Page 8 of Trouble

‘Youmust take time off, Amy,’ said Grace.

Emily wasn’t getting any better at looking suspiciously startled any time somebody used her sister’s name. Nobody in this house seemed aware that takingtime offwas not usually part of a lowly employee’s repertoire; at Emily’s last place of employment, you tooktime offonly if you had been dismissed or recently lost a limb or phalange, and even then you were expected back as soon as you’d staunched the bleeding.

‘It’s true,’ said Aster. ‘If the last governess had taken more days off, perhaps she wouldn’t have lost focus and died in that horrific boating accident.’

Emily looked helplessly at Grace.

‘There was no boating accident,’ Grace said reassuringly. ‘Father said she just needed a .?.?. rest.’ This was somehowmorealarming than the story with the boats. ‘Have you seen the house? Has somebody given you the tour? Oh, I would love to do it myself, but I’m not at my best today.’

‘Grace is sometimes unwell,’ Akia said.

Grace screwed up her nose, as if she outright rejected this assessment of her health.

‘Akia, you needn’t say it like that,’ she said, sounding more ill-tempered than Emily had imagined her capable of. ‘I am hardlyunwell. I just get a little tired sometimes. Let she who has never been a bit sleepy at midday cast the first stone!’ Her tone brightened. ‘Aster will give you the tour, Amy.’

‘Aster will not,’ said Aster. ‘I’m painting.’

‘How wonderful, to have a pastime you enjoy,’ said Emily, once again attempting to channel Amy’s steely sunshine in this spikier sibling’s direction.

‘How wonderful indeed,’ said Aster, with a penetrating look Emily couldn’t parse. She should have guessed that simpering geniality was not the way to Aster’s heart; it certainly wouldn’t have worked on Emily herself.

Aster was handsome in a very hard way, thick brows and sharp angles only slightly softened by puppy fat, unlike her sister, who looked as if she should perpetually smell of roses and milky chocolate.

‘Not much else to do around here in the way of hobbies,’ Aster continued, ‘unless you want to go mad or die of exposure.’

‘Aster!’ said Grace, sounding genuinely upset. ‘Why would you say such a terrible thing? Stop it at once – you’re ruining Amy’s first day, when I have already decided to like her very much.’

‘You decide to likeeveryonevery much.’ Aster gave Grace a friendly pat on the shoulder when she got up to leave. Her brief glance at Emily was .?.?. less friendly. ‘It’s nothing personal,Amy, but I don’t need a governess, and the sooner we come to an understanding about that, the better.’

Emily blinked at her. It was exactly the sort of thing she might have imagined a difficult child might say to a governess; so much so that it felt comically trite.

Aster gave Akia a brief nod of farewell and then sauntered away. If she’d had pockets, Emily fancied she would have stuck her hands in them and whistled.

Despite herself, Emily had found her amusing. She didn’tlikeher exactly, but she could respect her particular brand of hostility. There was a naive, anarchistic spirit about her that would no doubt be stamped out by the time she reached true womanhood.

‘Please do ignore Aster,’ said Grace. ‘She’s at a difficult age.’

‘Yes,’ Emily said awkwardly.

There was a silence, and then Akia cleared her throat.

‘I shall take you on the tour.’

Extremely grateful for an excuse to leave the earnest focus of this tiny hostess, Emily jumped up to say her goodbyes.

The house was a house. It had various large rooms, decorated ornately but without any sense of personal taste, and with quite a few large gaps where it looked as if more furniture might have once stood. It seemed as if Captain Edwards or his late wife had perhaps ordered their remaining decor at random out of a newspaper.Thiswould only be to Emily’s advantage. If they had no idea exactly which antiques adorned which surfaces, they could hardly be expected to notice if one or two small trinkets went astray.

She didn’t plan to clear them out, after all. She couldn’t hope to, without getting caught. The way to do it, she had decided, was to be slow and quiet. To watch and wait until the moment was right to spring. She would saylike a cat, but she’d seen how stupid cats could be. Like a spider, perhaps. Or a snapping turtle. Something that went unnoticed, evenafterthe moment of ambush. She would pocket things here and there, never too much at once, and then perhaps take the coach a few towns over on one of these convenientnights offto find somebody in a pub who didn’t mind purchasing objects of questionable origin.

There was no shortage of nooks and crannies to pillage in a place this enormous; Emily’s house could have easily fitted into the disused ballroom, with room to spare for a small garden around the edges. At home they had one room downstairs and two up, and they spent almost all of their time gathered close to the hearth, the world shrunk down to a small circle of firelight. Fairmont House had a fireplace in every room, and at least ten rooms on the ground floor alone.

Those at the front of the house had a view of the cliffs and the distant watery horizon out of every window, and the littoral spirit seemed to have infiltrated them; they were mostly decorated in blues and greens, the wooden furniture leached of colour until it looked more like driftwood than mahogany. There seemed to be a breeze frisking through the rooms, even though the windows were firmly closed, as if the sea air could not be kept at bay by mere brick and glass.

The more sparsely furnished rooms had little in the way of easily pocketable fripperies at first glance, but when she ran her eyes surreptitiously over the glass-fronted cabinets and the lower shelves she saw the glint of crystal and china – the promise of long-forgotten heirlooms and impulse purchases that hadn’t seen the light of day for years.

Much more interesting than the house was Akia, who kept up a gentle commentary as they walked from room to room, and was surprisingly entertaining.

‘This is the smaller drawing room, if you can believe it. They only use the larger one, so if you need a moment to collapse quietly this is the place to do it. Just don’t let Meera catch you with your feet on the pouffe .?.?. I’m mostly lady’s maid to the girls, but we do split the cleaning as we’re short-staffed, and now that you’ve been foolish enough to be helpful, you will almost certainly be asked to muck in with the schoolroom and the bedrooms. We end up doing lots of this and that .?.?. The other week Oliver tried to get me to hold one of the horses still, and when I got distracted the horse sat on me, so if he asks, best to pretend you have a deathly fear of horses .?.?. I certainly do now. Would you describe yourself as more even-tempered or nervous and uptight, do you think?’