Wynn's hands were tangled in Mila's hair, her fingers wrapped around the blonde strands like she was seizing Diablo's mane. Mila lay with her eyes closed, listening to the sound of her sister's breathing, the way her breath hitched and her fingers tightened like a skipping pulse.
Mila gently disentangled Wynn's fingers without waking her, crawling from the bed in the barely there morning light.
Today they would meet their new home.
The sitting room seemed silent from this side of the door, so she went in cautiously, looking for a glass of water.
"Oh." Mila stopped abruptly, faced with Zahra Amahdi, the servant she'd been given by her future stepfather. Zahra straightened from the assortment of clothes she was leaning over and eyed Mila with the cool, evaluating look Mila hadn't yet learned to fully interpret. They were the same age, but the olive-skinned girl looked at her with eyes that were knowing and a little defiant. It was not the typical manner for a maidservant.
"Mr. Deemus has clothes for you," Zahra said. She spoke the name with a slight quirk of her full lips, as though the sound of it amused her.
Mila eyed the expensive clothes and nodded. She poured herself a glass of water and watched Zahra arrange the garments in order: chemise, corset, underskirt, the full linen skirt, a stiff white blouse, and finally, the smart grey jacket.
"Do you know much about the estate?" Mila asked.
"No."
"He's just inherited it."
"Yes."
"And the house has been closed up for a long while? Do you know why?"
Zahra straightened and speared Mila with a look. "I'm just a servant. The Master doesn't confide in me."
"Yes, you're a servant," Mila said, leaning her hip against the bar and crossing her arms. "Which means people order you around, or treat you like you're invisible. Either way, you hear things."
Zahra gave Mila a look of reevaluation. "Apparently the executor of the estate has been trying to find the Master for some years now."
"He hasn't been in contact with his family?" Mila said sharply.
"There was a falling-out." Zahra turned as the shadow of something crossed her face, then leveled cool eyes on Mila again. "Three weeks ago, he received a letter saying he'd inherited the entire Deemus fortune."
Mila's eyebrows rose infinitesimally. The surprise engagement had been announced three weeks past also.
Her mother had been making the most of the dwindling money by doing the society rounds in Venice, catching the eye of every wealthy man for a hundred miles. There was still too much gossip in London, so Ada had swept Wynn and Mila away from their country home and carted them off on a European tour.
The beautiful widow and her two lovely daughters.
They'd been introduced to Andrew Deemus in Florence and then met him again at the hotel in Venice. He'd been playing the fashionably bored admirer to Ada's refined grief, and even more refined flirtations, when suddenly he'd stepped up his attentions from novelty distraction to declaration. The abruptness was concerning.
"How long have you worked for him?" Mila asked. The man was still too much a mystery, and his choice in maids was not a comfort.
Zahra's eyes flickered and she turned away, busying herself with Wynn's new garments. "Not long."
You're hiding something, Mila thought.
The door from her mother's suite opened and Ada sauntered out, silk robe trailing from her slender arms.
"Amahdi," she said without bothering to look at Zahra, "I'll take breakfast in my room. Set out my peacock silk."
"Mr. Deemus asked me to see to Miss Kenton's wardrobe this morning," Zahra said, looking Ada straight in the eye. "But I expect that Winters will be back shortly to see to your needs."
Mila's chest tightened at the way her mother's jaw went still and her eyes narrowed. But Zahra turned away, unconcerned, and swept the bundle of clothes into her arms. Mila found herself being herded back to the bedroom by her own maid. She half expected her mother to follow, but a door opened and Ada turned angry words on Winters, the family maid.
Zahra closed the door and laid the clothes on Wynn's bed, motioning for Mila to sit at the dressing table. Mila sat and studied the maidservant in the mirror as she worked Mila's long hair into an elegant knot.
