Dragonfly Maid Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Get a Free Book

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Dear Reader

  About the Author

  Find an Error?

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Dedication

  To Persnickety the House Dragon

  for always reminding me to ask, What if…?

  Guardian of the Realm: The Fayte Heir takes readers back to ancient Britain and the first Fayte Guardians, told through the eyes of Eithne, daughter of the warrior queen Boudica. The prequel novella is available for free to the Readers Brigade at www.DDCroix.com/readers-brigade.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I waited for my dragonfly beneath the low, morning clouds. I knew she would come. She always did when I ventured outdoors while the sun was up. I knew she would find me, even here, as I sat along the north wall with only my wool dress, petticoats, and maid’s apron to protect me from the cold stone bench—embellished simply, as so many things at Windsor Castle were, with the VR insignia of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

  So, where was she? Where was the friend who could make me see reason? I needed to find her. I needed her comfort because right now I had none.

  Back inside, every servant scurried to prepare for Queen Victoria’s return from her Scottish retreat. I should be in there, too, peeling potatoes for Mrs. Crossey, the cook I assisted most days, but the summons from the House Steward had sent me into a panic.

  The young page who delivered the order didn’t tell me why I was being called in, but I excused myself just the same and told Mrs. Crossey I’d see to it immediately. Instead I’d come here, to the kitchen garden—an unauthorized detour, to be sure—but I needed time to compose myself. Experience had already taught me that nothing good ever came from being summoned to that dull, dank office.

  But what was it this time?

  Had a new complaint been lodged against me? I’d tried to be careful. I’d reported to the kitchen on time every morning this week and stayed until properly dismissed. I hadn’t even palmed a single new trinket for my memory box. Not in several days anyway.

  The more likely reason was the one twisting knots in my stomach and making my hands slick beneath my lambskin gloves. In the past month, two dozen members of the staff had been dismissed. Some of them maids in good standing with far better credentials than I. That I was next on the House Steward’s dreaded list seemed not only possible but rather overdue.

  The others, I’d heard, had their years in royal service to help them secure positions with prominent families. With only six months of experience, I couldn’t hope to be so lucky. Girls like me usually ended up on street corners begging for coins, not employed in a royal castle. If I’d come into this world with any luck at all, I was sure it was used up the day I was delivered to the servants’ door and handed a scullery maid’s apron, even if it hadn’t seemed so at the time.

  If I was turned out now, I’d end up in a workhouse or worse. Probably worse.

  What was I going to do?

  “Dragonfly! Where are you?” I hissed the words through clenched teeth, my fists balled at my sides. I needed my friend. I needed her to tell me again all would be well.

  Then I spied a shiver in the air; that small, silvery dart with the glittering wings.

  Had she soared over the castle wall? Had she slipped through an oak tree’s canopy? I hardly knew, but I was relieved beyond measure to see her hovering in front of me now, fixing me with her wide, violet eyes.

  “Finally, you’ve come. Where have you been?”

  Behind me, the creak of a door hinge told me we were no longer alone. At the intrusion, my dragonfly flew away.

  No! I screamed the word without a sound, but she didn’t turn back. She was already gone.

  I steeled myself to face the House Steward’s ire until a squeal of laughter filled the air. The intruders were only two maids, like myself. One of them was my roommate, Marlene Carlisle, who everyone called Marlie. She was a willowy girl with hair the color of wheat and a smear of freckles on her nose, and I recognized her happy Highland lilt at once.

  I strode away along the gray pebble path, hoping she’d ignore me, as she usually did.

  “Jane, is that you? What are you doing out here?”

  I cringed and debated whether to keep walking.

  “Mrs. Crossey is searching for you. She’s beside herself. I’d get back inside if I were you.”

  As if she cared a whit about me. We shared a room in the maids’ quarters, but little else. Most days we hardly spoke at all, which suited me just fine. If only this were one of those days.

  Since she wouldn’t let me be, I tucked a loose, dark curl behind my ear and muttered something about needing air. It wasn’t convincing, not even a little. It certainly wasn’t to Marlie’s companion, a pretty but bossy girl named Abigail, who was tugging Marlie away.

  And even now that girl glared at me.

  I suppose I deserved it, but there wasn’t time to regret those past mistakes now.

  Marlie held her ground.

  “Then come with us,” she said.

  I turned, startled by the invitation. She’d never invited me anywhere before. Was it pity? Did she know something I didn’t? Did she already know my fate?

  “Why?” I braced, fearing the answer.

  “You spend too much time alone, silly. It isn’t right. It isn’t normal.”

  Abigail laughed, but there was no joy in it. She leaned closer to Marlie and whispered, though loudly enough for me to hear, “Of course it’s not normal. She’s not normal.”

  Marlie nudged her away, but the words hit their mark. I swallowed hard. I didn’t care what they thought of me. I’d stopped caring what anyone thought a long time ago.

