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Eva
“Miss Bell?” Madeline’s hushed voice breaks through my sleep, and I open my eyes. Sun is streaking through the curtains in my room, and she’s perching on the edge of my bed. I sit up with a gasp.
“Oh god,” I whisper and stare at my small charge. She’s still in her nightgown, dressing robe wrapped around her, and hair in braided pigtails. I’ve slept in. And the world doesn’t care that my entire universe was thrown into jeopardy last night. Today has arrived bright and cheerful and demanding attention. My heart slows down as Madeline crawls onto my bed, curling up like a kitten. “What time is it?” I croak and look for my clock. She giggles as I see the time.
Thank God. I only slept over by thirty minutes. She’s not late for any lessons.
“I can skip breakfast,” she offers helpfully as I slide out of bed, trying not to dislodge her and dump her on the floor.
“No, I don’t think so,” I say, “give me a minute, and I’ll be dressed, and then I’ll get you ready.”
She watches me rush around my room and then slips from the bed.
“I can dress myself,” she says quietly, catching my attention for a moment as I grab my hairbrush.
“What? You don’t have to—” But she’s gone, running through the door that joins our rooms. I sigh. I dress as fast as I can, brushing my teeth in double time, and true to her word, she’s already half-dressed when I find her in her bedroom, surrounded by about ten princess dresses that she’s dragged out of her giant closet.
“You know it’s the blue linen during lessons,” I remind her, as she’s got one arm stuck out of the neck hole of the lilac, floaty dress she’s trying to pull on.
“But I like the purple,” she insists. I bend down and help her out of it.
“Not for lessons, but you can wear it later, okay?” I promise her, laying the pretty dress on the bed for the evening. “I think your father has guests tonight, so this dress will be just right for that.” I smooth the lacy curls on the many silken layers of the dress. This garment alone is worth in the thousands, and she’s got a good twenty more in the closet. She must grow out of them in months, only for more to be sewn, tailored to her exact measurements.
It seems like a waste on a child. What do they do with them when she’s a new size? But it’s not my money.
No, it’s only the tax money that everyone in the state pays that goes to clothe a single child for sixty days. While other children starve.
“See, I can do it now,” Madeline insists, and I turn, shaking off that thought. She’s in her white button-down and a blue linen apron-skirt, ready for her first lesson. After breakfast, though.
Mrs. Harris gives me alookwhen I bring the breakfast tray down because even though I got Madeline off to her first lesson on time, I missed the window for the maid to come collect the tray.
“Anything you want to tell me?” She asks as I breeze by.
“Nope, everything’s great,” I lie through my teeth, setting the breakfast tray down and rushing off to go straighten up Madeline’s room.
I open the door and slam right into six feet somethin’ of somebody. He grunts and my eyes snap up to his face.
Oh crap.
The duke stands there, looking as surprised to see me as I am him.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, bowing my head quickly. “Your grace.”
“No, it’s—” He sounds like he’s shaking off his shock at being bulldozed into by me, “it’s fine Miss Bell.” That way he says my name… it catches me and I lift my chin. He’s giving me a strange look.
“I found this of yours,” he says after a moment and holds out his hand. My heart stops.
It’s my phone. I take it from him and slip it into my dress pocket.
“Sorry about that,” I say, apologizing again.
“I’m not going to ask how you managed to lose it on top of a priceless statue right outside my brother’s room—”
Oh. My. Fucking. God.
I will my face to stay blank, and pinch the inside of my palm with my thumbnail, trying to keep any heat from my face.
“Miss Bell,” he starts, and then stops, thinking through his words, picking them carefully. “My brother is a troubled man.”
