Page 5 of Trouble

‘Hang about,’ he said. ‘A pleasure to do what to whom?’

‘Er .?.?.’ said Emily, unsure how she’d made a mess of this. ‘To .?.?. meet you?’

‘Captain Edwards?’

‘.?.?. yes?’ Emily said. ‘Sir.’

‘Oh,’ said the man. ‘Well .?.?. No.’

‘No?’

‘Not the man in question.’

Emily just blinked at him. This conversation was like navigating a hedge maze designed by a fanciful baby.

‘Oliver. Fletcher. Valet.’

‘But you’re .?.?.’ Emily gestured vaguely at him. ‘You’re dressed .?.?. and you said you were .?.?. going out?’

‘It’s my night off,’ Oliver said, flashing her a grin. He adjusted the sleeves of his very nice jacket, then froze. ‘Fuck!’

The shouting and the profanity caught Emily so off-guard that she twitched, splattering more watery mud from her sleeve on to the already tragic tiles.

‘Good God, Oliver,language,’ said Miss Bhandari, bustling through the door behind Emily. ‘And in front of our new governess! Another sixpence for my jar, please.’

‘Meera, there’s a hole the size of a gentleman’s fist in my coat, and I am half an hour late to my engagement—’

‘Forty-five minutes,’ said Emily.

‘Well, exactly. You can forgive me a little coarse language when the situation doessocall for it.’

‘I cannot. Put a sixpence in my jar and stop letting gentlemen put their fists through your coat,’ said Miss Bhandari cheerfully. ‘All right, Miss Laurence – I sent Akia to fetch towels, I’m sure she’ll only be— Ah, yes, here we are.’

A tall, slender Black woman with her tight curls coiffed into a bun entered, holding spotlessly clean towels ripe for ruination.

‘Miss Laurence, this is Akia – Miss Akia Smith. You must excuse us, but we have fallen into bad habits. It’s all first names here, we are too familiar for our own good.’

Meera looked anxious, as if Emily might be horrified by this transgression; she supposed arealgoverness would be, but Emily could not quite rouse herself to feign disdain.

‘Good evening,’ said Akia, handing Emily a towel with a smile. ‘I was in a carriage crash, once. I bounced off the roof and accidentally swallowed a lady’s earring. It was actually very harrowing, but I find that in the retelling of such stories, it often helps soothe the mind to make them comedies rather than tragedies.’

Emily had absolutely no idea what to do with this information; luckily Miss Bhandari – Meera – clapped her hands together to reclaim their attention.

‘Baths, I think,’ she said, ‘or the cold will get into our bones, and we’ll be no good all evening. You take the first turn, Miss Laurence, and I will take a quick dip after.’

‘But .?.?. don’t you have jobs to do?’ said Emily, keen on this talk of baths but baffled by the very casual attitude they were all displaying to working hours.

‘Not on our night off,’ said Oliver, aghast at the very idea. ‘Damn the bloody coat, Meera, I’m just going to have to leave it as it is, I’m twenty minutes late—’

‘Fifty minutes, now,’ said Meera. ‘And that’ll be another sixpence for the jar, thank you.’

‘Fuck the jar!’ Oliver said as he disappeared through the doorway.

‘Oh, Oliver,’ Meera said, shaking her head. ‘I hope it was worth a shilling.’

They all seemed quite agreeable, really, but no matter: Emily wasn’t there to make friends.

She planned to steal what she could from this house, then head home to Amy and never look back.