  I was almost relieved when the kitchen door flew open again.

  But my rage spiked when I saw it was only the new stable hand on his way back to the mews with a sandwich in hand. Not surprising. That young man ate more than any three men combined, though you’d never know it by the lanky look of him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Wyck,” Abigail called out in a singsong voice. “The farmer’s girl didn’t deliver the cream this morning, so we’re off to collect it. Care to join us?”

  It had become a game among the maids to try to win Mr. Wyck’s favor, or at least get closer to that flop of chestnut hair and those scowling nutmeg eyes.

  I don’t know what they saw in him. There was nothing charming in the way he strutted through the kitchen whenever he pleased, pretending to be oblivious to the fuss and fluster he created among the young women. He was a nuisance, and a smug one at that.

  “Jane Shackle! There you are. What in
the world are you doing out here? Mr. MacDougall won’t wait all day.”

  Mrs. Crossey leaned out the door and waved me in with a sweep of her thick, fleshy hand.

  I resisted the urge to glance at Marlie, Abigail, or Mr. Wyck. If they observed this humiliation, I didn’t want to know. It was better to think they were on their way to wherever they were going and that they weren’t taking the slightest interest in me.

  It was wishful thinking, to be sure. If my dragonfly were here, she’d laugh and tell me to expect a thorough account to be conveyed in whispers from maid to page, footman to cook, and underbutler to valet before the evening meal.

  And she’d be right, of course, because that’s how things worked around here. Servants know everything.

  ~ ~ ~

  I stood at Mr. MacDougall’s closed office door, staring into the whorls of the wood grain. There was nothing exceptional about them. The door was as plain as any along this narrow hallway.

  It was just far too familiar. Every disagreement, every complaint lodged against me—they all led me here. I’d lost count of the times I’d faced this door and the man within.

  “Go on, then,” Mrs. Crossey whispered, her wide, ruddy face appearing at my shoulder.

  Though we stood eye to eye, she still treated me like a child instead of a young woman nearly eighteen years old. I shook her off, tugged at my gloves, and knocked twice.

  “Enter!”

  The baritone command carried the man’s typical rise at the end of the word that always set my nerves on edge.

  “Don’t just stand there,” Mrs. Crossey prodded.

  “I know.” I didn’t mean to be curt, but fear was getting the better of me. I didn’t want to lose my job. I didn’t want to end up in a workhouse. I’d already endured Chadwick Hollow School for Orphaned Girls, a dumping ground for unwanted daughters with nowhere else to go. I’d received adequate food and lodging, and a serviceable education, but it was no place for a girl with secrets to hide. I learned that early enough, and I imagined a workhouse would be much the same.

  I wouldn’t survive it again.

  “Go!” Mrs. Crossey reached around, turned the brass knob herself, and gestured forward.

  I had no choice. I smoothed my apron, steeled my nerves, and slipped in with my head held high.

  Mr. MacDougall sat behind his desk, scratching something into a leather-bound ledger. He dipped his nib in the inkwell and scribbled again before looking up at me through those ruthlessly tangled brows.

  I dropped my gaze to the worn toes of my black boots, but every muscle, every nerve remained riveted on the skeleton of a man before me. “Can I just say again,” I said, grasping for a thread of hope, “how sorry I am about the trouble with Abigail’s locket? It was a misunderstanding, truly. I don’t know why she would accuse me.”

  “This has nothing to do with Abigail’s locket.”

  The voice was behind me. I whipped around to see Mrs. Crossey standing in front of the closed door, fussing and fidgeting like the time the oven’s firewood refused to light or when I’d added sugar instead of salt to her soup.

  Why was she still here? She’d never stayed for my interrogations before. I wanted her to leave.

  But she intended to stay. I could see it in the soft crease of her forehead and the distress tugging at her hazel eyes. She looked from me to Mr. MacDougall and said, “Shall we begin?”

  She was part of this? My stomach churned.

  Mr. MacDougall leaned back into the embrace of his wingback chair with nothing but contempt in his dark eyes. Then he rose from his desk and settled his arctic glare on Mrs. Crossey. “Madam, I must caution against it.”

  She straightened to her full height and jutted her chin, which was usually lost in the soft folds of her jaw. “I understand your hesitation, but I must insist.”

  I stared at her, too perplexed to speak. Within the castle—among the kitchen servants, at least—Mr. MacDougall’s word was law.

  My fear for myself became fear for her. Had she lost her mind?

  Yet I saw no outrage in his cavernous eyes, only a flicker of something I didn’t recognize. As I watched, he seemed to shrink where he stood, like a wild dog suddenly, inexplicably tamed. He pivoted and considered his reflection in the mirror above the mantelpiece behind his desk. Licking one finger, he ran it across his brows, straightening the wiry hairs, then laid a hand on one of the two protruding dragon heads carved into the corners of the mantel’s shelf and stroked it between the ears like a pet before turning back to us.

