O.C. Writers

// Chapter One

I waited for my dragonfly beneath the low, morning clouds. I knew she would come. She always did when I ventured outdoors while the sun was up. I knew she would find me, even here, as I sat along the north wall with only my wool dress, petticoats, and maid’s apron to protect me from the cold stone bench—embellished simply, as so many things at Windsor Castle were, with the VR insignia of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

So, where was she? Where was the friend who could make me see reason? I needed to find her. I needed her comfort because right now I had none.

Back inside, every servant scurried to prepare for Queen Victoria’s return from her Scottish retreat. I should be in there, too, peeling potatoes for Mrs. Crossey, the cook I assisted most days, but the summons from the House Steward had sent me into a panic.

The young page who delivered the order didn’t tell me why I was being called in, but I excused myself just the same and told Mrs. Crossey I’d see to it immediately. Instead I’d come here, to the kitchen garden—an unauthorized detour, to be sure—but I needed time to compose myself. Experience had already taught me that nothing good ever came from being summoned to that dull, dank office.

But what was it this time?

Had a new complaint been lodged against me? I’d tried to be careful. I’d reported to the kitchen on time every morning this week and stayed until properly dismissed. I hadn’t even palmed a single new trinket for my memory box. Not in several days anyway.

The more likely reason was the one twisting knots in my stomach and making my hands slick beneath my lambskin gloves. In the past month, two dozen members of the staff had been dismissed. Some of them maids in good standing with far better credentials than I. That I was next on the House Steward’s dreaded list seemed not only possible but rather overdue.

The others, I’d heard, had their years in royal service to help them secure positions with prominent families. With only six months of experience, I couldn’t hope to be so lucky. Girls like me usually ended up on street corners begging for coins, not employed in a royal castle. If I’d come into this world with any luck at all, I was sure it was used up the day I was delivered to the servants’ door and handed a scullery maid’s apron, even if it hadn’t seemed so at the time.

If I was turned out now, I’d end up in a workhouse or worse. Probably worse.

What was I going to do?

“Dragonfly! Where are you?” I hissed the words through clenched teeth, my fists balled at my sides. I needed my friend. I needed her to tell me again all would be well.

Then I spied a shiver in the air; that small, silvery dart with the glittering wings.

Had she soared over the castle wall? Had she slipped through an oak tree’s canopy? I hardly knew, but I was relieved beyond measure to see her hovering in front of me now, fixing me with her wide, violet eyes.

“Finally, you’ve come. Where have you been?”

Behind me, the creak of a door hinge told me we were no longer alone. At the intrusion, my dragonfly flew away.

No! I screamed the word without a sound, but she didn’t turn back. She was already gone.

I steeled myself to face the House Steward’s ire until a squeal of laughter filled the air. The intruders were only two maids, like myself. One of them was my roommate, Marlene Carlisle, who everyone called Marlie. She was a willowy girl with hair the color of wheat and a smear of freckles on her nose, and I recognized her happy Highland lilt at once.

I strode away along the gray pebble path, hoping she’d ignore me, as she usually did.

“Jane, is that you? What are you doing out here?”

I cringed and debated whether to keep walking.

“Mrs. Crossey is searching for you. She’s beside herself. I’d get back inside if I were you.”

As if she cared a whit about me. We shared a room in the maids’ quarters, but little else. Most days we hardly spoke at all, which suited me just fine. If only this were one of those days.

Since she wouldn’t let me be, I tucked a loose, dark curl behind my ear and muttered something about needing air. It wasn’t convincing, not even a little. It certainly wasn’t to Marlie’s companion, a pretty but bossy girl named Abigail, who was tugging Marlie away.

And even now that girl glared at me.

I suppose I deserved it, but there wasn’t time to regret those past mistakes now.

Marlie held her ground.

“Then come with us,” she said.

I turned, startled by the invitation. She’d never invited me anywhere before. Was it pity? Did she know something I didn’t? Did she already know my fate?

“Why?” I braced, fearing the answer.

“You spend too much time alone, silly. It isn’t right. It isn’t normal.”

Abigail laughed, but there was no joy in it. She leaned closer to Marlie and whispered, though loudly enough for me to hear, “Of course it’s not normal. She’s not normal.”

Marlie nudged her away, but the words hit their mark. I swallowed hard. I didn’t care what they thought of me. I’d stopped caring what anyone thought a long time ago.

I was almost relieved when the kitchen door flew open again.

But my rage spiked when I saw it was only the new stable hand on his way back to the mews with a sandwich in hand. Not surprising. That young man ate more than any three men combined, though you’d never know it by the lanky look of him.

“Good morning, Mr. Wyck,” Abigail called out in a singsong voice. “The farmer’s girl didn’t deliver the cream this morning, so we’re off to collect it. Care to join us?”

It had become a game among the maids to try to win Mr. Wyck’s favor, or at least get closer to that flop of chestnut hair and those scowling nutmeg eyes.

I don’t know what they saw in him. There was nothing charming in the way he strutted through the kitchen whenever he pleased, pretending to be oblivious to the fuss and fluster he created among the young women. He was a nuisance, and a smug one at that.

“Jane Shackle! There you are. What in the world are you doing out here? Mr. MacDougall won’t wait all day.”

Mrs. Crossey leaned out the door and waved me in with a sweep of her thick, fleshy hand.

I resisted the urge to glance at Marlie, Abigail, or Mr. Wyck. If they observed this humiliation, I didn’t want to know. It was better to think they were on their way to wherever they were going and that they weren’t taking the slightest interest in me.

It was wishful thinking, to be sure. If my dragonfly were here, she’d laugh and tell me to expect a thorough account to be conveyed in whispers from maid to page, footman to cook, and underbutler to valet before the evening meal.

And she’d be right, of course, because that’s how things worked around here. Servants know everything.