Chapter 5
“Mr. Hawthorne is in the city,” Clarissa said. “He won’t be back until nine.”
She did not step aside. Nadia stood in the hallway with her hands at her sides and the carpet runner pressing into her shoes.
“Then I’ll wait,” she said.
“No.” Clarissa leaned against the doorframe. “You’ll listen. You’ve been here seven years, and you still don’t understand how this works. You think Theodore is kind. He is. He’s kind the way a man is kind to a dog that doesn’t bite. But he’s going to marry me, and after Sunday his mother will smile at me and call me daughter, and you will still be the woman who cleans his floors.”
Nadia said nothing.
“You want to tell him about the hair?” Clarissa’s voice dropped, almost gentle. “Go ahead. He’ll be embarrassed. He’ll ask me, and I’ll cry, and I’ll tell him you’ve been strange lately, that you’ve been resentful, that you frightened me with a pair of scissors. And he’ll believe me. Do you know why? Because I’m the woman he chose, and you’re the woman who dusts his books.”
Nadia’s throat tightened. “You can’t keep Mila’s appointment from her. It’s medicine.”
“It’s a budget line.” Clarissa smiled. “And I control the budget.”
She started to close the door, then stopped.
“Your file,” she said. “The one from the agency. Did you know it mentions Pell Street?”
Nadia’s blood went still.
“The fire. The garment workshop. Your mother.” Clarissa tilted her head. “I read the investigation summary. You knew the back door was bolted, didn’t you? Your mother told you. And you said nothing.”
The hallway seemed to tilt.
“You learned silence in a burning room,” Clarissa said softly. “You’ve been practicing it ever since. So don’t come to this door and pretend you’ve suddenly found a voice. We both know what happens to the people who rely on you.”
She closed the door.
Nadia stood there for a long time. Then she went downstairs and finished her work, because there was nothing else to do.
The teapot broke the next morning.
Nadia was serving breakfast when Clarissa came in with the pieces in her hands, her eyes bright with tears. Theodore looked up from his newspaper.
“Theodore,” Clarissa said, her voice choked. “I don’t want to say this. But I just found your maid in the cabinet. The tea set. The one you love.”
Theodore’s face changed. He looked at the shattered porcelain in her hands, the indigo pattern, the hundred-year-old glaze. Then he looked at Nadia.
Nadia’s mouth opened. She knew exactly where the set had been stored. She had wrapped it herself and placed it at the bottom of the cabinet, and there was only one person in the house with both the authority and the reason to take it out.
“I didn’t—” she began.
“Please don’t,” Clarissa whispered. “Please don’t lie to him.”
Theodore set down his fork. He looked tired. He looked at Nadia the way a man looks at a bill he had not expected.
“I expected better from you,” he said. “I’ve always treated you well. I thought you knew that.”
The words went through her more cleanly than any shout. She lowered her head and said nothing, and Clarissa’s hand found Theodore’s arm, and the room settled back into its order.
That afternoon, Nadia went to the pantry. Oswald was there, polishing a silver tray.
“I need to ask you something,” she said.
He set the cloth down.
“You see everything,” she said. “You’ve been in this house longer than anyone. Is there any way — any way at all — for someone like me to be believed?”
Oswald looked at her for a long moment. Then he reached under the counter and took out a leather-covered notebook.
“I have kept a record,” he said. “Every incident. Every date. Every word I heard.” He opened it. Page after page of neat handwriting. “It is not enough. A servant’s notebook against a rich woman’s tears. It will not be enough.”
“Then what is?”
He closed the book. “There was a man in the orchid house on Tuesday. He saw what she did to you. He is not a servant, and he is not afraid of her.”
May you like
Nadia’s heart began to beat hard. “Who?”
“His name is Dragan Kovac.”
