LITMIR.BIZ

       York—January 1806

      It would usually have taken me only a few minutes to walk from the workrooms of Follet and Sanders on Blake Street to Linas’s house, but that day was an exception. That day, I was wearing my pretty fur-lined bootees, not designed for three inches of snow that had fallen in flakes the size of halfpennies since midmorning, and by the time I reached the corner of Blake Street and Stonegate, where Linas’s house was, the freezing wet had reached my toes and I was dizzy with slithering over a bed of snow-covered ice. I’m a tough northern lass, I reminded myself, clutching my thick woollen shawl tighter round my shoulders. I’ve been in many a snow storm before. The scolding did little to ease the situation.

      The steps up to Linas’s front door were thickly packed with the stuff, the shoe-scraper at the side piled with it, which should have warned me that someone had entered quite recently. But my hood was falling wetly over my face as I went inside, sending a shower of snow on to the already puddled black-and-white chequered tiles, and it was only when I threw my furry hood back that I saw more of Mr Brierley than his serviceable boots. Mr Brierley was Linas’s lawyer who had, I suppose, as much right as me to be standing in the hall of his late client.

      His greying forelock was plastered across his head, his spectacles speckled with snow, catching the light of the single lamp, and his attempted smile was cooled by the unusually low temperature. Linas had always maintained an uncomfortable warmth in all his rooms. Now, they were uncomfortably cold. But then, nothing was going to be usual for Linas any more after yesterday’s funeral and today’s thick white blanket being gently laid over him.

      ‘Mr Brierley,’ I said, returning his half-smile, ‘I didn’t expect to see you here so soon. Not for weeks. Well, days, anyway.’ Shaking the hem of my pelisse, I showered his toes with snowflakes and saw him step back. My glance at the hall table verified what I feared: two grey beaver hats, two pairs of gloves, one antler-topped cane and a riding whip that I recognised. Silver-mounted. It was not what I had expected, or wanted, so soon after yesterday. I ought to go, I thought, before he appears. We shall only bicker.

      The lawyer must have recognised the hint of unwelcome in my greeting, which, I admit, was not as fawning as it might have been from a client’s mistress. Client’s mistresses usually have expectations. ‘No, indeed, ma’am,’ he said. ‘We lawyers are not known for speeding things up, I agree, but Lord Winterson asked me to meet him here, to—’

      ‘To take a look round? Yes, I quite understand, Mr Brierley. Shall I leave you to it? Is that your inventory?’ There was a black leather notebook tucked under his arm, and my accusatory tone drew it from its pigeonhole to prove itself.

      ‘Er…no. Not to take an inventory. It was Lord Winterson’s wish to attend to other pressing matters before the snow delays things. Perhaps that is also why you are here, Miss Follet?’

      Yes, I suppose he was entitled to ask my business now. ‘The snow will make no difference to me. I come here every day, sir. The servants need direction at a time like this.’

      ‘Which is exactly why we’re here. To help re-settle them. I have here some contacts…’ he tapped the notebook with white fingertips ‘…and they’ll need the references Mr Monkton prepared for them.’

      Ah, yes. References. Linas would have discussed the futures of all his employees with his lawyer and brother. Mine too, I hoped. What a pity he had found it so difficult to take me into his confidence at the same time, to spare me the worry of how I would manage on my own. I had made plans, as far as I was able, but it would have lightened my heart if he had shown as much concern for my future as he had for the rest of his household. My repeated promptings, gentle or insistent, had brought no response except irritability and fits of coughing, and finally I had stopped probing for any kind of assurances concerning me and Jamie.

      ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Then I shall bid you a good afternoon.’

      My feet were wet, my fingers inside my woolly gloves frozen, the hall was bare and gloomy, and I did not want to see Linas’s brother that day. Or any day. I reached back to pull up my hood, numb fingers fumbling with an edge of wet fur, icy water running up to my elbows.

      ‘I believe,’ said Mr Brierley, ‘Lord Winterson would like you to be present at the reading of his brother’s last will and testament tomorrow, Miss Follet.’

      The shake of my head was hidden from him. ‘No, I think not,’ I mumbled. ‘That will be no place for a man’s mistress, sir. Please excuse me.’ But my fumbling had obscured the quiet entrance of the one I hoped to avoid, and suddenly he appeared in the corner of my eye through the wet points of fur.

      In almost six years there had never been a time when I’d been able to control my heartbeats at the sight of him. In the last four years—almost—there had hardly been a day when some detail of that night had failed to appear, or the wounding deceit of it fail to hurt. Between them, they had used me and I intended to make him aware of my anger as I had not been able to do with Linas. I could hardly bite the hand that fed me and my child, but I could and would refuse Winterson’s attempts, such as they were, to make me see him in a better light. And who could blame me?

      The day before, with so many people there, I had done my best not to look at him. Or not to be seen looking at him. Now I did, and was astonished to see the shadows of deep sadness around his eyes, the unease of his mouth and the sagging tiredness of his shoulders that leaned against the doorframe into the study. Like me, he had kept

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