“You got the doctor in?” Sophie was aghast. Nanny must be gravely ill. Doctors were fiendishly expensive, and no one hired one unless the matter was dire.
“Bessie is very dear to me,” Miss Crowell said stiffly. “Needless to say, I paid him—we all know what happened to your father’s great fortune. Fortunately Dr. Madeira assures me she’ll recover completely after a stint in a nursing home. Her leg is broken, and old bones don’t heal as quickly, but when she is able to leave she is coming to my house, not back here to this wretched little place.”
Sophie’s back stiffened. For one thing, Nanny’s cottage
was snug and adorable. For another, Miss Crowell was a wealthy spinster who liked to have her own way, and she’d been trying to talk Nanny into moving in with her for years.
But Sophie was just as good at having her own way, and she had never liked Miss Crowell. “Nanny likes being independent. She’s never said a word about wanting to leave here.”
“Of course she didn’t. Not while she had you to look after. I would think you’d be ashamed of yourself, taking advantage of a poor old woman. She’s earned her rest. She told me she would join me once you girls were safely settled, but of course that will never happen. You’re all as wild and reckless as your wicked father.”
Sophie smiled angelically, the look that her sisters had learned to dread. “My wicked father?” she echoed in a dulcet voice.
“You know as well as I do that he stole all that money from his shipping company, and if he hadn’t had a carriage accident on his way to the Continent no one would ever know what happened to him.” She sniffed disapprovingly. “As for your sisters, they’re no better than they should be. Your eldest sister has run off with a murderer, and even in our tiny village we heard the rumors about your sister Maddy’s behavior. And where is that young woman, may I ask?”
Living with a pirate and pretending to be a maid, Sophie was tempted to say, just to watch Miss Crowell’s pale, protuberant eyes pop out still further. “You may not ask,” she said instead, all affability. “Exactly where is Nanny at the moment? I need to see her.”
“That wouldn’t be good for her. Dr. Madeira agrees with me that Bessie needs complete rest. She’s to have no visitors.”
“She’ll worry about me,” Sophie protested.
“No, she won’t. I’ve assured her that you’ll be looked after.”
“I don’t need looking after.” Whether or not that was strictly true was a matter of opinion, she thought fairly. She had no money, no notion of how to replenish the dwindling food supplies, and she’d never been terribly good at lighting the recalcitrant old stove. However, she wasn’t without resources. She could always join a traveling circus, or perhaps start a career on the London stage . . .
“You’re going to have to find somewhere else to go, Miss Sophie,” Elsie said. “They will hear about Bessie’s accident up at the big house and that nosy steward of his lordship will be making inquiries in the village, no doubt hoping she won’t return and they can get rid of the last trace of your family’s occupancy at Renwick. Not that your father wasn’t an excellent landlord before his descent into crime, far better than the Griffithses ever were, but there’s naught that can be done about that at this point—there’s no way you can get Renwick back. It legally belongs to the Griffiths family, and it would never have left their hands if the old master hadn’t been such a wastrel and gambler.”
At least Miss Crowell was equally disapproving of all the inhabitants of the great house of Renwick, Sophie thought, keeping her deceptively sweet smile on her face.
“Now, I was thinking there were a number of possibilities for you,” the elderly woman was saying. “The vicar knows of a post as governess to a family with six children, up north. They’ve had trouble retaining someone, or they’d never consider a girl as young and pretty as you are, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I’d rather starve,” Sophie said flatly, never particularly fond of children.
“Do you have any family besides your sisters?”
“None.” She didn’t even blink, consigning her distant cousins to perdition. “And I have no idea where my sisters are.” That wasn’t strictly true, though the details were fuzzy.
“If only your family hadn’t held Renwick for so many years,” Miss Crowell lamented. “Not that there’d be a place for you—there are no children and Mrs. Griffiths’s companion is her first cousin. You’d be better off looking for genteel employment in London.”
The very thought of genteel employment gave Sophie cold chills, and she didn’t bother to inquire how she was even supposed to get there in the first place. “When is Nanny coming home?”
“My dear, haven’t you been listening? She’s not going to. And even if she wanted to, Lord Griffiths’s steward might make certain she can’t. In the meantime she’s very well settled into the nursing home right now, and when she’s well enough she can share my little home for the rest of her days. We’ve always found each other most convivial.”
Sophie didn’t miss the glaring fact that Miss Crowell’s “little home,” a house with at least four bedrooms, didn’t have room for her.
“Nanny likes her independence,” she said carefully.
“She’s worked hard all her life.” Miss Crowell was firm. “It’s time for someone to take care of her. Her only worry is about you, but I’ll set her mind at ease.”
“You will?”
“I’ll tell her you’re going to join one of your sisters.”
Sophie wrinkled her nose. “And you think she’ll believe it?”
“Why should I lie to her?”
“Why indeed?” Sophie purred. “But unfortunately, even if I had the money for such a journey, my sister is in no position to have me come stay with her.”