“My niece defies me at every turn. Defies her parents and runs with lewd women—and who knows what else she gets up to? The best thing for her is to marry, but the company she keeps persuades her otherwise. I include you in that company, Mrs. Holloway. I have told you on several occasions that you and she have become far too friendly, and I will not have that in my house.”

“I know my place, ma’am,” I said as deferentially as I could. She had indeed scolded me for my camaraderie with Lady Cynthia not long before this. “I have not spoken to Lady Cynthia very much lately.”

“Not true. She scurried down to the kitchen to see you, and she inserted her artist friend among my domestics. Ridiculous. Cynthia will never obey me as long as she has refuge downstairs, a very odd place for her to find it. She’s a grown woman and ought to have a household of her own.”

Mrs. Bywater began to splutter, losing the thread of her argument. She drew a breath and fixed a steely eye on me.

“To that end, Mrs. Holloway, I am dismissing you. I ought to have done so long ago, but I was persuaded otherwise. But no more.” She lifted her chin. “You are to go. I have written to Lord Rankin about this, and no doubt he will agree with me. Lady Cynthia is a trial to him as well.”

I gaped at her, the world falling away. The suddenness of her statement, after I’d left today so complacent of my position here, my awareness that I worked to keep Grace, left me breathless. To be cast out, to leave behind the friends I’d made—Tess, Lady Cynthia, Mr. Davis . . . Word would spread, and finding a decent house to work in would be very difficult.

“Please,” I heard myself say. I, the dignified and haughty cook, was happy to beg. “I have no intention of encouraging Lady Cynthia to be disobedient—”

Mrs. Bywater raised her hand. “I do not wish to have an argument about it. I will write you a reference, as I have no complaint with your cooking, but you ought to remain below stairs and have nothing to do with those above it.”

At this moment I agreed with her. If Cynthia had not come to the kitchen when I first arrived, thrown herself down at my table, and worried that she’d killed a man with her impetuousness, I would not have been pulled into her world. I’d sensed a soul out of step and unhappy, and had wanted to help.

“Mrs. Bywater—” My voice was faint, trembling.

“I will allow you time to put your things together, but out you go, Mrs. Holloway. I am finished with nose-in-the-air cooks.”