Lily Read Online Free Page B

clane, an’ turned outside-in like a pilla case. Well, ma’am, it shortened me holiday considerably, you can understand, an’ put me in nade of anither post sooner than I was plannin’. Would you be thinkin’ of hirin’ me, naow?”
    The fat coachman came around in front of the horses and glowered at them. “You’ll have to get up now, I can’t be waiting any longer.”
    Lily turned winsome eyes to her prospective employer. But that lady was not to be persuaded by winsome eyes, nor hurried by an impatient coachman. “If I gave you a job, you’d start in the scullery. It’s three shillings a month, and you must buy your own cap and aprons. You’d work hard and have Sunday mornings off—to go to church, not Mass—as well as an afternoon a month for yourself. I’m Mrs. Howe, housekeeper to a viscount; Devon Darkwell is his name, Lord Sandown. Is that your only dress?”
    “I—yes, ma’am.”
    “It’ll do for now, I suppose. Can you pay coach fare to Trewyth?”
    “I can t!”
    “Then that’ll have to come out o’ your wage as well.” She tapped the edge of the envelope in the V between her thumb and forefinger and peered at Lily consideringly. “You don’t look that strong.”
    “I am, though. You’d be—”
    “And if I ever hear a sacrilegious word out o’ your mouth again, I’ll box your ears and send you packing.”
    “You won’t, I prom—”
    “Get in, then, and be quick. You’re keeping everyone in the coach waiting.”

Two
    D ESPITE WORRY AND NERVES and the great question mark her immediate future had become, Lily slept fitfully much of the way to Cornwall. Exhaustion overwhelmed anxiety; and oblivion, she discovered, served a dual purpose: it allowed her to keep her atrociously inept Irish accent to herself a little longer—what a bird-witted idea that had been—and it gave her a respite from the sullen, unnerving silences of the Howes—mother and son, as she’d surmised. Early on in the journey she’d made tentative inquiries about her new situation, but with paltry success. Their destination was a place called Darkstone Manor, and Mrs. Howe spoke in short, belligerent sentences of “the master” and “his lordship,” but beyond that Lily could get little from either of them about her new employer. The smell of the sea grew stronger as they went, and yet she had no idea where they were or even toward which Cornish coast, Channel or Atlantic, they were traveling.
    It was after midnight and the moon had set by the time they reached Trewyth; all Lily could make of the silent village was that it was small and clean. She climbed from the public coach, limbs stiff from fatigue and inactivity, and waited, shivering a little in the misty chill, while the driver threw the Howes’ baggage down from the top. They had rather a lot of it, she noted, considering they’d only been away for three days while Mrs. Howe visited her sister in Bruton. Lily heard the sound of hooves and turned to see another coach, a handsome black private carriage in need of a wash, clattering toward them down the unpaved street. Lord Sandown’s equipage, she assumed, sent to carry them the rest of the way to the manor house. She felt weary beyond thought. As she climbed into the carriage she wondered how long it would take, and whether she had strength enough to go another mile before she collapsed.
    But in a mercifully short while their new vehicle turned in at high stone lodge gates bordering a wooded park and moved sedately down a twisting gravel drive. She forgot her fatigue and peered out the window curiously, but there was little to see except the black shapes of trees passing almost within arm’s reach of the carriage on either side. The salt tang of the sea was stronger now in the windless midnight hush. She thought she could make out a light up ahead, but the road bent sharply and she lost sight of it.
    “There’ll be room for you in Lowdy Rostarn’s bed in the attic,” Mrs. Howe said