"What is your name?" he asked.
"Clara, Your Grace. Clara Bell."
"Thank you, Clara Bell."
He nodded once and left the room.
Clara stood very still. Her cheeks felt warm. It was such a small thing—a thank-you, a half-smile—but in this house, where servants were treated like furniture, it felt like sunlight.
What Clara did not know was that someone had been standing in the corridor outside: someone in a pale blue silk dress with golden curls and cold gray eyes. Lady Cecilia Marlowe had heard every word.
Lady Cecilia was twenty-two years old and the most admired young woman in London society. She was the only daughter of the Earl of Marlowe, and in six weeks she would marry the Duke of Ravenshire. She had come to stay at Ravenshire Hall with her mother to prepare for the great engagement ball. Everyone said she was beautiful; everyone said she was charming.
The servants knew better.
In the two weeks since she had arrived, Lady Cecilia had slapped a kitchen girl for bringing her tea that was too hot. She had made a footman stand outside in the rain for an hour because he had looked at her without permission. She had thrown a hairbrush at her own maid, a shy girl named Hannah, so hard that it left a bruise. And she had never once received a smile from the Duke. Not once. But a common maid had received one in the library that morning.
That evening, the housekeeper, Mrs. Dobbs, called every servant in the house to the great hall. The engagement ball was only days away, and Lady Cecilia wished to inspect the staff. She wanted to be sure they would look perfect in front of her important guests.
They stood in two long lines on the marble floor: footmen, maids, grooms, kitchen girls, the cook, the gardeners—nearly forty of them, all in their best uniforms.
Clara stood near the end of the second line. Her long chestnut hair was braided neatly down her back as it always was, reaching almost to her waist. It was the only lovely thing Clara had left in the world. Her mother used to brush it every night by the fire—one hundred strokes while singing softly. Her mother had been gone for many years now, but every time Clara braided her hair, she felt her mother's hands.
The tall clock in the hall struck half past eight.
Lady Cecilia came down the grand staircase slowly, like a queen. Her maid, Hannah, followed two steps behind, carrying a small sewing basket and keeping her eyes on the floor.
Cecilia walked along the first line, looking at each servant in turn. Sometimes she said nothing; sometimes she made a sharp little remark: a footman's collar was crooked, a maid's apron was not white enough. Then she reached the second line. She walked past one maid, then another. Then she stopped in front of Clara.