A hurricane swamps a sailing ship, a high wave crashing on board the deck, snapping the masts. Ropes snake and lash, and barrels and crates are washed loose from the hold. Water rushes in as the ship heels. Cargo and men slide off the deck and into the sea.
And that was that, she thought, coming back to the present. She had sunk the fleet. The memory was unyielding, stark. For six long years she had tried to deny it, and now for the past half-month, she had tried, unwillingly, to call it back up. She had sunk the fleet and destroyed her family.
The bright sunshine of a Port Saint Frey day dazzled her eyes. Tesara sighed. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the navy of her uniform and she knew that she was in the now, not the past.
You have a choice to make. She could almost hear her sister say the words. You can wallow in your past, as bitter as Alinesse, unable to move forward, or, you can fight it.
She sank the fleet. So be it. Now, the only way to redeem herself was to use those powers to restore her family. If she had learned anything today, working as a housemaid in the house her family had once owned, it was that she had better stop feeling sorry for herself, or this would be her life going forward. And I don’t like it, she thought. I don’t like being a servant one bit.
Tesara gathered herself. She lifted her hands. “Wind,” she said, letting the word slide out between her lips on a breath of air. She waited, struggling for calm, her heart racing all the while. The navy of her dress distracted her; the lemon and oil smell of the furniture polish and ammonia of the cleaning rags clamored for her attention. With an impatient sigh, Tesara opened the windows, letting the wind from the sea come in and sweep all the distractions away.
She closed her eyes. Wind, she thought, more insistently, and then rage overwhelmed her, rage at her predicament and the futility of her position. Wind, you bastard. Wind, I say. I hate you I hate you I hate all of–
Two things happened: a gust of wind blew viciously at Tesara through the open window, slamming the window back against the wall with a bang. And she heard Poll running the carpet sweeper down the hall. With a gasp, Tesara secured the window and fastened it shut. She pushed herself off the window seat, gathered up her cleaning gear, and peeked out of the room. Poll wrestled the carpet sweeper down the stairs. Tesara hurried over to her. “Let me help,” she said, and together they carried the heavy contraption down to the landing.
Poll gave her the stink eye. “What was that bang?”
“Airing the room and a gust of wind caught the window,” Tesara said.
“No one said to do that,” Poll said. Tesara gave her a challenging look back.
“You should, you know. Keeps the mildew from taking hold,” Tesara said, improvising madly.
Poll stood her ground. “Lemon and ammonia rinse takes care of mildew.”
“Stains the baseboards,” Tesara shot back.
To her surprise, Poll blinked. Then she heeled and fired her starboard salvo. “Don’t close the doors behind you,” she said. “I saw you had done that. Master doesn’t like it.”
Fine. Tesara bit back that reply. “All right,” she said, staying calm. It was sickening to be spied on. She wondered if Poll had been told to or if she taken the initiative to keep an eye on the new girl. “Old habit. My last post they didn’t mind.”
“Mmm.” Poll didn’t say anything else, and Tesara ran back upstairs and moved her gear to the next room. Only then did her heart slow enough to consider what had happened. The gust had come out of nowhere. Had she done it? Could she have done it? She had been angry enough, almost as angry as she had been six years ago. Tesara flexed her fingers, and there was something – but it faded before she could capture the feeling.
She could hear servants below her, with Mrs Aristet’s voice in particular floating up the stairs. Tesara walked purposefully toward her father’s study. She knocked on the door just to be sure, and then opened it. It was unoccupied, and she set down her things and looked around. When the room had belonged to her father, it had been cluttered with a merchant’s files. This room was painstakingly organized. There were locked file cabinets and a glass-front bookcase with leather binders. The desk was excruciatingly barren. There was a blotter, a brass inkwell and pen holder, and a squared-off pile of foolscap on the side. Tesara lifted her feather duster and began to swipe it around delicately, trying to read what was on the papers but she could make no sense of it; just numbers and abbreviations.