  His grimace landed on me, making it clear that Mrs. Crossey had nothing to fear. I did.

  My fingers hid in the folds of my skirt.

  Mrs. Crossey gestured to the pair of wooden chairs in front of the desk. “Take a seat, dear.”

  Motherly concern laced her voice, but there was pity there as well. I pulled back. My fears had been right after all. The emotion passed through me in a wave before calm resignation took hold. I swallowed and straightened to my full height. “It won’t be necessary. I’ll clear out my room and be gone before afternoon tea.”

  She frowned. “You’ll do what?”

  “If I’m to be dismissed, it’s best to be done with it.”

  She shook her head. “No one is dismissing you, child.” She mustered a weak smile, but something weighed on her.

  “Then why am I here?”

  She turned to Mr. MacDougall. He only shrugged. In denial or acquiescence, I hardly knew.

  The woman shot him a nasty look before facing me again. “Do sit, Jane. This may take some time.”

  Baffled but curious, I took a chair.

  She squeezed herself into the one beside it, her usually serene eyes flaring with strange intensity. “Let’s discuss your visions.”

  Her words sucked the air from the room. I’d never spoken of my visions here. Not ever. Windsor was supposed to be my chance for a fresh start. I shifted and tried to swallow. “I’m sorry, my what?”

  “Your visions.” Again, she looked at Mr. MacDougall.

  Again, he looked away.

  She sighed and leaned toward me. “My dear, we’ve asked you here because we need your help.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “My help?” The words slipped out with an unfortunate squeak.

  The House Steward took his seat and leaned across his monolith of a desk. “As we improve our household efficiency and adjust our staff to align with His Royal Highness’s expectations, we find ourselves… shall we say, shifting responsibilities, which, uh, traditionally…” He tugged at his starched collar and cleared his throat.

  “That isn’t helping, Mr. MacDougall.”

  I frowned at Mrs. Crossey’s blunt assessment, but she wasn’t wrong.

  The House Steward pulled back and stared down at his steepled fingertips.

  Mrs. Crossey stared at me. “Jane, I believe your visions make you uniquely qualified to help us with a particular problem. A serious problem.”

  She spoke with such certainty. But how could she know? It made no sense. Since words failed me, I stared at my hands. My gloves! Had they betrayed me? The soft, white leather that protected me from the images and the voices and all the emotions that had struck only sporadically throughout my life but now occurred without fail at the merest touch. There had been a few curious glances when I began wearing the gloves, but no one said anything. Most hardly seemed to notice at all. Mrs. Crossey had only pondered them a moment the first time I wore them to the kitchen.

  “Those are new,” she’d said as I tightened my grip on a cleaver and sliced leaves off celery stalks.

  “They are,” I replied, staring hard at my hands and wishing I could melt into the floor. “It’s so cold in here, don’t you think?”

  At that she had quirked an eyebrow and offered one of her half smiles. “No, but if you’re more comfortable that way.” Then she’d turned back to whatever she had simmering on the stove and never said another word about my gloves. That had been two weeks ago now
.

  “How long have you had them?” she demanded now. Her eyes still fixed on me, taking in every twitch and fidget.

  “The gloves?” I asked.

  “The visions.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” My fingers burned beneath the usually cool leather. Blood pounded against my ears. I wanted to leave this room. Get away from her and Mr. MacDougall and everyone. I wanted to be alone.

  “It’s all right, dear,” she said. “There’s no need to be afraid.”

  Her usually comforting manner only heightened my panic. I knew what happened when people learned my secret. It was one of my first memories at Chadwick Hollow. A lesson I’d never forgotten, and I suspect I never would.

  She cocked her head to the side. “If it makes you feel any better, I have known for quite some time.”

  Why should that make me feel better? I tensed and shook my head. She was lying. She had to be.

  Mrs. Crossey’s silence taunted me.

  “I… I… I don’t know what you’ve been told,” I said, “but—”

  Mr. MacDougall scoffed. “You see, Mrs. Crossey? This is all a mistake. Just as I said.”

  Mrs. Crossey rocked back and pinned him with a menacing look. “I will continue, Geoffrey.”

  The House Steward’s bushy brows pulled low. “I hardly think that’s wise. If certain people were here, I’m sure they would agree.”

  “Noted. However, certain people are not here, which leaves the matter to my discretion.”

  I stared, amazed and puzzled as he looked away with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

  I hoped that would be the end of it, but instead she leaned forward and addressed me with even greater intensity.

  “This is all rather complicated,” she said, “but you should know we are aware of your visions because you are one of us, dear.”

  “Of course I am.” I winced at the desperation in my voice. I took a deep breath and tried again. “I’ve worked here six months already.”

  She waved me off. “I’m not referring to your service. Not exactly.”

  Mr. MacDougall groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

  Mrs. Crossey’s eyes remained on me. I shifted under the weight of that stare.