“You’re new. I don’t expect you to know any better, but Kate, I expect better from you. Next time tell dad to go get his own damn sherry if it’s that important.”
She laughed and swatted him, and the mood changed just that quickly. I moved to go by him as he stood there in the kitchen watching me. My face heated up, and my skin began to tingle in that way it had started doing whenever he was around.
I escaped to the study where I’d been dusting before I was called away to go to the store. This was one of the easiest jobs in the house, and I was lucky to get it so soon after being hired. The others were a little put out that I had been given such a light load, seeing as I was one of the newest hires and was still getting paid nicely.
But I think Kate had done it because of my size. I am a bit small to be tackling some of the jobs the other servants did. Though I certainly wouldn’t have minded as desperate as I was when I turned up here.
The mansion in the small town in Connecticut is massive. The rooms are bigger than the cottage I’d been born in, and the ceilings are so high I get a crick in my neck just looking up at them.
Kate had taken one look at me after my interview and shook her head. “Only one thing you can do around here, and that’s dust and run errands here and there.”
“But how much will that pay?” I didn’t mean to sound so hungry, but I was. I’d barely landed in the states with the clothes on my back and a few dollars. If I didn’t find something quick, I would starve.
It was very daunting to realize that intelligence in Sicily wasn’t measured the same here. Whereas back home, I was a bright little Bambina; here, I was little more than a pauper.
I was barely eighteen, and my life was already bleak; this job was the third I’d gone after in as many days. No one wanted to hire someone with very little English and who looked like what I am. A beggar.
Things might’ve been easier in one of the big cities, but papa had warned me to stay away from those before he’d sent me away.
Kate had looked me up and down after my outburst, and instead of the disgust I’d seen so often in the last few days, I saw compassion enter her eyes.
“I’ll see you make the same as the others, but don’t you go running your mouth. Where are you staying?” I rattled off the name of a street I’d seen on my way here and hoped she didn’t press for more because I hadn’t a clue.
That was almost two months ago, and now the child in my womb was starting to show himself. I wanted it to be a boy; I needed him to be. He will have lots of work to do.
The bitter taste of vengeance was heavy on my tongue as I took out my anger and frustration on the shelves as I dusted.
Funnily enough, I felt no hate for the child, only love. He was a part of me, after all. And instead of seeing him as a dark reminder of my worse fate yet, I chose to see him as the only good that had come out of that chapter of my life. My gift.
DRACO
I watched her leave the room from beneath lowered lashes and felt that new frustration that’s been riding me for days. I wonder what secrets she’s hiding behind those amazing doe eyes of hers? What bugs me even more is why she has such an effect on me.
It’s not like she’s some raving beauty, not that she’s not gorgeous, she’s more than a little bit pretty, but the world is full of such women. Why then does this slip of a girl make me think of things that no one else before her ever has?
Why are my eyes always drawn to her whenever we’re in the same room together? Almost like a compulsion, even when I fight it I lose.
I watch her all the time now, there’s something…I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something about her that’s more than meets the eye. It could be that old world quality that makes her stand out from all the other females I know, but somehow I think it’s more.
I’d seen her hurrying back through the rain when I happened to look out my upstairs window. For some reason seeing her worn clothing sticking to her, and her hair matted from the rain, had pissed me off no end.
The anger was irrational and completely overblown. I knew that even as I bounded down the stairs. I probably would’ve lit into poor Kate some more if she hadn’t spoken up.