Overhead the electric bulbs snapped and clicked. I glanced at the silver tips of his shoes, so brightly polished that I could see the reflection of his balding scalp and milky eyes watching me. He wasn’t the only professor who worked late, or the only one whose gaze lingered too long on my bent-over backside. But the smell of lye and other chemicals on my clothes deterred the others. Dr Hastings seemed to relish it.
He slipped his pale fingers around my wrist. I dropped the brush in surprise. ‘Your knuckles are bleeding,’ he said, pulling me to my feet.
‘It’s the cold. It chaps my skin.’ I tried to tug my hand back, but he held firm. ‘It’s nothing.’
His eyes followed the sleeve of my muslin dress to the stained apron and frayed hem, a dress that not even my father’s poorest servants would have worn. But that was many years ago, when we lived in the big house on Belgrave Square, where my closet burst with furs and silks and soft lacy things I’d worn only once or twice, since Mother threw out the previous year’s fashions like bathwater.
That was before the scandal.
Now, men seldom looked at my clothes for long. When a girl fell from privilege, men were less interested in her ratty skirts than in what lay underneath, and Dr Hastings was no different. His eyes settled on my face. My friend Lucy told me I looked like the lead actress at the Brixton, a Frenchwoman with high cheekbones and skin pale as bone, even paler against the dark, straight hair she wore swept up in a Swiss-style chignon. I kept my own hair in a simple braid, though a few strands always managed to slip out. Dr Hastings reached up to tuck them behind my ear, his fingers rough as parchment against my temple. I cringed inside but fought to keep my face blank. Better to give no reaction so he wouldn’t be encouraged. But my shaking hands betrayed me.
Dr Hastings smiled thinly. The tip of his tongue snaked out from between his lips.
Suddenly the sound of groaning hinges made him startle. My heart pounded wildly at this chance to slip away. Mrs Bell, the lead maid, stuck her gray head through the cracked door. Her mouth curved in its perpetual frown as her beady eyes darted between the professor and me. I’d never been so glad to see her wrinkled face.
‘Juliet, out with you,’ she barked. ‘Mary’s gone and broken a lamp, and we need another set of hands.’
I stepped away from Dr Hastings, relief rolling off me like a cold sweat. My eyes met Mrs Bell’s briefly as I slipped into the hall. I knew that look. She couldn’t watch out for me all the time.
One day, she might not be there to intercede.
The moment I was free of those dark hallways, I dashed into the street toward Covent Garden as the moon hovered low over London’s skyline. The harsh wind bit at my calves through worn wool stockings as I waited for a carriage to pass. Across the street a figure stood in the lee of the big wooden bandstand’s staircase.
‘You awful creature,’ Lucy said, slipping out of the shadows. She hugged the collar of her fur coat around her long neck. Her cheeks and nose were red beneath a light sheen of French powder. ‘I’ve been waiting an hour.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I leaned in and pressed my cheek to hers. Her parents would be horrified to know she had snuck out to meet me. They had encouraged our friendship when Father was London’s most famous surgeon, but were quick to forbid her to see me after his banishment.
Luckily for me, Lucy loved to disobey.
‘They’ve had me working late all week opening up some old rooms,’ I said. ‘I’ll be cleaning cobwebs out of my hair for days.’
She pretended to pluck something distasteful from my hair and grimaced. We both laughed. ‘Honestly, I don’t know how you can stand that work, with the rats and beetles and, my God, whatever else lurks down there.’ Her blue eyes gleamed mischievously. ‘Anyway, come on. The boys are waiting.’ She snatched my hand, and we hurried across the courtyard to a redbrick building with a stone staircase. Lucy banged the horse-head knocker twice.
The door swung open, and a young man with thick chestnut hair and a fine suit appeared. He had Lucy’s same fair skin and wide-set eyes, so this must be the cousin she’d told me about. I timidly evaluated his tall forehead, the helix of his ears that projected only a hair too far from the skull. Good-looking, I concluded. He studied me wordlessly in return, in my third-hand coat, with worn elbows and frayed satin trim, that must have looked so out of place next to Lucy’s finely tailored one. But to his credit, his grin didn’t falter for a moment. She must have warned him she was bringing a street urchin and not to say anything rude.
‘Let us in, Adam,’ Lucy said, pushing past him. ‘My toes are freezing to the street.’
I slipped in behind her. Shrugging off her coat, she said, ‘Adam, this is the friend I’ve told you about. Not a penny to her name, can’t cook, but God, just look at her.’
My face went red, and I shot Lucy a withering look, but Adam only smiled. ‘Lucy’s nothing if not blunt,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m used to it. I’ve heard far worse come out of her mouth. And she’s right, at least about the last part.’
I jerked my head toward him, expecting a leer. But he was being sincere, which only left me feeling more at a loss for words.
‘Where are they?’ Lucy asked, ignoring us. A bawdy roar spilled from a back room, and Lucy grinned and headed toward the sound. I expected Adam to follow her. But his gaze found me instead. He smiled again.
Startled, I paused a second too long. This was new. No vulgar winks, no glances at my chest. I was supposed to say something pleasant. But instead I drew a breath in, like a secret I had to keep close. I knew how to handle cruelty, not kindness.
‘May I take your coat?’ he asked. I realized I had my arms wrapped tightly around my chest, though it was pleasantly warm inside the house.
I forced my arms apart and slid the coat off. ‘Thank you.’ My voice was barely audible.
We followed Lucy down the hall to a sitting room where a group of lanky medical students reclined on leather sofas, sipping glasses of honey-colored liquid. Winter examinations had just ended, and they were clearly deep into their celebration. This was the kind of thing Lucy adored – breaking up a boys’ club, drinking gin and playing cards and reveling in their shocked faces. She got away with it under the pretense of visiting her cousin, though this was a far step from the elderly aunt’s parlor where Lucy was supposed to be meeting him.
Adam stepped forward to join the crowd, laughing at something someone said. I tried to feel at ease in the unfamiliar crowd, too aware of my shabby dress and chapped hands. Smile, Mother would have whispered. You belonged among these people, once. But first I needed to gauge how drunk they were, the lay of the room, who was most likely not to laugh at my poor clothes. Analyzing, always analyzing – I couldn’t feel safe until I knew every aspect of what I was facing.
Mother had been so confident around other people, always able to talk about the church sermon that morning, about the rising price of coffee. But I’d taken after my father when it came to social situations. Awkward. Shy. More apt to study the crowd like some social experiment than to join in.
Lucy had tucked herself on the sofa between a blond-haired boy and one with a face as red as an apple. A half-empty rum bottle dangled from her graceful fingers. When she saw me hanging back in the doorway, she stood and sauntered over.
‘The sooner you find a husband,’ she growled playfully, ‘the sooner you can stop scrubbing floors. So pick one of them and say something charming.’
I swallowed. My eyes drifted to Adam. ‘Lucy, men like these don’t marry girls like me.’
‘You haven’t the faintest idea what men want. They don’t want some snobbish porridge-faced brat plucking at needlepoint all day.’
‘Yes, but I’m a maid.’
‘A