Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones

out of your mouth, it will drive me mad.”
    The implications of that statement nibbled at the back of her mind but she let them be for the moment. “If I am to join this household, there are things I’ll need to collect from the baron’s—that is, from Fonten House. It’s your house now, of course.”
    “It is? That mansion?”
    Barbara stifled the laughter from her voice, but not from her eyes. “Maisetra, you’re rich now. Very rich. Fonten House is only the smallest part.”
    Margerit looked frightened again. “How much—no, leave that for later. Yes, your clothes and belongings. And the housekeeper will need to find you a place in the servants’ rooms. I don’t know what needs to be done. What were the arrangements when you served my godfather?”
    Barbara glanced around Margerit’s small chamber and compared it to the room she’d occupied in Fonten House. “It doesn’t matter. As you said, you are not the baron and this is not the baron’s house. I must follow the customs of this one.”
    * * *
    When Margerit was ready to face her aunts, and when the matter of her own presence in the house had been acknowledged by them as inevitable, Barbara placed herself in the care of the maid who returned for the tea things, to be taken downstairs to see what needed to be done. As it happened, LeFevre had foreseen the matter. When she descended to the understairs, a pair of familiar trunks were nearly blocking the passageway in from the back entrance.
    Mefro Lozenek, the housekeeper, was a tall, forbidding woman of the sort who could keep a staff in line with only a glance. She looked Barbara up and down as if she were a street urchin applying to scrub pots. “We run a traditional household here,” she intoned briskly. “I’m in charge of all the female staff. Except, of course, for the kitchen help.” She made that omission sound as if it bordered on anarchy. “You will be assigned to share a bedroom based on your station. Meals are eaten here in the lower hall. As you won’t be serving at table, you will eat with the rest of us—no keeping a plate warm, no special meals from the kitchen. Seating at table is by rank too. There will be no gadding about. Unless you’re sent out on errands, you’re expected to stay indoors. Unless you’re attending on the family when they go to Mass, you go with the rest of us to Saint Mari-Mirikur. There is to be no skulking in private. Bedrooms are for sleeping and dressing, not for lazing around. At the times when Maisetra Margerit doesn’t require your presence, you will be given useful occupation.”
    Barbara briefly contemplated taking the willow path for the moment and bending until matters could be cleared up later, but that would only put the burden on Margerit’s back. And protecting Margerit was now her first task. She drew herself up and looked the housekeeper in the eyes. “I respect your authority over the servants of this house, but I answer only to Maisetra Margerit. I take orders only from her. If she gives me leave, I will come and go as I choose. I will follow the rules of the household regarding bed and board but beyond that I do not answer to you.”
    The housekeeper stared at her with her mouth open like a dead fish. She shut it with a snap then said, “We’ll see about that. You must excuse us, we’ve never had a duelist in service before.” She gave the word a peevish tone that made it clear she considered the very occupation an affectation. “And what, pray tell, is the rank and station of a duelist in relation to a parlormaid?”
    Barbara’s stomach clenched. Did the woman not know how matters stood? Had the understairs gossip not reached that detail? Or was she taking petty revenge by making her say it aloud with all manner of others listening in? “Only a nobleman may keep a duelist,” she said carefully. “I serve the maisetra merely as armin, as her bodyguard. An armin may rank high or low, but since it matters here, you may count me