Whoever it was had been taking notes. She dusted around the handles on the desk, trying to move them if she could, but they were locked, each and every one.
Foiled, she went over to the glass-front bookcase, but the binders were unlabeled. She tried the latch on the glass door, but it too was locked. She jiggled it to be sure.
“Are you looking for something?”
Tesara whirled around so fast the feather duster flew from her hand.
The man standing there was tall, lanky in his gray trousers and cutaway coat, his maroon cravat wrapped loosely around his long neck. Long, cadaverous lines were grooved into his face, clean-shaven except for sideburns down his jawline.
It was Trune, the Guild master.
Chapter Eighteen
Tesara bobbed a curtsey and retrieved her feather duster.
“I’m sorry, sir, I was dusting. I’m new – just come today – and wasn’t sure what to clean and what not.”
“Clearly… not.” He gestured around the room, indicating everything locked up and inaccessible.
“Yes, sir.” She waited to go by him. She clutched the duster in front of her, hoping he couldn’t see how her hands were shaking. His eyes flicked down to her hands and she felt a rush of shame.
After a moment he nodded and stepped aside, letting her go by, and she could feel his eyes boring into the back of her thick, starched dress. She grabbed up her pail of supplies and slipped through the door, keeping her eyes down as she went to close the door behind her.
“Wait.”
She stopped, heart hammering. Would he recognize her? She had been a child the last time he had seen her. I’ll be watching you… He might not recognize her but would he recognize a Mederos if he saw one?
“Will you be serving tonight?” he asked.
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t know what Mrs Aristet has in mind for me.”
He nodded. “Serve tonight,” he said. “I’ll make sure that Mrs Aristet knows.”
“Yes, sir.”
He let her go then, and she walked away, trying not to run or to look back. Serve? What on earth was she going to do? She hadn’t meant to stay very long; just a quick look around and then back into her clothes and away she went, with Mrs Aristet and Poll bewildered. She had already stayed far too long. Sooner or later the girl she was impersonating would show up, and then Tesara would have some explaining to do.
And if she served at dinner, it would very quickly come out that she was an imposter. Never mind her work as a scullery maid at Madam Callier’s; serving at a formal dinner was not the purview of the everyday housemaid. Nor was it useful to have been served every night as a child. All the nuances that Charle handled so competently so that nothing ever went wrong came about because of his well-trained servants. It was a dance, and she had only ever been the audience. She didn’t know the steps.
She couldn’t possibly serve; if Trune found out who she was, it would put her family in grave danger.
She had to escape as soon as she could.
Escape was harder than gaining entrance. Tesara hurried down the stairs, and saw that the door to the back smoking salon was open. There were glass doors that opened onto the garden, and thence to the street. She glanced surreptitiously around her. She could duck in there and once through, hie herself home to Kerwater Street. Too bad about her own dress and the servant’s uniform; perhaps she could send it back by post, anonymously. Except then she would be short one dress… Tesara, think, she scolded herself. She needed to escape, not be concerned with dresses.
She forced herself to concentrate. She peeked into the salon. It was unoccupied. This room was one of the prettiest and warmest in the house. It was brightly lit from the sunshine pouring through the glass doors that overlooked the garden, and it faced away from the Crescent and the harbor, from which the cold winds blew. The windows sparkled in their mullioned framework. Brevart had bragged about the glazing to many of their guests. Tesara headed straight for the glass doors.
“There you are,” Poll said, coming around behind her. Tesara practically jumped out of her skin and at the same time, experienced exasperation. How did she keeping doing that?
Poll was covered with dust and her hair straggled even more from under her cap. “Did you finish the upstairs rooms?”
Willing her heart to slow down and trying to hide her frustration, Tesara replied, “Yes. But I went into one of the studies by mistake and the master found me. I won’t be turned off, will I?” She watched Poll closely.
Poll shrugged. “You never know, with masters.”
