"She made the maid kneel for a mess she never expected someone else to recognize."

CHAPTER 4 — THE MORNING IT BROKE

The morning Victoria threw the plate, Eleanor was supposed to be away.

Victoria had made sure of it.

She had arranged for Eleanor to attend a private appointment across town with a specialist Daniel trusted. Daniel was in Chicago for business. Martha was running errands. The house was almost empty.

That was why Victoria stopped pretending.

She came downstairs late, barefoot, wrapped in white satin, carrying a breakfast plate she had not touched.

I was cleaning beside the fireplace because her dog had knocked over a tray earlier. The mess was already embarrassing enough. I was on my knees, trying to finish before the marble stained.

Victoria stood behind me for a long moment.

I could feel her watching.

“Do you enjoy making this house look dirty?” she asked.

I kept my eyes on the floor. “No, ma’am.”

“You people always say that.”

My hand tightened around the rag.

You people.

I had heard it before, not always in those words, but always with that meaning.

Then she stepped closer.

“You’ve been whispering with Martha.”

I froze.

“Don’t insult me,” Victoria said. “I see everything in my house.”

Her house.

It was not her house.

Mr. Harrington had bought it for Eleanor forty years ago, back when they were young enough to paint the nursery themselves and poor enough to argue about curtains.

But Victoria had a way of stealing things with grammar before she stole them with paper.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

She laughed once.

Then the plate flew.

Food hit the marble.

Something hot stung my wrist.

I gasped, but I did not scream.

Victoria bent toward me, her voice low and vicious.

“You are going to learn what happens to staff who forget their place.”