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“I saw Ms. Wilson today,” Lila said as Isabel removed the comforter from the bed, a comforter she hadn’t slept under much recently.
“Yes, madam. Ms. O’Malley asked her to dust the stairs. She asked me to do it for her, but I was fetching the laundry.” Isabel frowned, her face paling. “Should I have done the dusting?”
Isabel looked so tired. She’d likely been up early, getting her brother and sister ready for school. Lila remembered poking at Pax often when she began her militia training, for he refused to get out of bed for anyone else. Likely because she’d had never asked nicely. She’d once pulled him out of bed by an ankle and dunked him into a bathtub filled with cold water. After that, he’d always gotten out of bed the moment she knocked.
At least until he’d become a teenager. When he decided she was too small to pull him to the bath, he’d tested it. She’d ripped off his blankets and dumped a pitcher of ice water over his head, promising to call for more if he didn’t get his ass out of bed.
He’d gotten up immediately and never tried it again.
“Isabel, don’t take on Ms. Wilson’s work because of me. I don’t mind seeing her in the corridor. Where has she been working lately?”
“She mostly does whatever needs doing in the kitchens or…”
“Or anywhere that’s not the top floor? She’s only doing this so she doesn’t run into me. You know that, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t want to speculate, madam.” Isabel tugged the last sheet off Lila’s bed.
“Wouldn’t, but could.”
Isabel chewed on the inside of her check.
“I wronged her. She has a right to be angry, but she doesn’t have a right to inconvenience you.”
“Ms. Wilson has a lot on her plate at the moment.” Isabel blushed, looking every bit like the twenty-year-old she was. “Her brother arrived yesterday. I saw him. He seems like a charming boy.”
“Simon spent the last six months doing manual labor. I’m sure he’s grown very charming indeed.”
Isabel blushed harder.
“If you asked Chef to babysit, she’d do it in a heartbeat. You can’t take care of your brother and sister all the time. You’re young. You should go out.”
“They don’t like it when I’m gone.”
“All the more reason for you to go. Chef practically raised me, and I turned out okay.”
Isabel nodded, and Lila felt like an ass for interfering. Her mother had warned her about it for years, said it wasn’t her place to comment on the lives of the help.
It was too late now.
“Isabel, you’d tell me if Ms. Wilson didn’t want to be here, wouldn’t you? I could move her to another compound for a fresh start. I have to know if that’s what she needs. If it helps, you’re not the only one I’m asking.”
“You think she won’t tell you herself?”
“I think she’s never going to speak to me again. But if I find out she wants to go, and I put the question to her, I’m hoping she’ll at least nod or shake her head.”
Isabel bowed. “I’ll try to figure it out, madam.”
“Thank you. I value your opinion.”
Lila stopped herself from meddling further in Isabel’s personal life and jogged downstairs, already knowing she’d be late to breakfast. Instead of darting out the front door and making up the time, she entered the kitchen. The stout, middle-aged Chef bobbed her head to an odd French polka and spread out dough with her rolling pin. “Breakfast get cancelled?” she asked, using a flour-dusted finger to turn down her music.
“No,” Lila answered, leaning on the door to the kitchen. “I’m just running late.”
“I heard about the auction. How are you doing?”
“As well as I can after spending the evening with my mother.”
Chef put down her rolling pin. “Word is some man died in front of you. It’s too soon after all that mess with Peter Kruger. How are you really doing, child?”
