…Employment…in need of a companion…
Jane chewed her lower lip and looked to the doorway, and then guiltily returned her attention to the sheet. She quickly scanned the contents.
Mrs. Belden,
I require the services of one of your esteemed instructors for my sister, Lady Chloe Edgerton.
She continued skimming.
…A term of two months…
Her heart started and she picked her head up, staring at the floor-length crystal windowpane. A sign. As a mere girl, her mother had spoken to Jane of signs and encouraged her to find hope in those signs. For all her cynicism of her lot and station in life as a bastard daughter of a powerful duke, she’d looked for and celebrated those symbols. It was the sliver of optimism she clung to; a hope in a better world—for herself, for others. Two months. Surely this was one of those carefully laid signs she was to follow.
Giving her head a shake, she cast one more glance at the door and then returned her attention to the remainder of the note.
…Signed,
The Marquess of Waverly.
Waverly. She ran through the name in her mind, trying to recall a student who was sister to the marquess. Jane had only been at Mrs. Belden’s for a year. A giddy sensation lightened the pressure in her chest. The young woman, a Lady Chloe Edgerton, was a stranger to her. Surely another sign. Fate’s way of intervening. Footsteps sounded in the hall and she quickly folded the note and, shoving aside the tendrils of guilt, stuffed the missive in the front apron of her uniform.
Mrs. Belden stepped through the entrance and did not break stride. She continued on to the seat she’d vacated a short while ago and then thumped her fist once upon the desk.
The stolen note within Jane’s pocket burned and, for a numbing moment, she thought she’d been discovered. That this disobedience and theft would result in her being turned out immediately. She thrust aside the guilt. Her life had been subject to the whims and fancies of an indolent peerage early on. This moment, she would put her security and her future before all those lords and ladies.
“As I was saying, Mrs. Munroe, I can no longer continue to hold you on my staff. You’ve a fortnight, at which point, I expect you to leave.”
A fortnight. Time enough for a missive to be sent to Jane’s father and time enough for the duke to secure another post for his daughter. She tightened her jaw. The woman made the erroneous assumption that she would seek out his aid. She’d not done so before and she’d not do so now. Nor did she suspect the stern headmistress would be herself eager to write that respective note informing the duke his illegitimate daughter had been turned out on her ear. “Thank you,” she said with a stoic calm, belied by the frantic pounding of her heart.
The woman inclined her head and with a flick of her hand, indicated the meeting was at an end.
With the pilfered contents in her apron, Jane marched, head held high, from the room. She made her way down the narrow, whitewashed corridors. When she’d placed distance between herself and Mrs. Belden, she came to a stop beside the silver-plated knight oddly out of place in the finishing school. Positioning herself behind the massive armor from long ago, she withdrew the missive and perused the page once more.
The Marquess of Waverly’s sister required a companion. At one and twenty, the young lady, a powerful marquess’ sister, was likely no different than all the unkind, self-absorbed women Jane had confronted since she’d been the sneered at, giggled about bastard child, living in a country cottage kept by the duke. Jane could brave the discomforts of such an assignment. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, troubling the flesh. Could she, however, in good conscience slip into a post assigned to another?
Then, no one had truly been assigned the post. And any one of Mrs. Belden’s other instructors already were in possession of a post. They were not dependent upon another position the way Jane was.
Yet, it was still not her missive. Jane tightened her grip upon the page, wrinkling the sheet. It was a level of underhandedness she disdained and she hated herself in this moment for being so very desperate that she’d abandon all honor. She lightened her grip. It wouldn’t do to ruin the page. With the tip of her ragged fingernail, she ran it over the inked word “two”.