Kendra peered in and saw a slim blond woman demonstrating how to style hair. It was past time for Kendra to hire a lady’s maid herself. Perhaps Laurel could suggest a suitable woman who had trained here. This woman’s deft hands looked very capable.

The woman teaching the class turned so Kendra could see her face. She was slender, blond, pretty, and in her early twenties. Kendra gasped in shocked recognition.

Jerking away from the door, she pressed her back against the corridor wall, shaking. She’d just seen a woman she’d thought was dead.

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 29

Swiftly Laurel closed the classroom door. “Kendra, what’s wrong?”

Kendra closed her eyes and tried to stop shaking. “The woman teaching the class. She’s my maid, Molly Miller. She disappeared from Denshire House the night my husband drugged me and created the false scene that painted me as a disgraceful slut.”

Kendra’s mind was swamped with the nightmarish memory of an increasingly frantic Molly trying to shake her awake, but Kendra couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. As she sank into blackness, she’d known that she was dying.. . .

Kendra opened her eyes and drew a deep, steadying breath. “More recently, one of your husband’s agents briefly joined the Denshire household and reported that Molly had run away in panic that night, but even though she wasn’t murdered then, I feared that a young woman alone in London with no money or friends might be dead by now.”

“She obviously found her way here,” Laurel said in a soothing voice. “She calls herself Polly Miller.”

“That makes sense because Molly and Polly are both nicknames for Mary, which is her real name,” Kendra said as she felt her shock fade. “She must have been afraid of being found.”

Laurel’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “She was certainly terrified when she arrived. She had nothing but the rather ragged clothes on her back. She barely spoke at first and she wouldn’t set foot outside except in the walled garden. In the beginning, she worked in the kitchen, but after several weeks, she said that she’d been a lady’s maid who fled when her mistress’s husband threatened her. When I learned that, I asked if she’d teach in the lady’s maid course. She’s a good teacher. She’s settled down here and seems content.”

“I’m so glad to know that,” Kendra said. “But I need to talk to her.”

“Of course.” Laurel cocked her head at the sound of church bells in the distance. “This class is almost over. Do you want to go in now, or wait till she comes out?”