For the love of Saint Frey… Tesara kept from rolling her eyes with all of her strength. Why did the girl have to be so taciturn? She had hoped that Poll would have asked her for more details, and then in return, she could have found out who was the master. She fell in behind her and probed a bit more.
“He’s a bit of a scary gentleman, don’t you think?”
Poll shrugged again. “Mrs Francini wants us to help in the kitchen now that we’re done with the rooms. Have you done cookery?”
She looked Tesara directly in the eye and Tesara took the hint. She had probed too far; Poll was not answering questions.
“Not for a grand household like this one.”
“Not many have. Mrs Francini will show you what to do.”
Cook – Mrs Francini – was as amply bosomed as Mrs Aristet but far less imposing since the top of her head only came up to Tesara’s shoulder. She was a quick dynamo in her kitchen. She made the girls wash their hands and faces and tuck their hair under their caps, and then set them to work.
Tesara soon found that Mrs Francini ruled her kitchen with an iron will and a gentle tone, leading by example. Tesara stirred soup and cut biscuits from the dough Mrs Francini transformed from flour, oil, and egg and kneaded together with quick, decisive movements, only then handing the shaggy dough over to the girl.
“There you are, Tes,” she said, peeking around at Tesara’s work. “If you do it like this, you will cut more cleanly, and the biscuits rise higher. The sea gentlemen like them because the best cooks on ship know how to make the biscuits as high as the gunwales, they say. Better than a meringue for making gentlemen happy.”
The sea gentlemen. So merchant masters would be at this dinner tonight. Sometimes Brevart had the merchant sea captains to dinner, but those had been the evenings when she and Yvienne had their dinner in the schoolroom with the governess of the moment and Michelina.
“Remember, Poll, save the rind from the cheese,” Mrs Francini told the other maid, who was grating from a huge chunk of Romopol’s famed sheep’s milk cheese. “I’ll put it in the soup as it imparts a lovely flavor.”
Booted steps sounded outside the kitchen and two young men came in, one in a footman’s livery, the other an errand boy from a shop. Tesara glanced up and then right down again, turning her face away, panic flooding over her.
Good God, what was Albero doing here?
Chapter Nineteen
“Oh, Sy, thank you!” Mrs Francini said, taking the basket from the errand boy. She lifted up the towel, showing packets wrapped in brown paper. “The goose liver is in here? And the mushrooms?”
“And oysters too,” Sy said. “Mr Tom said you ordered these special.”
“Indeed, the gentlemen will be very pleased.”
“They better be,” Albero said, his familiar voice sending Tesara’s heart into a galloping pace. “We’re putting on all our airs tonight. Master wants to impress everyone.”
She should have fled. She should never have come. What was she thinking? Could she bolt now? Could she feign illness? No, someone would make her lie down. Think, Tesara. What would Yvienne do?
Once again, she reminded herself that she hadn’t put just herself in danger, but her whole family. Again. She thought desperately, but could come up with no other plan than to confess as soon as she was found out and hope for the best.
She cut the dough diligently, but soon enough she was going to have to look up.
“Oh, this is our new girl, Tes,” said Mrs Francini, obviously at some silent prompt from Albero. With a feeling of inevitability, Tesara looked Albero straight in the eye. He was perhaps three-and-twenty now, and had filled out, but he was still Albero, tall and thin and clean shaven.
She didn’t trust her voice so she just nodded. He nodded back. “I’m Albero,” he said. “You look as if you are settling in well.”
“Thank you.” It was all she could manage. He turned away and made a comment to Poll, and then the errand boy from the market bid them all a good day and Albero went out, to help Marques polish the silver, he said.
At least he did not say Charle. Tesara wasn’t sure what she would have done if Charle were here too. Although it was tempting to think that she could throw herself on the mercy of Charle’s calm authority.
“There,” Mrs Francini said. She scooped up the ill-shaped biscuits that were Tesara’s first attempts. “We’ll set these aside for the servants’ tea, Tes. Now, here’s how you tell the oven is ready for baking.”
