Helen held her hands up, spreading her fingers. “With me it’s my hands. Having them in water so much of the day makes my cuticles crack. Hurts like crazy.”

“My feet have only just started giving me trouble this month, since I have to tend to Jessica Fitzhugh in addition to my regular duties.”

Helen leaned against the doorjamb casually. “Why don’t they get her a maid of her own?”

“In this place? Cheapskate manor?” Nora asked with a laugh. “There’s no money for that.”

“Do you honestly believe there’s no money, or is Lord Darlington just the tightest man who ever lived?”

Nora considered the question and decided that the money really wasn’t there. The once brilliant colors of the Moorish style ballroom were faded and chipped. The leather couch in the upstairs smoking room had sustained a tear that was getting bigger by the day, yet the couch remained. Fixtures were broken, in places ceilings were coming down, tiles were chipped: The list went on and on. Surely those things would have been repaired if the Darlingtons had the money to do so. “They don’t have it,” Nora told Helen. “Just look around.”

“Then why don’t they move to a smaller place?” Helen questioned.

“Wentworth Hall has been in the Darlington family since the seventeen hundreds. They would never give it,” Nora explained. “They’re not like me and you, Helen. They’re rich and they’ve always been rich. They can’t stop being rich just because the money has run out.”

“I don’t understand,” Helen admitted. “How can they be rich if they have no money?”

“It’s breeding, Helen. Rich people have been marrying other rich people for so many generations that by now it’s in their blood. They wouldn’t know how to stop being rich.”

Helen shook her head wearily. “I wish I knew how to stop being poor,” she said. “It’s never going to happen if I keep working here. A person can never get ahead when she earns only her room and board, medical expenses, and such a small amount of pay it’s all gone by the middle of the week.”

“I know,” Nora commiserated. “By the time you post a letter and buy yourself a cup of tea, it’s gone.”

Helen yawned broadly as she stretched. “Well, better turn in. Another thrilling day of laundry awaits me in the morning.”

“Sleep tight,” Nora called after Helen as she disappeared down the hall.

A pang of hunger hit Nora, and the mention of tea made Nora crave a cup. The idea of getting back into her boots was unappealing, so she put on her woolen slippers and made her way down the servant’s staircase to the kitchen.

The gas lamp glowed softly, and in its light Nora saw Michael hunched over a cup at the table. “Can’t sleep?” she inquired, coming into the room and turning up the light.

“Naw. Can’t,” he admitted. “You?”

“I’m so tired I could sleep where I’m standing. Just a little hungry is all,” Nora said as she lit a match to the stove burner. “Do you think we’ll ever get electric lights in this place? Most neighboring estates have been wired for it.”

“Being in this place is more and more like living back in the Dark Ages,” Michael remarked gloomily.

“I agree with you there,” Nora said, taking a cup down from the cupboard. “I’d hate to move on, though. It’s like home. If anyone knows about that, it would be you. Remember when we used to play out in the back with Wesley, Maggie, and Lila? We were all friends then and it didn’t make a difference who was a servant and who wasn’t.”

“That was a long time ago,” Michael said.

“Not so long. It’s not like we’re ancient now,” Nora pointed out.

“Well, it seems long ago,” Michael insisted. “And even then we’d have to sneak about. Lord and Lady Darlington would have sent us packing if they knew we’d been out playing with their children.”

The teakettle whistled and Nora turned off the flame. “What’s keeping you awake, Michael?” She sat down beside him with her tea.

“I’m worrying about having a job,” Michael told her. “The family barely goes riding anymore and they don’t need a whole stable. I’m only nineteen years old and already I’m a dying breed.”

Nora patted his arm. “It can’t be as bad as all that.”

“It is!” Michael insisted. “Horses are expensive to take care of and they would bring a lot of money if they were sold.”

“Hmm,” Nora replied. Michael was feeling so gloomy that she didn’t think that this was the right time to tell him about the letter she’d picked up from Lady Darlington’s desk the other day. It was from the Darlingtons’ eldest son, twenty-year-old Wesley, who had gone off to school at Oxford. He was returning home from America, where he’d been since the end of the school year, and bringing along his American friend before going back to university. Upon his return for the remainder of the summer, one thing he hoped to accomplish, according to his letter, was to enlist Lady Darlington’s help in persuading Lord Darlington to take certain measures to make Wentworth Hall profitable once more, inspired by what he saw while he was in America. One of his ideas was to sell off pieces of the estate. The letter hadn’t explicitly mentioned the stable, but it stood to reason the horses and the groom were on the chopping block.

