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Who could possibly be writing to me?she asked herself. Shoving the other envelopes back into the letterbox, Penelope glanced up and down the lane, hoping she hadn’t been spotted taking far too long to check the mail.
Then she shoved her envelope into the underarm of her shawl to stop it from getting soaked through with drizzle and began to hurry back towards the countryside manor she now shared with herhusband.
Skirting around the side of the building in the dark, she hurried through the side patio door that appeared to be the least used and dashed for the main staircase, hoping that the servants were still sticking to their usual habits of only using the servants’ stairwell.
It would be just her luck that one day they might begin to do things differently, but for today, she appeared to be in the clear.
She was almost back at her bedroom, which backed onto the duke’s, separated only by a small sitting room when she heard someone exclaim behind her, “My lady! I was not expecting you to be up so early.”
Heart hammering in her chest and certain that she must look as though she had been dragged through a wet hedge backwards, she turned with burning cheeks to meet Holden. The maid was carrying fresh linens in her arms and had clearly hoped to put them in one of the many laundry closets before she went back downstairs to fetch her mistress’s usual morning tea to wake her.
“Oh, please, Holden, lower your voice,” Penelope whispered in a hushed tone, pressing her index finger to her lips, “do not wake the duke.”
The lady’s maid looked horrified and quickly held the laundry in one arm so she could press her hand over her lips, covering her gasp.
“Forgive me, My Lady,” the maid apologised much more quietly than she had spoken the first time, and she bowed her head, looking quite ashamed of herself. Penelope struggled against the sensation of guilt that bubbled up inside her. “I was surprised to see you already up and about.”
As was I to be seen,Penelope thought grimly, biting her lip to stop herself from saying so out loud.
Straightening her spine, determined to remain the confident and authoritative mistress that her maid believed her to be, she stared at the maid with an unwavering gaze and told her, “Please forget that you ever saw me. I was having some trouble sleeping last night, though I would prefer the duke not to know. He has enough to concern himself with without worrying about me.”
Holden’s lips pursed in a silent gesture that she had taken her instruction seriously, though Penelope quickly realised that she needed the maid to say so out loud. She raised one strawberry blonde eyebrow and hissed under her breath, “Am I understood?”
“Yes, Your Grace, I shall not utter a word to anyone,” Holden assured her, and not for the first time, Penelope realised just how much she liked the young maid. She thought that perhaps if they had known each other in France, both as maids, they might have even been friends.
Holden wasn’t like the usual lady’s maids she had met while being a servant in the St Clair household; she did not appear to believe herself above anyone. But Penelope quickly reminded herself,It might be very different if she knew that I was actually beneath her.
The thought sickened her, and she decided it was best to merely take Holden’s word for it and make her way into her room before things could change.
“Thank you,” Penelope said with a tight smile, “now, go about your regular business, and I shall return to my bed until dawn.”
Holden merely nodded and curtseyed, allowing Penelope to enter her room. Holding her breath, all Penelope heard was silence for a few moments before the sound of footsteps began to move away from the bedroom door. As soon as she was certain that Holden was long gone, Penelope unwrapped her shawl from around her shoulders and kicked off her slippered shoes.
Absentmindedly, she realised she had trailed mud into the house, and she could only hope that Holden would be as good as she appeared to be and make sure that all traces of her nighttime activities would be gone before the duke awoke.If she truly believes I am mistress of the house, she will be loyal to me,Penelope reassured herself firmly before she pulled out the envelope from beneath her armpit and hurried over to her bed.
Ignoring the sodden chemise that clung to her body, she slipped beneath the covers and snuggled down into the pillows to warm herself up and ensure that she was right where she promised Holden she would be when she came to ‘wake’ her.
Staring down at the envelope in her hands, she wondered for several moments whether she should even open it. Perhaps this letter really was for the real duchess of Chatham. Maybe, unbeknownst to her, the real Clara was already in England, and somehow some mistakes had been made along the way.
No, no, I would surely know if that were true,she told herself firmly. Hands shaking with anticipation and fear, Penelope broke open the wax seal and unfolded the single piece of paper, her heart hammering when she saw that there was no signature but just a single sentence.
I am in the country.
It was an ominous and frightening sentence, one that made her heart race even faster than it had been before. Yet there was no signature, no proof that it had come from anyone she might know.
She thought that she might perhaps recognise the handwriting, but the harder she looked at it, the more unsure she became. Perhaps whoever had sent the letter had asked someone unknown to her to write it for her.I cannot even call it a letter,she pointed out to herself with a sigh,it is barely even a note!
Even so, it was the simplest and yet most terrifying note she had ever received. Whoever had sent it to her knew she could read, and although she couldn’t be certain that it wasn’t for her, she was absolutely sure that it hadn’t been for the real Clara.
There was a hint of threat in how the words had been written, and Penelope found herself staring at the words for far longer than she ought to, feeling as if she might be able to read between the lines if she were to stare for long enough.
After some time, she realised that it didn’t truly matter what the note meant; it mattered because somebody had taken notice of her presence, and somehow, she needed to find out who.
Though she had not been entirely safe before, she was even less so now. The newspaper clippings she had been taking back in London whenever nobody was looking were burning a hole beneath her bed.
She had already written to and applied for every governess position she could find, even writing for several maid positions as well, writing as if she were Lady Rose’s own maid, yet without the reference of the man of the house, namely the duke, she had received no acceptance so far.
The few letters she had received had been rejection letters, written politely though just as painfully, and she had been forced to burn every one of them. She kept the clippings only hoping she might write again, trying and trying until someone agreed to hire her.
