For the moment, I had this bed in the little room I’d come to call my own.

An illusion—none of it belonged to me. I hired out my cooking skills to others, and they gave me room and board and a very small salary in return. Nothing was mine but the talent I had for putting together a meal. If no one valued that, I would be out in the cold indeed.

My own fault. I ought to have put my head down and done my cookery and not interfered with Lord Rankin or Mrs. Bywater, or had anything to do with Lady Cynthia and her friends. I should have kept on with my chopping, basting, and simmering and let the world do what it would.

Even in my stupor I knew I could not have. Had I done nothing, a maid might have been ravished, a poisoner allowed to remain loose, and a kind Chinaman hanged for a crime he did not commit. I could not have stood by and done nothing. It was not my way.

But Grace would pay if I could not keep my posts and do my work. The Millburns were kind, but they had four growing children to care for, and Grace was another mouth to feed.

These troubled thoughts stayed with me as my exhausted and too-cold body took over and plunged me into sleep.

I woke to find Lady Cynthia sitting on the foot of my bed.

At first I thought I was dreaming—I had been lost in a whirl of Grace, Lady Cynthia in her stunning ball gown, and Bobby leaning down in front of the gates of Kew Gardens to hand Grace a coin.

The dreams dissolved as I blinked my hot eyes open, my head aching. The room was dark but for the lone candle on my bureau, the simple light too bright.

“Poor Mrs. H.” Cynthia, in a dressing gown, pressed a damp cloth to my head. The cool of it was so soothing I wilted. “This is my fault,” Cynthia continued. “But you’re not to worry. I’ll see to it.”

“My doing,” I croaked. “Your aunt is right.”

“She’s not—never say so. She’s furious with me, and punishing you. Mrs. Redfern told me you were ill, and I said to Auntie that if she turned you out and you took sick and died she’d be forever branded with it. She worries about her reputation among her cold-stick lady friends, so she’ll let you recover before she sends you to the pavement.”

I floated back to wakefulness. “If you’ve come to cheer me up, this is hardly the way to go about it.”

“Forgive me. I am trying to joke because I’m so bloody angry.”

I was too tired to take umbrage or chide her for her language. “The mistress is right. I should not have got above my place.”