How far could she carry this off? If she made a wrong move, would she be turfed out on her ear? And would that be any worse than the position she was already in?
“First, I would like to see my accommodations, Mr. . . . ?”