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Thomas’s smile faded as he touched a shiny, waxy leaf with a finger still coated with the ash from the kitchen hearth he’d swept this morning. “Wot will the lady do ter us if the trees die?”
“Oh, it will be off to gaol for the likes of us,” Molly replied brightly.
“Truly, miss?” The boy’s voice cracked.
Looking up from her task, finding his eyes wide, she shook her head, sorry to have scared him. “Of course not. Now fetch the broom and set yourself to sweeping.”
It wasn’t a minute into his new task before he stared up through the glazed roof, his mouth open. She bit her tongue against chastising him, heartened that after all he’d seen in his life so far, he could marvel at the newfangled iron-and-glass structure.
Thomas’s mother, younger than Molly, had died last year. A prostitute, she’d spent her last months cared for in the charity house run by Lady Clara, afflicted by some venereal disease or another. She’d given up all her children as foundlings—except for Thomas, the oldest, who had grown up following his mother while she worked, trying to protect her.
Loathe to return to the house, Molly permitted herself and Thomas the indulgence of lingering in the orangery, completing their duties with a lack of efficiency that she wouldn’t ordinarily allow. Moving from tree to tree, she methodically inspected each one, pruning one last time for the season. She stepped back after each snip and circled the tree, making sure the shaping was precise.
Every so often, she looked over at Thomas, who elongated his own sweeping project in the extreme. The manner of his procrastination lacked in creativity. He simply moved the besom—the long wood handle with twigs fastened at the bottom—in haphazard circles, moving the fallen leaves around more than collecting them. She allowed him that dawdling as long as she could, recognizing from his curious and peaceful look that whatever his professed lack of interest in the orange trees, his presence in the glass-and-iron structure was doing him good.
“No more tarrying, Thomas. We both have other tasks before this day can come to an end!” Molly infused the reminder with firmness but was less successful in suppressing her understanding smile when he grimaced, undoubtedly thinking of his next work. As a houseboy, the lowest of the downstairs workers, it fell to him to empty the other servants’ chamberpots.
That unenviable responsibility reminded Molly that she was being unreasonable in her trepidation about her own next assignment…meeting with the piano tuner.
Frederick’s interest in her during the last appointment left her in no doubt that he was as curious about her as she was about him.
Curious, she mused at the word. No, that was not quite accurate—at best, it was incomplete.
“It is as I thought,” Lady Clara had shared with her afterwards. “Mr. Vogel is quite taken with you, Molly. Enamored, I daresay!”
It smacked of immodesty, but Molly couldn’t bring herself to disagree. Had any shred of doubt remained by the end of their last meeting, Frederick’s gaze burned it all away as they exchanged goodbyes.
Molly was used to being invisible to nearly everyone, especially men. The other servants weren’t unkind toward her; mostly, their greatest kindness was to let her be. Outside of the safety of this household’s walls, she was subjected to the same leers and jeers as any working class woman. The jagged-toothed costermonger who hawked goods near the corner of Patton & Co. Apothecary never failed to hurl detailed offers of debauchery when she passed, looking her up and down as if she’d placed herself up for consideration simply by walking by.
Frederick’s behavior toward her, even when making his countless requests, had always been chivalrous and polite. Last time, however, gone was his reserved civility; in its place was a look that could be described as nothing short of adoring.
He’d bowed, as ever, to Lady Clara, this time wishing her safe travels and all the best for her confinement. Then he’d disturbed their usual pattern of goodbyes. Instead of a dip of his head, he bowed as deeply as he had to her ladyship, only for longer. When he rose, he met her eyes again—his filled with promises.
Molly’s breath had caught as she deciphered his intent.
You also are in need of tuning, and my hands will play you as diligently as they do the piano.
Later that night, retired to bed, she’d imagined those moments again and again. Swaddled in her bedsheet as tightly as a newborn babe, she stared out into the darkness of her tiny chamber, located under the pitched roof on the top floor of the mansion, behind a balustrade and a small, gabled window. Between the memories of his accomplished hands and his burning gaze, she’d fallen asleep only after slipping her own hard-working hand down the cocoon of her bedclothes and stroking herself.
The next morning, however, sobering thoughts were revealed by the light of day.
My freakish habits aren’t known to him! Once we’re truly acquainted, he’ll turn away.
He was a gentleman and regimented in his own way, she’d seen that as he worked. But it was unimaginable that he would accept or indulge her own peculiar ways. Knowing she worked as a maid, wouldn’t he expect her to cater to his preferences?
Lady Clara had seen her tension in the days that followed, and Molly confided her misgivings.
“Perhaps you won’t suit; it’s true. But she who never undertakes anything, never achieves anything!”
Shaking her head at her ladyship’s cheer, Molly had almost smiled. “If I can hide my strangeness long enough for a fondness to develop…”
Lady Clara had set aside her sewing, her furrowed brow full of determination. “You shall do no such thing, Molly!”
“No?”
“No,” came the soft reply. “When I first called on James and we…became acquainted, I couldn’t have fathomed sharing the secret of Violet House. Or playing my wicked pieces on the piano—fervent and unfettered Chopin. But there came a time when I could maintain my airs no longer. When I knew I adored him and wanted him to adore me.Me.”
Molly smoothed her apron three times in a row before looking up. “Begging your pardon, my lady, but you concealedtalents! Your secrets were how spirited you are. Mine are…how stodgy I am. How strange my manners are.”