“What does hmm mean?” Michael asked.

“Nothing. I’m just listening to you is all. They’d never let you go, Michael. You’ve been here your entire life, and your father and grandfather before you. They would find a place for you.”

“It might be for the good,” Michael said. “If I get free of this place, maybe I could make my way in the world, make something of myself instead of always being a servant. I couldn’t leave my father behind, though.”

“What would you do?” Nora asked.

“I don’t know. That’s the thing. Maybe I could go down to the racetrack and become a trainer. One thing I know is horses.”

“That you do,” Nora agreed. “Nobody better with a horse. But isn’t the racetrack a bit… disreputable?”

“Why should I care about that?” Michael challenged. “It’s not like I have some big reputation to protect. If I could earn some real money, nobody would care how I got it.”

“By ‘nobody’ do you mean Maggie?” Nora probed.

“No, I don’t,” Michael said. “I’ve barely spoken to Maggie since she’s been back and that’s nearly two months now. She’s forgotten me and I’ve left her behind as well.”

Nora sighed, not believing a word of it. Maggie might have moved on from Michael, but he was as stuck on her as ever. Any fool could see that.

“I know what you mean about not being a servant forever,” Nora said, intentionally changing the subject. “I plan to put money aside until I have enough to open a little tea shop of my own.”

“That sounds nice, Nora, but how can you put anything aside with the pittance they pay you here? We’re little more than serfs living on the estate like in the feudal times.”

Smiling confidently, Nora tapped her forehead. “I have a plan and I’ve already begun. I’ve been taking on extra sewing jobs.”

“From who?” Michael asked.

“People in town,” Nora explained. “I’ve put up little signs in town and the jobs have already begun coming in. I pick them up and drop them off on my half-day off.”

“So you never have a moment when you’re not working,” Michael observed.

“I don’t mind. It’s going to bring me a better future. I don’t want to be sitting in this kitchen like Rose or Mrs. Howard when I’m their age.”

“Like my dad, working here in the garden all these years,” Michael agreed. “He’d never leave Wentworth Hall, and he’s getting on in years. I don’t know how he’d feel if I left the place. It’s part of what keeps me here.”

“Oh!” Therese startled at the sight of Michael and Nora as she entered the room. “I didn’t expect anyone to be awake so late,” she said. She was wrapped in a floral robe with pleated lace at the sleeves and delicate blue satin slippers. Her abundant blond curls were loosely tied in a ribbon. “I will go,” she added, backing up.

“No, no,” Michael said. “Come join the ranks of the sleepless and bothered.”

“Pull up a chair,” Nora seconded the invitation. Nora didn’t yet trust Therese but maybe she wouldn’t feel that way if she got to know her better. “So what’s keeping you up this night?” she inquired.

Therese sighed deeply. “They want me to start teaching the girls French in addition to my nanny duties,” she revealed. “I know how to speak French, of course, but I’m not sure I can teach someone else to speak the language. I was hired to take care of the baby, not to be a teacher. What if I fail? I will have to return to Paris.”

Something about Therese’s response didn’t ring true to Nora. Therese was clearly bothered by something. But what? “Why did you want to leave France?’ Nora asked, hoping she would learn some scandalous secret. Was there a ruined love affair? A crime?

“My mother,” Therese replied. “She died last year and Paris holds too many memories of her. Everything reminded me of our happy times together. I thought time would ease those memories. But I needed distance, too. And then I got the offer from Lady Darlington and it seemed perfect.”

Nora probed further. “What about your father? Where is he?”

“I never knew my father,” Therese revealed. “As I’ve mentioned, my mother worked at Lord Darlington’s sister’s estate. She never revealed to anyone who my father was. She just felt lucky that Lady Daphne let her keep her job despite her condition.”

“What a scandal!” Nora said, pleased to have unearthed a juicy detail. “Was everyone shocked?”

“The French are not as easily shocked as the English,” Therese commented. “And Lady Daphne was always kind to her. And to me. When Lady Darlington arrived from Nice with James, Lady Daphne acted as my reference.”