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“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said, her voice and demeanour respectful, her smile friendly. “Shall I finish this later, madam?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
I was slightly shaken by her presence, as if she belonged here in my private space. The kids I had gone to school with would have laughed at me. They’d treated their staff like nothing.
Back when Dad had been doing well, he’d hired a cleaner as a surprise for Mom. He’d joked that when we moved to a bigger house, he’d have to get her a housekeeper.
Tears came to my eyes with the memory, and I spun away from her to look in the mirror.
“Breakfast is ready for you now,” she said politely. “It will be waiting for you in the garden parlour downstairs. Shall I wait outside your room to take you there?”
I shook my head. “I’ll find my own way. Thank you.”
After she left, I hurried to lock the door behind her, my half-formed plan of climbing down the trellis last night still in my mind.
I bit my lip. She said breakfast was in thegardenparlour. Would Marco be there? Would his mother? Would they see me making a ridiculous scene outside the window as I tried to climb down?
“Darn it,” I muttered.
And then I realised that the maid would have left my door open. She’d given me permission to go downstairs all by myself! And the bottom of the stairs came out close to the front door of the house. What was to stop me from leaving?
Suddenly eager to get the hell out of here, I found some new underwear in a drawer, and slipped into a casual summery dress. It was a class apart from what I usually wore, the lining buttery, the fabric delightfully soft. I ran my fingers down the pale blue daisy print. It nipped in at the waist and flared at the skirt.
My throat clenched. Dolly would never wear anything beautiful ever again. Where was she right now? On some slab in a morgue, waiting for some forensic doctor to dissect her?
That thought made me rush to the bathroom and throw up again.
I wiped away my tears. I had to find out who had done this to her, and whether Toby knew something about it despite what he had said yesterday.
It seemed too much of a coincidence that he had arranged this weird scam involving Marco, and then Dolly had turned up dead the same night. There had to be a connection.
And the worst part was, I couldn’t tell Marco about any of it. And I suddenly was yearning to just tell him everything, and have him take care of it, because I knew a man like him could.
And then maybe he would take care of me too.
I shivered. He was vengeful, Toby had said.
And why would Marco do anything to help me? He had made it clear to me last night that I meant less than nothing to him. I was just a fun time, easily discarded.
My fingers dropped to my stomach, traced its flat lines. Would a man like that even care that I was pregnant with his baby?
His baby.
I wrapped my arms around my tummy, hugging myself.
A child had not been in my plans, not yet anyway. I had thought one day I would meet someone I could love with all of my heart and have a family. It hadn’t been supposed to happen like this.
But this washisbaby.
And the moment I had found out, it felt like my world had blossomed into greater being. Oh, the joy to know it was no longer just me and Mom left. There would be three of us, a family. And I had so missed being part of a family after Dad was gone.
But what was I going to do now? The only thing I knew for certain was that I could never let Marco find out.
Spurred on by this, I left the room, carrying my shoes in my hands. I paused on the landing, leaning over the balustrade to make sure the maid was nowhere nearby below. I could hear the distant sound of crockery tinkling and voices murmuring and a child’s laughter. Hopefully, they were all busy in the garden parlour having breakfast.
I hurried down the stairs. At the bottom, I dashed across the marble floored hallway, silent on my bare feet, and out of the front door without meeting a soul.
Outside, my heart raced even though it had been surprisingly easy. I ran halfway down the street, quiet and mostly free of traffic at this time of the morning, before I stopped to put on my shoes.
