Rowan stared at the house. It was bounded by two smaller dwellings that leaned up against it like buttresses. As wide as it was tall – which was plenty – it was made of red brick with a steeply gabled tiled roof. Two large square-paned oak-framed windows looked out from either side of a broad doorway and a painted sign depicting a pair of shears swung above the lintel. Even from her swift survey, it was clear it was one of the town’s most impressive buildings.
The ground floor was a shopfront, and displayed in the window to her left were bolts of fine cloth: plain, striped and some that were richly woven with exotic birds and flowers. It was to be several months before she would learn that the colours that so delighted her were turquoise, chartreuse, violet and vermilion, but only a few weeks before she would feel fine silk fabric between fingers that had previously only known coarse linen and broadcloth.
Rowan dragged her gaze away from the fabrics and craned her neck skywards. The house was so tall it seemed to touch the sky. She counted three sets of windows, one atop another, those of the first floor paned with diamond-shaped glass. There were six chimneypots and four dormers jutting out of the pitched roof, and she knew from the height of it that there would be a great many stairs to reach the very top.
The man retrieved a set of keys from the pocket of his coat and beckoned her into a small entranceway. Doors led off it to the left and right and a passage continued on towards the back of the house, which was dim and shadowed. ‘We live at the back and upstairs,’ he explained. ‘Your room – if you meet with my wife’s approval – will be at the top of the house, with Alice. Now follow me, for Mistress Hollander should be hereabouts.’
He ushered her along the passageway and into a large, square room. Sconces lit the panelled walls and her boots sank into the thick carpets laid upon the floor. At the far end was a grand stone fireplace the colour of honey, where a fire burned smokily, the green wood spitting and hissing. She knew that there was a better kind to use.
Beside the fire, a young woman sat reading in a chair. Her hair, dressed in loops and curls, shone fair, and her skin glowed, struck with firelight. Her gown was the colour of autumn cider and lace frothed at her slim wrists like a syllabub. She had a smallish, pink mouth, and a pointed chin that sharpened her otherwise serene features. A mole at the high point of her cheek, which might have been mistaken for a courtier’s beauty patch, drew attention to her round, china-blue eyes. Rowan had never encountered anyone quite like her before: she was so clean and dainty; she looked as though she might snap at the slightest pressure.
‘Ah, my dear Caroline,’ the man said, rubbing his palms together as if he were unsure of himself. ‘What do you think to our new maid?’
‘Rowan Caswell, ma’am.’ Rowan spoke up, for Mr Hollander – she presumed that was he – had not bothered to ask her name. She remembered that a curtsey might be in order and bobbed self-consciously.
His wife turned and put down the book she had been reading, now studying Rowan with a languid curiosity. Rowan was grateful that her face was in shadow, that her scar might not be seen so clearly.
‘This will not do. It will not do at all.’
Rowan’s spirits sank to the thin soles of her boots.
‘Were we not after a boy, someone we could train to be your valet?’ She shook her head, as if the fact of her husband returning with something other than he intended was not an unusual occurrence.
‘There was no one suitable.’
‘What? Not even early this morning?’
‘No, I am afraid not.’
But there had been; Rowan remembered several boys of about her age, as well as older men, waiting to be hired.
Caroline Hollander sighed, and inspected Rowan more closely. Her eyes narrowed, and Rowan knew that she had seen her scar. ‘She is no painting, but that is perhaps a good thing,’ she said. ‘All right, if there really was no one else, she will have to do, for now anyway. We shall have to get her clean, for I doubt the girl’s seen a bath for a good while. Probably lousy and with goodness knows any manner of other infestations.’
The unkindness of her words was tempered by a sweet smile, but Rowan was affronted, though she knew better than to show it. She might be the worse from her long journey, but she used a tincture of rosemary, peppermint, clove and geranium that kept the lice at bay and her hair shiny. When necessary, she also rubbed a paste of fenugreek seeds and mustard oil on her body, which wasn’t as sweet-smelling, but was certainly efficacious. She might be a simple girl from a poor village, but she was no peasant.
‘Have Prudence arrange it tonight. But for heaven’s sake, Patrick, make sure she is fed first; the scrawny baggage looks like she hasn’t seen a meal for months.’
Rowan allowed herself to breathe out. It seemed that she met with Mistress Hollander’s approval, enough to be employed on a trial at least.
‘And she will need new dresses. I’ll not have my servants clothed in rags. She can have an old one of Alice’s for the time being.’ Caroline Hollander picked up her book again, as if they had already taken their leave.
‘Of course, dearest,’ he replied. Then, to Rowan, ‘Come along, then, I’ll show you upstairs.’ He took a glass lamp from a sideboard and led them back along the hallway. Rowan glanced behind her as she left the room, seeing shadows gathered around her new mistress. She blinked and they disappeared; she told herself it was simply the effect of her unfamiliar surroundings.
THREE
Now
A light rain had begun to fall, spotting the pavement, and Thea sheltered under the lintel in front of the house as she juggled the keys, trying to decide which one might open the newly painted front door.
The house was at the far reaches of the long high street, just before it narrowed and curved upwards towards distant hills she remembered seeing on her first, daylight, visit. It was three storeys tall and square-fronted, with red-brick walls and a rust-coloured, lichen-spattered tiled roof. Four dormer windows were set in the steeply pitched roof, with chimneys at each end. Wide white-framed, multi-paned windows flanked the front door and a smart plaque next to it proclaimed the residence to be ‘Silk House’. A smaller sign underneath in black lettering, which looked to have been recently added, warned that it was ‘Strictly Private’. Not a single welcoming light shone from within.
Thea had passed several pubs along the way to the house, hearing the roar of conversation and smelling the aromas of log fires and bitter ale seep from one as a couple entered, and she’d been sorely tempted to stop for a drink and something to eat, but thought better of it, even when it had begun to rain. Priorities, she reminded herself.
She turned her attention back to the keys, selected one and then moved to insert it in the lock, but the front door now stood ajar. She stared at it, certain it had been shut a few seconds earlier. Pushing it with her fingertips, gently in case someone stood behind, she called out, her voice a question.
‘Hello?’
A streetlight on the pavement nearby gave some illumination, but the interior of the house was pitch black. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched, and glanced behind her but saw nothing. She stepped determinedly over the threshold and sniffed – the air inside the house smelled smoky and sharply herbal, as if somewhere a fire had been lit using damp wood. She didn’t scare easily, but an empty house on a dark night in an unfamiliar town was enough to give her pause. Swallowing the first inkling of a misgiving, she walked on, pulling her suitcase behind her. Once she was further inside, she set the case upright and shrugged off the zippered bag of hockey sticks that had been slung over her shoulder. She turned back, feeling along the wall by the door for a switch. Her fingers closed around a round dome and she pushed down on the button she found there. A light flickered and then glowed dimly.