Daughter of Mystery by Heather Rose Jones Page A

among the least in the house.”
    Mefro Lozenek frowned impatiently. “Don’t play games with me and tell me what I may do and may not do. Tell me plainly, what is your station?”
    Barbara’s voice became flat and expressionless. “The late baron left me to Maisetra Margerit in his will. What do you think my station is? I am her possession.” She dared the woman to make mock over it.
    There was a brief flash of triumph in the housekeeper’s eyes before she turned to rebuke a cluster of maids who had stopped their work to gawk. “Fetch Aggy and Luzza from the kitchen.” When the two girls were brought out, it was clear that their position entailed little higher than scrubbing pots and cleaning the stove. “Aggy, Luzza, this is the new girl Barbara. She will be sharing your room. One of you show her where to take her things.”
    Barbara gave a silent sigh as the girl identified as Aggy gaped at her and started babbling, “Oh no, ma’am! I can’t, ma’am! They say she killed a man—we’ll be murdered in our beds for sure!” The one called Luzza added to the rising hysteria with, “My mum will have a fit. She’ll call me home if she hears I’m sharing a bed with…with…” Her vocabulary failed to rise to the occasion of what she believed the objection would be.
    The housekeeper gave each of the girls a quick slap and said they’d do as they were told, but one of the footmen who had been loitering at the back of the room interjected, “You weren’t thinking to fit those two big trunks into Luz and Aggy’s room were you?”
    Mefro Lozenek peered around the corner to examine the offending luggage and threw up her hands. “It can’t be done. There aren’t any free rooms and it would be beyond what is allowable to turn anyone else out for your sake.”
    “Put her in my room,” came a voice. Barbara recognized Maitelen, the young woman who had brought up Margerit’s tea. Her clothing marked her as an upper parlor maid, well toward the top of the hierarchy. “Since Gaita took the end room with Ferlint, I’ve had it to myself. And there’s that odd corner behind the chimney where the trunks would fit. And I’m not afraid of being murdered in my bed. Come on,” she said to Barbara, heading for the stairs without waiting for the housekeeper to approve.
    A few minutes later she surveyed the cramped but adequate space that Maitelen showed her as the trunks were stowed away. “It was kind of you to make the offer.”
    Maitelen snorted. “Kindness don’t get you on in the world.”
    Her speech habits betrayed her as a country girl, one step removed from the dairy and chickens. That she had climbed as high as she had, Barbara thought, was a tribute either to her shrewdness or to the unavailability of more refined servants in a town like Chalanz.
    “Here’s the deal,” Maitelen continued. “Maisetra Margerit—she’ll be wanting her own lady’s maid now, not just making do with help from Gaita who knows how to dress and do hair on the side. And when she comes to choose someone, I want to be the one she thinks of. I don’t care if you’re a slave or the Queen of Sheba, suddenly you’re the one the young maisetra wants at her side. So you’re my new best friend.”
    Barbara admired the girl’s honesty and straight talk. They would deal together well enough, she thought. And if she weren’t yet ready to provide an enthusiastic reference, then sharing a room would give her a basis for judgment.
    When Maitelen had left, Barbara looked around the room. The width was barely enough for space to walk between the bedsteads on either side. At the far end from the door stood a low dresser and washstand on the left side. The right side was blocked by a wide brick chimney, passing through from the family rooms below to the roof above. Maitelen thought that made it a choice bedroom for it was never cold. But an architect who cared more about symmetry than practicality had positioned the room’s only window