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“Hm.” He seemed displeased and grew silent again, his back still turned. I was beginning to feel a little offended. When the silence stretched so long as to be uncomfortable, Ms. Dillard cleared her throat.
The professor gave a minor start and sighed, gazing out of the towering windows into the growing night. “Fear gorta. What is it?”
I tried to stay on my toes.
“A starving ghost appearing especially during times of famine. It—”
“And the Abhartach?” he interrupted, not waiting for me to expound.
“A sort of”—I stumbled—“vampire creature.”
“Sort of?”
“There’s differing lore. It doesn’t always drink blood.”
“That will do. It’s enough you know a bit of Old Irish. I’m sure it was explained to you what your function here would be?”
“Your assistant, sir.”
“Yes. It’s a devil tracking all these manuscripts, and my notes are in piles.” He motioned around him with a gruff exhalation. “I don’t have the time nor the mind for organizing.”
He still wouldn’t turn to face me.
I tried to catch Ms. Dillard’s eye, questioning. She pointedly ignored me, her expression stony. This was no way to be welcomed in any place. I stared so hard at the back of the professor’s head there must be a hole burning there. Surely he wouldfeelme looking.
“I’m more than capable of assisting you, Professor,” I said smartly, tiny spines of irritation thickening in my throat. “When will I be needed?”
Another long silence, only the crackling fire breaking the rude quiet.
“Professor,” Ms. Dillard said quietly, a small, unintrusive prod.
“Tomorrow,” he said, his voice weary. “Tomorrow. I’ve so much work to do still. I’ll greet you properly in the morning when my mind is fresh. Ms. Dillard, please show Miss Foxboro to her room.”
I was being dismissed without him ever laying eyes on me. Indignation was a hot iron in my sternum.
“Professor Hughes,” I began, fully prepared to apprise him of my displeasure. His head turned ever so slightly, revealing his olive complexion, the plane of his cheekbone high and proud. He was listening. I came to my senses. To lose this job for my insubordination before my first day had even begun would be a new low.
“Good night,” I finished lamely.
“Good night” was the terse reply.
Ms. Dillard guided me out the door we’d stepped through not even five minutes ago. We departed the light and warmth of the room with its cold master, and as the housekeeper pulled the door closed behind us, I sensed that I was poorly prepared for Willowfield.
Chapter 4
The hallways had become almost too dark to walk. We had barely enough time for Ms. Dillard to stop by the kitchen to fetch a gas lamp. She wouldn’t let me come in, insisting I wait on the house side of the threshold. As I was also an employee, it was silly not to allow me in servant areas. Growing up in a household that had never wanted children, I’d lived underfoot of the servants. The downstairs liveliness had been my home far more than the stuffy formal rooms of my parents.
At one point, my mother remembered I existed and forbade me to ever again associate with the help. However, what she didn’t know couldn’t anger her, and I continued to spend most of my free time being an absolute nuisance to the staff before being shipped to Mount St. Mary’s school for girls across the state, a blessing in the most basic sense.
Unlike the school experiences of girls in great sorrowful classics, I had no mean matrons or bullying classmates. Instead, I had an endless monotony of etiquette classes, supplemented with a few fascinating subjects like history and languages, all with a healthy dose of chronic boredom. There had been moments where I’d have risked my mother’s wrath just to be free in the warm belly of that house where Ms. Reeves, the cook, had loved me like her own. The memory was so real I could smell the yeasty aroma of bread rising, and the slight sea tang of fish brought fresh from the bay. I hadn’t been sad to leave home, but I still experienced a bittersweet wave of nostalgia. Ms. Dillard returned, a lit gas lamp in hand.
“There’s one of these in your quarters. We’re too short-staffed to light all the remaining gas lamps. Besides, there’s no one here to need them. Professor Hughes stays in his rooms or the library, Rodney lives in the groundskeeper’s cottage, and Felicity and I handle our duties in the God-given light of day.”
We walked the long back hallway, keeping to the servant’s highways, all sensible walls and wood floors boasting none of the opulence of other parts of the house.
“This is the fastest way to get to the library from your room. I recommend keeping to this route. I don’t have time to acquaint you with the full estate, and youwillget lost.”
Though it was likely the truth, her tone suggested a lack of faith in my competence. This woman was grating, but not directly unkind. She’d handled the maid so gently, and the lines of time on her face were indicative more of laughter than scowling. I resolved yet again to ignore my initial distaste for her and change her mind.