Albero had to have recognized her but he had not revealed her secret. It hardly made her feel any better. He wouldn’t hold it over her head – she was fairly confident of that – but she knew that if it were important that he didn’t know her, she was in grave danger indeed.
It had been a mistake to play this stupid game, and she still didn’t know how she was going to extricate herself. Tes glanced at the homely kitchen clock, cheerfully ticking away on the mantelpiece. It was only half-past two. She had several hours before dinner, which she was dreading more and more.
She had to escape before she was forced to serve.
“Let’s see,” Mrs Francini said, casting a look around at the kitchen after she popped the biscuits in the cast-iron range that ran along the short wall of the kitchen. “Why don’t you two take some fresh air for a few minutes in the back garden? I’ll tell Mrs Aristet for you.”
“Not for me – I need a lie down,” said Poll, who whipped off her apron. “Call me when the clock chimes, will you, Cook?”
She didn’t even wait for an answer but headed toward the servants’ quarters.
“I’d love some air,” Tesara said, her hopes leaping high. “Which way is the garden?”
“Through that door, and you’ll see a brick walkway. It will take you right there. Oh, and take these scissors and pick me some rosemary, will you?”
Tesara took the scissors, promising herself to leave them someplace dry and safe. There was nothing she could do about the servant’s dress, or her own, still in the cupboard. When the real girl came, they would all wonder who she had been, but she doubted she would ever see them again anyway. She didn’t intend to ever come back.
The fresh air was brisk and the garden in shadow from the high walls surrounding it. There was the crooked little gate that led out to the stables and down toward the avenue and safety. Her eyes watering from the cold, she laid the scissors on a window ledge where they would stay dry, evidenced by the dust that lay thick on the peeling paint, and hastened toward the little gate that led out and around to the street.
“Miss Tesara.”
She turned around to see Albero. He cast a glance back to make sure he wasn’t being watched, then led her over to a small seat in the wall, away from the windows or the kitchen door. He thrust a soft bundle at her in brown paper – her dress and gloves.
“What are you doing here?” he whispered.
She was desperate to explain. “I just meant to ask who owned the house now, and may
be to see inside if I could. But Mrs Aristet wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. She thought I was the new housemaid. And then – well, it was stupid, I know.”
“It’s dangerous, is what it is.”
“Albero, who owns my house?”
His eyes widened. “You didn’t know? It’s Trune.”
She knew she gaped like a grouper, exactly as Mrs Aristet said. The Guildmaster? Of all things, she hadn’t expected that. How on earth – he wasn’t a merchant. He had no House. He drew a salary. Outrage jumbled with confusion in her head. Did Mother and Father know?
“How is that possible?” An instant later she was ashamed of her own naiveté.
He shook his head with irritation at her stupidity. “Your family had enemies and they were out for revenge. You have to get out of here, miss.”
The back of her neck prickled. “I ran into Trune upstairs – I don’t think he recognized me. If he did, what then?”
“I don’t know. All I can tell you is, you’re a Mederos, and they’re keeping an eye on you – all of you. Be careful and keep your head low.”
She felt absurdly grateful. Even just knowing this, that it wasn’t a figment of her and Yvienne’s imaginations, that the Guild had it in for them, was enough.
“All right. Thank you. And Albero…” she added ruefully. “You don’t have to call me miss anymore.”
He gave her a quick smile. “Listen, do you know the old stone gate with the broken streetlamp at the corner of the Crescent and the Mercantile? Leave the servant’s dress there under the loose brick.”
“I will do,” she promised, and an instant later she slipped out the rickety gate.
Chapter Twenty
Tesara made her way down through the servants’ alley that ran behind the great houses, where all the tradesmen drew up in their carts with their orders. She hurried along as if the devil himself were on her tail – which, she supposed, he was. Trune, the Guildmaster, was now the master of Mederos. If he found out who had been snooping around his study, no doubt it would go badly for her family.
The Sisters Mederos Page 8