2. Leah #2
“I finally managed to get some more work with that seamstress,” I say, my eyes watering as a wave of Ada’s sickly-sweet perfume hits me.
I would’ve smelled her coming if my nose wasn’t already stuffed up—the overpowering scent she wears turns my stomach as much as it clogs my sinuses.
It would be funny, the thought that I’m literally allergic to her, if it weren’t for the way my nose burns in her presence.
“The seamstress?” she repeats. “But it’s been weeks since they last needed you there.”
“I asked about that,” the lie trips easily off my tongue. “She said they’ve just been quiet recently, but they wanted an extra pair of hands today. The new season’s approaching, after all, and the ladies need their gowns.”
Ada eyes me. She suspects there’s something I’m not being entirely honest about, but she can never decide how to call me out on it, or whether she even cares enough to try. She settles for an insult instead.
“Odd. I assumed you must’ve done such an awful job last time they wouldn’t ask you back again.”
“I guess not,” I say evenly, holding her gaze.
She pushes out her palm. “Well, hand it over then.”
I let a scowl spread across my face as I pull out a handful of coins—three strats, a fraction of what I actually made scavenging—and place them in her hand. This daylight robbery is the only reason she puts up with my absences from home to work part-time at the “seamstress’s.”
“Is that all?” she demands.
I shrug. “It’s a normal day’s wage for a skivvy like me.”
She narrows her gaze but doesn’t push the issue. She must be in a good mood. It makes me instantly uneasy. Anything that makes her happy can’t be good for me.
“Don’t shrug,” she orders instead, turning on her heel. “It looks common.”
I bite my tongue and follow her into the house, debating whether to deliberately step on the poofy trail of her ridiculous lavender gown. At least she doesn’t force me to wear those monstrosities anymore, not since she downgraded me from stepdaughter to servant.
“Next time, warn me before you go out,” Ada says, sweeping through the kitchen. “The chamber pots need scrubbing, and there’s been no one to attend to this pigsty. You might feel at home in squalor, but I expect it dealt with this instant.”
I get started on the pile of pans in the sink once she’s left, but not before I take a swig of my allergy medicine and enjoy some sweet relief from my watering eyes and itching leg. After I’ve washed the dishes, I turn my attention to the vegetables waiting to be chopped for dinner.
There was a time when we employed both a maid and a cook, back when my father’s merchant business was doing better. Now any extra money is reserved for the “essentials,” like new gowns for Ada and gambling money for my father to fritter away at his gentleman’s club.
“And what exciting adventures did you get up to at the dress shop today?” a light voice asks from the kitchen doorway.
I turn to beam at Evie, my half sister. At just turned nineteen, she’s only a little younger than Hodges, but much more lovely.
She has my father’s dark hair—a world away from the bright red locks my mother gave me—and a soft, round face.
I might be biased, but I think she’s just about the prettiest little sister in the world.
“Oh, you know, I stabbed myself with a needle half a dozen times and dropped a bowl of buttons.” I wink at her even as I tug down the sleeve of my dress where I scratched my arm trying to climb out of that crater.
Evie knows very well that I didn’t spend today at some dressmaker’s, but I prefer to spare her the gory details of my scavenging.
It only takes a bit of makeup and my long, modest dresses to hide any injuries on bad days.
Better to protect her from all that. She already thinks I sacrifice too much for her.
“Here,” she says, picking up a peeler. “Hand me those carrots.”
“Don’t let your mother catch you,” I warn, twisting my voice into a semblance of Ada’s.
“It’s not proper for ladies to attend to household chores, they might roughen their delicate fingers.
” Ada’s much milder with Evie, but even Ada’s version of gentle still comes with plenty of picking and criticisms. It just lacks the crueler edge she usually saves for me.
Evie smiles, but her eyes are already wandering to the recipe book I have propped up on the counter, brightening with interest. “Oh, why don’t you try sage instead of rosemary?” she says, scanning the text. “And the lemons…zest them first. You don’t want to waste all that flavor.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” I say and she gives me an apologetic smile. She and I both know she has to tell me what to do, partly because I’ve never been as culinarily gifted as she has, and partly because Ada keeps trying to ban her from the kitchen.
My stepmother despairs over the fact that Evie would rather be getting her hands dirty in a bowl of batter than practicing the pianoforte like a society lady.
Evie is better behaved than I am and mostly tries to obey her mother.
But more than once, I’ve caught her staring longingly at the stove as I pull together a meal.
“So what was on the cards today?” I ask her. “Dancing lessons? Tea with some gossipy old lady and her dull-as-dishwater daughters?”
“Something like that,” Evie says with a sigh as she casually carves the carrots into pretty rosettes that would take me hours to achieve.
Her tone instantly sets me on edge. “She’s not been talking about any more suitors, has she?”
“She’s always talking about suitors, Leah, you know that.”
“You need to be firmer,” I say, unable to keep the worry creeping into my voice. “Put her off, Eves. As long as you can see this season through without letting her trap you into something…” I lower my voice, wary of being overheard. “Then I’ll have enough saved, and we won’t have to stay.”
“It won’t work,” Evie shakes her head, and there’s a weird flush in her cheeks I don’t like at all. “I’m not like you, Leah, I can’t go toe-to-toe with her the way you did.”
I know what she means. When I turned eighteen, Ada was ecstatic at the idea that she could finally be rid of me and promptly started trying to marry me off to any suitor that would have me.
To be fair, after years of being subjected to Ada as a stepmother, the idea of getting out of this house and her reach had its temptations.
Just up and leaving wasn’t an option, not without a guild license to keep me off the streets and out of the workhouse, and I had no skills or resources at that time to secure one of those, even if I’d been okay with leaving Evie behind.
The only way out was through marriage…but in the end, I couldn’t face it.
Being married off to some stranger Ada picked for me felt too much like leaving one cage just to be locked up in another.
I realized the only way to be certain of my liberty would be if I built it with my own hands.
Once I’d decided that, Ada’s hopes were doomed.
She simply hadn’t reckoned with my sheer stubborn perseverance.
I determinedly scared every potential husband off with extreme moodiness, bad manners and, on one visit, a very hot cup of tea poured directly into a handsy gentleman’s lap.
That defiance cost me dearly, of course.
I spent more days locked in my room and missed more meals over those few years than I care to count.
Small, precious items I’d managed to hold onto over the years disappeared or were destroyed, and she did her best to make sure every little pleasure was taken away.
But still, I stayed unmoved. Eventually, Ada gave up.
She decided I’d be the family servant instead—to “make use” of me, as she put it to my father—and miraculously, I discovered that this punishment afforded me a sliver of the freedom I craved.
I could come and go from the house on errands while avoiding Ada’s constant scrutiny.
That’s when I started hatching the plan I’ve been working on for the past three years.