Page 106 of Tempest

And the price she paid to keep one man from the noose.

Elisabeth gave her another squeeze. “I’m sorry, dearie. What was his name?”

To that, Cat only shook her head, as if it were too painful to say. Truthfully, she did not want to add any more details to the lie and potentially tie herself up later.

“Well, what’s your name?” Elisabeth prodded.

As she had many times, Cat gave the false name she always reached for.

“Sara,” she said, though she could barely remember her dead maid’s face anymore. “I can work anywhere that’s needed. Laundry, kitchens. On my back—”

“Hush, we’ll get you right,” Elisabeth replied, resuming their climb up the stairs. “I’ll take you up to Key Keeper, and she will find you something. Even if it’s just a bed for the night.”

Cat bit her cheek to keep from smiling.

“What about you?” she said.

As she expected, Elisabeth responded eagerly.

“Ah, me. Not much to say, I suppose. I sailed when I was just a girl. Couldn’t find work in Brycam so I signed an indenture to serve a merchant family in Willemsport. Spent three years trying to pay off the contract before I realized I would end the term poorer than I started.” Her white face tightened. “I stowed away on a ship bound for Alvaris. Suppose I could have just waited for the war to turn like everyone else. Last I heard my merchant master went screaming across the ocean as soon as the fleet gave up the Lyrian.”

Cat felt a pang of sadness for Elisabeth. Hers was not a unique story, nor difficult to parse out. Poor, uneducated, with few options in Meridia: To be a servant, a poor man’s wife, or a beggar. So, she fled for the Lyrian Sea, and whatever it could give her. Like so many, she found herself crushed beneath a contract of indenture. She probably couldn’t even read what she signed back in the docks of Brycam City and had no idea what she was getting into. It was a common tale, especially among the pirates and prostitutes and all others who lived in the shadows of “proper society.” Cat only hoped this life was more agreeable to her.

If Elisabeth noticed Cat’s pity, she did not show it. The woman was light in her steps, leading them to another door on the landing.

Before she could push it open, Cat stopped her with a gentle touch.

“For your trouble,” she said, fishing a coin from the pouch at her waist. Her lie was small, but regret gnawed at her in a way she did not like. As with most feelings, Cat hoped money would squash it dead.

But Elisabeth was quick to flash a smile and wave a dismissive hand. “You seem like you need it more than I do, love.” Then she paused, again looking over Cat’s appearance. Her narrowed eyes traveled slowly, starting at Cat’s worn leather boots and moving upwards. “May I?”

Cat startled. “Yes—”

Fingers skated over the edge of Cat’s bodice and Elisabeth pulled, shifting the fabric down to sit lower and tighter across her chest. Before Cat could say another word, Elisabeth’s hands went to her hair next, twisting lose a few short pieces of chestnut curls to frame her eyes.

“There,” Elisabeth said, pushing open the door. “Now you may have a shot to impress Key Keeper.”

“Impress me with what, Beth?” a weary voice said from the adjoining room.

Hands clasped, Cat followed Elisabeth into the little office tucked away in the labyrinthine pleasure house. She expected something like the Duchess’s salon, done up in silk with a sideboard of expensive liquor, but instead found little more than a closet with a window, and a wall of shelves bursting with ledgers. Cat stifled a laugh, too closely reminded of her own inventory folios stacked in the closet of the Widow Rose.

Elisabeth went to the desk shoved in the corner, where an older woman sat squinting through thick glasses at another open ledger. She had a careworn face and iron-gray hair tied back with an oxblood scarf. But her full brows were still jet black and furrowing deeply. Cat found herself reminded of Moseley, cleaning up after everyone else with an exasperated smile and a blunt remark.

“This is Sara,” Elisabeth said, pointing back to Cat, who folded herself into the corner. “You said you needed new girls, so here you are.”

The Key Keeper peered at Cat over the rim of her glasses. It was an apt name. Even sitting, the ring of iron keys at her waist jingled like the finest jewelry. Cat ventured the keys were worth their weight in gold.

“Girls, Beth,” the Key Keeper muttered. “Not spinsters.”

In the corner, Cat pursed her lips but kept her eyes downcast. She reminded herself of the part she was playing—a mousy, desperate woman would not respond with a cracking retort. But she could not help but wonder if a little powder might do her some good. Cat Rose was not a young woman anymore, and the Lyrian sun was not kind to Meridian skin. She sucked in her cheeks a little, trying to sculpt her face into something more pleasing.

“I am but thirty,” she said softly, glancing up to meet the Key Keeper’s shrewd stare.

The older woman scoffed. “And you look it.”

Heat flamed in Cat’s cheeks, but again she held her tongue.

“She worked for the Duchess before she fled,” Elisabeth offered.