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 temporary situation.” She waved it away, as if my last few years of backbreaking work were nothing more than a lark. She jabbed me in the side. “You come from money. From class. So show a little.”