“I’ve still got that present you gave me, Maxie!” she said, after a moment or two. “That funny little broken coin on a chain.” She fished it out from inside the neck of her dress and showed him.

“I couldn’t afford a ring, Eliza,” he said, “but that’s precious, that coin, I’ve had that since I was a tiny baby. It’s a token of my love, me love.”

More kissing….

They won’t look for the girls, I thought; they’ll spend all day mooning up and down with their arms round each other. I don’t think they’d have seen me then if I’d jumped out in the road in front of them, pulling faces, waggling my fingers in front of my nose, and blowing raspberries.

No, there was only one person who could help Lucy and Charlotte, and that was me.

Chapter Six

And all I could do was wonder when I’d be able to go up the mountain with some food and a tinderbox, between all the other chores I had to do; for there’s no one busier than a maidservant.

No sooner had I reached the castle, for instance, than Frau Muller snapped at me, “Where’ve you been? How am I supposed to run a staff of servants if they all take the morning off whenever they feel like it? There’s a lady come to see the count and no one to wait on them. Get out of that filthy old cloak and take them some wine—hurry up, girl!”

“Who is it?” I said, dropping my cloak over the back of Frau Wenzel’s chair and smoothing my hair down. “I thought he was out with the hounds?”

“What’s it to do with you? He went out and came back again. Your trouble is, you don’t know your place. Too friendly with those two little perishers who ran off—good riddance, says I. You’ve got ideas above your station, Hildi Kelmar. Get on up to the drawing-room, and don’t keep them waiting any longer.”

I hastened up there nervously. Count Karlstein was standing by the fireplace, and a plump, warmly dressed woman of about thirty-five or so sat very upright in the best chair. I wasn’t sure who she was yet, but something about her reminded me of the girls—some foreign air—and something else reminded me of Meister Haifisch: some steely toughness in her eyes; and she was distinctly pretty in a brisk kind of way. She looked at me with bright curiosity, as if she was about to speak and thinking better of it. What’s more, she looked at ease and the count didn’t.

“Can I offer you some refreshment, Miss Davenport?” he said.

Of course! I thought. Miss Davenport!