Page 9 of Trouble

‘Pardon?’ said Emily.

She had been distracted by thesmallerdrawing room, which was at the back of the house and was the colour of anaemic strawberries. It made her feel very plain and dirty, despite the fact that she’d just washed. She hated that feeling. These people weren’tbetterthan her just because they had a very large house. She didn’t want to sit on their hideous brocade sofas anyway.

‘I’m just wondering. The house is a delicate balance, you see. I take things as they come. Meera is Meera, Oliver can relax with the best of them on a good day, but he’s a secret neurotic, and Joe is a fiend in the kitchen but I think it helps as an outlet for his rage, because the rest of the time he is actually quite serene .?.?. Which are you?’

An unpleasant, unsociable aspiring thief, thought Emily.I’m not sure what that’ll do to the balance, but I can’t imagine it’ll be anything good.

‘I am .?.?. generally good spirited,’ said Emily. It wasn’t quite what Amy would say about herself, but it was an accurate description of her sister nonetheless. ‘Although I am quite .?.?. solitary. I find ways to amuse myself.’

She didn’t want these people poking around in her life, trying to befriend her. They wouldn’t find anything to their liking anyway.

‘I see,’ said Akia. ‘Ah, well. Perhaps you’ll accidentally amuse me if I happen to be standing near you when you’re doing something droll.’

‘What happened to the last governess?’ asked Emily, as they walked into the large dining room, which was already laid for dinner. So much silver. So much crystal. It was obscene.

‘Oh,’ said Akia. ‘She was not .?.?. to Captain Edwards’s liking.’

Emily had hoped that Captain Edwards perhaps paid so little attention to his staff and children that she might escape scrutiny; the idea that she could be dismissed for the crime ofunlikeabilitywas grave news indeed, especially as she’d already put her foot on the man.

She knew she was deeply unlikeable. She just didn’t care.

‘Do you mean that he did not like her personally?’ said Emily, as they walked the length of the table.

‘Hmmm,’ said Akia. ‘No, I don’t think it was that. There have been quite a few governesses over the years, and none have been up to scratch.’ She paused, and seemed to realise that nothing she was saying was particularly reassuring. ‘Just don’t do anything foolish, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.’

A low bar, and yet one Emily did not plan to clear.

‘When Miss Grace Edwards is unwell,’ she said, to change the subject, ‘does she require additional assistance?’

‘Not that she’ll allow you to administer,’ said Akia. ‘She suffered from the same consumption that put Mrs Edwards to rest. We expected to lose her, too – you know how that terrible business goes, once you have it, there’s no getting it out of you – but somehow she pulled through. Only surviving case the doctor had ever seen in the whole county.’

‘She doesn’tlookill.’

‘Appearances can be deceiving,’ said Akia. ‘Joe has dedicated his life to the task of feeding her well, and she has every comfort and treatment available, when she’ll accept them.’

It wasn’t this child’s fault that she got to be luxuriously ill – ill in an enormous feather bed, with a doctor at her beck and call, a cook downstairs determined to keep meat on her bones and colour in her cheeks – but Emily hated her a little for it anyway.

Amy’s limbs were starting to look like birds’ legs, startlingly thin and not at all plausible as a means for staying upright. She shivered on summer days and wore her veins like blue lace at the surface of her skin.

Emily would not waste any of her sympathy on this child, reclining in her sick chair that might as well have been inlaid with gold.

‘You look like you want to bite me,’ Akia said mildly. ‘Come on. Let’s go and fetch you something more suitable for dinner.’

Chapter Four

When Emily awoke the next day, she had absolutely no idea where she was. She experienced a moment of bleary panic, reaching across the bedclothes to try to locate Amy’s sleeping form, before she opened her eyes and realised that she wasn’t in her bed at home at all.

She wondered if her mother would go up to check on Amy in her stead: watch from the doorway to check for the regular rise and fall of her chest, as Emily did every morning from the next pillow, or check if her cheeks were flushed with the threat of fever.

Amy found these habits of Emily’sextremelyvexing. If she noticed Emily watching her, she would tell her in no uncertain terms to go away, or make a rude and unseemly gesture with her hand if she was feeling particularly spirited. It was Emily’s fault for teaching her that gesture in the first place; she’d had somewhat of a re-education at the mill, primarily in all the ways you could tell somebody to go to hell.

Last night at dinner, while Emily tried valiantly to stay awake, Meera had told her that she’d be expected at nine o’clock in the schoolroom to begin lessons.

‘The captain often takes his meals with the children,’ she had explained, doling out soup, ‘and I was not given the impression that he wanted to alter this arrangement, so I hope you don’t mind breakfasting and eating your dinner down here with us on occasion.’

Emily had no idea that she wassupposedto mind. It seemed strange to her that governesses considered themselves so much above the other staff of the house; having never been alady, it made perfect sense to her that she would take her meals with everybody else employed in the running of Fairmont. Amy had spoken of the housemaids and valets at her last position in such friendly terms that Emily assumed she had spent plenty of time rubbing elbows with them – but then again, Amy could befriend a bear that was attempting to eat her. Anyway, surely only a pretentious sort of ninny would split hairs about exactly what sort of servant they were, when it all boiled down to the same thing.

When Emily arrived in the schoolroom a little early to get the lie of the land, she was relatively unsurprised to find Grace already waiting for her, dressed as if expecting an important visitor.