Chapter 6
Bridget entered the salon with a swollen cheek, already purpled. Catherine’s stomach tightened—nothing good ever began with bruises.
“What happened to you?” Anne asked.
Bridget’s voice cracked. “He wanted me on my knees. I said no. He hit me—did it anyway.”
Catherine knew what it meant, though Bridget would not say the word aloud. Her eyes sought Mrs Murray, shining with something between hope and plea.
Mrs Murray did not flinch. “Then learn to use what God gave you to better effect if you don’t want that to happen again.”
* * *
The bell for Sunday tea had rung before Catherine left her room. She tied her sleeve down hard and went at last, steps slow enough to make the boards complain. She was late to tea—a rarity.
Anne and Victoria gaped at her, then just as quickly looked away.
She chose the chair at the end of the table where the light fell narrowest, set her saucer down without a clink, and reached for the cup with her left hand.
The right throbbed under the sleeve.
She steadied the china against the tremor and kept her eyes on the steam as if she were only warming herself from the morning chill.
Mrs Murray’s gaze sharpened, slicing through the table’s hush. “Show me your right arm.”
Bridget, cheek still puffed from yesterday, watched. Catherine would not show pain for sport. Not like Bridget—no tears, no plea—only quiet.
Her hand faltered as she set the cup down. Slowly, untied her sleeve and slid it back. Purple shadows bloomed across her wrist, five ovals dark as ink.
For a heartbeat, silence. Then Mrs Murray’s face turned to stone. “Who?”
Catherine swallowed. “Lord Mallus.” She made herself hold the older woman’s gaze. “I did not give him leave.”
Mrs Murray’s mouth thinned, lips vanishing into a thin line. She reached for the silver bell at her elbow and rang once.
Jonas appeared as if conjured.
“You will see that the baron learns restraint,” Mrs Murray said, her voice cold as steel. “No one touches my girl.”
Jonas inclined his head and vanished into the corridor.
* * *
Catherine found herself in the household rooms the next day, key in hand, determined to leave no sum unchecked. The ledger lay open like a mouth waiting to be fed. Columns marched neat as soldiers. Mrs Murray sat with her stockings half-rolled, yawning behind the back of her hand.
“Copy the wine column into a fair hand,” she said. “Mrs Ellison complains she cannot read my twos from my fives.”
Catherine drew the stool closer. She sharpened the quill, blotted once, and began.
Names, dates, gallons, shillings—the room fell away until the only sound was the scratch of nib on laid paper.
Halfway down the page, the numbers stumbled.
A six had become a five, then been balanced two lines later by a sudden, generous one.
Not theft—carelessness. Mrs Murray’s figures often relied upon charm to reconcile themselves.
Catherine did not tut. She did not sigh.
She checked the tally against the chit folded into the ledger’s gutter, ran her nail under the sum, and set down the correction in a margin so narrow it might be mistaken for an ornament.
Then she recopied both columns, the fair totals matching the truth rather than the first intention.
Mrs Murray glanced over as if by chance. “Neat work,” she said. “You were taught properly.”
Catherine kept her eyes on the page. “Yes, ma’am.”
Later, when the house had settled and the fire sank to a red hush, she returned the books to the locked drawer and held the key a second longer than needed.
Sums did not lie if you did not ask them to.
She washed the ink from her fingers and looked at the faint stain left at the cuticle. Some marks stayed.
* * *
The quarrel began with ribbon and ended with tears. Anne had braided the new silk into her hair and Bridget declared it hers by seniority; a slap answered the claim, quick and bright as a match-flare. Catherine crossed the room before the second blow.
“Enough,” she said, not loud. “You’ll bruise where men pay to look.”
Anne’s nostrils flared. “She took it.”
Bridget’s chin lifted. “I did not.”
Catherine took the ribbon, measured it along her own forearm.
“This length is house property. Mrs Ellison cut it from the bolt this morning.” She pointed to their reflections in the pier glass, one face blotched, the other high with colour.
“And those faces are mine until after nine o’clock.
If either of you arrive before a gentleman looking like a hawker’s wife, you’ll peel potatoes until your penance suits me. ”
Silence. Then the small deflation that follows sense. Bridget muttered, “Yes, Catherine.” Anne bit her lip and nodded.
“Good,” Catherine said. “Anne, you’ll wear the blue ribbon from the drawer. Bridget, you’ll take the ivory. You are both to thank Mrs Ellison for her trouble and say nothing further about silk until you can name three other things a gentleman praised you for this week.”
They went. Their footfalls softened. The room resumed its hum like a hive after a hand has passed.
That evening Mrs Murray paused her with a finger on her sleeve. Her mouth moved—amusement, approval, something adjacent.
She said nothing. She walked on.
* * *
The drayman rolled the cask into the yard with the bored efficiency of a man who had never once been challenged. “Fifty gallons,” he called, chalking the head as Jonas watched with his arms folded.
Catherine stepped out into the weak afternoon, skirts gathered from the mud. “Derek,” she said, “the gauging rod.”
The boy darted, returned. She dipped the rod, turned it, checked the wet mark against the stave.
“Short by nearly two gallons,” Catherine said, not unkindly. “The last barrel was the same. Your cart settles on our cobbles, and the measure settles with it.”
He laughed as if she had made a jest. “The lady must be mistaken.”
Jonas’s shadow shifted. “Lady’s seldom mistaken,” he said.
Catherine set the rod down. “You may top it from the spare or deduct the coin on the spot. Either will satisfy the house.” She turned the ledger so the man could see the line beneath his thumb. “And I shall note whichever you choose.”
A pause, then calculation, followed by the small, grudging bow of a man who means to curse at a distance. “Top it, then.”
“Derek will help you,” Catherine said. “And please tell Blyth & Co that our cobbles will go on settling for years to come.”
That evening Mrs Murray’s fingers skimmed the ledger. “Keener than mine,” she said without looking up.
Catherine did not answer.