The girl was wearing a maid's standard grey and white, but the whole thing seemed a ridiculous costume on her. As though she should be draped in dark robes and glittering under a sultan's ransom in gold jewelry. Her cheekbones were sharp lines as she twisted and pinned Mila's hair, her fingers moving efficiently. A flash of white peeked out from beneath her smart cuff—a smooth cord knotted twice around her wrist. Mila frowned; it was a strange bracelet.
"Where are you from?" Mila asked her.
Zahra's large eyes met Mila's in the mirror.
"Do you mean what heathen country turned my skin this color?"
Mila blinked. Definitely not just a servant.
"It would be a mistake to take me for an ignorant provincial," Mila replied. "Or to take my questions for idle curiosity." She looked to Wynn, still asleep in the bed beside them. "We're traveling across the ocean, leaving behind everything and everyone we've ever known. A man we barely know will ask us to call him Father. A land we know nothing of will ask us to call it home." She looked back to Zahra. "I need to know what we're walking into."
Zahra's full lips twitched, her strong jaw relenting just a fraction. "All the knowing in the world won't change the life others have decided for you."
"Knowing changes everything," Mila said, her voice sharp, something sharper rising against her throat.
Some days, knowing the truth is all you have.
Zahra said nothing, but the slight twist of her lips told Mila she'd struck a weak spot. "What does the bracelet mean?" Mila asked, following her momentary advantage.
The girl's eyes flicked to the white cord at her wrist, then back to Mila's reflection. "Nothing of interest," she said, her voice a hard challenge. "Heathen nonsense."
The door opened, and Mila nearly hissed with frustration.
"Madam wants Wynn," Winters said, oblivious to the interruption she had caused. The woman was in her thirties, but she looked older. Strong, with plain features, her most remarkable talent was the wooden stoicism she displayed in the face of all ranges of treatment. Mila had the impression that Winters had long ago learned to disengage her facial features from any connection to her emotions or thoughts. Probably why she'd lasted this long in Ada's employ.
Mila slipped from the dressing table onto her knees next to the bed. "Wynn," she said softly, brushing the dark tangles of hair from her sister's face. Wynn's dark eyes flickered open. "Mother wants you." Wynn's lips tightened. "Just do everything she says," Mila said. "No trouble."
Wynn nodded and let herself be maneuvered sleepily to her feet by Winters.
Mila sighed as the door closed, then turned back to survey the enigma before her. "You were saying something very interesting about heathen nonsense?"
"It's an article of faith," Zahra replied, speaking the last word as if thrusting a knife.
"Which faith?"
"You wouldn't know it."
"I insist."
"Zoroastrian."
Mila shoved the nightgown from her shoulders and looked away, annoyed that the impossible girl was right. Zahra smirked and held the chemise for Mila to step into. "What is the bracelet for?" Mila asked, unwilling to admit defeat.
"Prayer," Zahra said, moving behind Mila to tie the laces swiftly. Mila thought of the women she'd seen in Venice fingering glittering rosaries of colored stone and ivory. This was no better or stranger.
And it got her no closer to figuring out her stepfather-to-be.
Zahra proffered the corset with a condescending flourish, and Mila raised her arms, allowing the hateful device. "How did you come to work for Andrew Deemus?"
"My mother died," Zahra said, tugging the corset more roughly than necessary.
"So you've never been to the Deemus estate?" Mila pressed, unwilling to back down.
"I've never left Venice."
"Do you know what the falling-out was concerning?"
Back to the previous subject; keep the girl off balance.
"I believe there's usually a romance involved," Zahra said without missing a beat. "But now his uncle is dead, and there's no one left to object to his taste in women."
Mila turned at that, but Zahra snapped on the corset laces, forcing Mila to grab the table edge. The comment was a clear insult to her mother, but Mila's feelings concerning Ada Kenton were complex at best—and at least her adversary had offered new information.
"His uncle died? What about his parents?"
"Dead."
"So he's completely alone in the world," Mila said.
Zahra gave a powerful jerk on the laces and Mila gasped.
"Everyone's alone in the world," Zahra said.
