feeling lonely, you could borrow Caruthers. He always makes me feel better.” Violet took something out of her apron pocket. It was a small green knitted frog with button eyes. Violet’s name was neatly embroidered on its underneath.
Lucy smiled. “He’s lovely. Did you do the embroidery?”
“No, that was my mum. She’s very clever with a needle. She works as a seamstress.”
“Well, thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll manage all right at the moment, so you keep hold of Caruthers for now.”
“Silly pair of milksops,” said Becky Bone, giving them both a disgusted look.
When Becky and Violet had gone off to begin work, Vonk showed Lucy to her new room, high up in the attics of Grave Hall.
“This is your bed,” he pointed to a small metal bedstead, one of two in the room. “Rest today. You can start work properly tomorrow. Lord Grave told me you’ve been up for most of the night.”
When Vonk had left, Lucy explored the little room. From the window, she could see the full extent of the wildlife park now the mist had cleared. As well as the elephants and giraffes, she spotted many other animals she’d never seen before, not even in books.
It didn’t take long for Lucy to familiarise herself with the rest of her new bedroom. Apart from the two beds, two bedside tables and a chest of drawers, there was nothing else other than a black iron fireplace. The tiles surrounding the inside of the fireplace had a different design on each side. One side showed a man sitting with a book on his knees, the other a man smoking a long, curved pipe.
Lucy took the trick playing card from her jacket and put it in the drawer of her bedside table before pulling her boots off and lying down. Although she’d been up all night, she was certain she didn’t feel sleepy. There was too much to think about. She’d just close her eyes for five minutes before planning how to escape Grave Hall.
Two minutes later, she was fast asleep.
So she didn’t notice when the tile man with the pipe climbed out of his side of the fireplace and joined the tile man with the book on the other side.
“Well, Mr Paige,” said the man with the pipe to the man with the book, “do you think his Lordship might be right about her?”
“Come on, Goodly, time to get up,” said a voice in Lucy’s ear shortly after dawn the next morning.
“Urgh,” Lucy said and turned over. She’d slept until lunchtime the previous day and then hadn’t been able to sleep that night. And she wasn’t used to such an early start. Gambling for a living often meant going to bed in the mornings and getting up in the evenings, an arrangement Lucy was quite happy with.
“Come on!” This time a sharp pinch on Lucy’s cheek accompanied the impatient voice.
“Get off!” Lucy said, swatting the pinching fingers away. She opened her eyes. Becky Bone was staring down at her.
“If you miss breakfast, don’t blame me,” Becky said, poking her tongue out at Lucy before leaving the bedroom.
After stumbling into the kitchen for a bowl of Mrs Crawley’s porridge (and declining the offer of another portion of toasted ants), Lucy made her way to the boot room to start her new job.
She sighed as she began scraping the mud off the boots and shoes Lord Grave had left out the previous night. It was a horrible messy task and as she scraped and scraped she got angrier and angrier.
Why should she have to clean Lord Grave’s stupid boots? She might be stuck at Grave Hall until she found a way of escaping, but that didn’t mean she had to obey him or slave away for him. She owed him nothing. He’d cheated. Even more than her. And anyway, she’d cheated so she could feed her family. He had no such excuse.
In the end, she flung the boots into a corner, sat down on the floor and folded her arms. There she stayed until Becky Bone came in to check on her.
“His Lordship will be fuming,” Becky said, eyeing the pile of still dirty footwear.
“Clean them yourself if you’re bothered,” Lucy said.
“Oh, hoity-toity toffee-nose,” said Becky, pushing the tip of her own nose up with her finger.
“That makes you look like a pig. Suits you,” Lucy said. She stormed out of the boot room and into the hallway. Mrs Crawley had shown her around part of Grave Hall the previous day. Lucy remembered her saying the drawing room was where Lord Grave spent much of his time so she strode over to the drawing-room door and barged inside without bothering to knock.
Everything went instantly dark, as though the world had suddenly ended.
Lucy panicked for a few seconds until she realised a duster had fallen on her head and was hanging over her eyes. She’d opened the door to a cupboard full of brooms and buckets and other cleaning implements.
“Are you lost?” said a voice behind her. Lucy plucked the duster off her head and turned. It was Lord Grave. Bathsheba was at his heels.
“No. But I want to talk to you.” She slammed the broom cupboard shut.
“It’s not usual for a servant to make demands of her master,” Lord Grave snapped. “But follow me.”
Lucy followed Lord Grave and Bathsheba into the drawing room. He closed the door behind them. Then he sat down in one of the leather armchairs next to the fireplace. Bathsheba’s yellow eyes blinked sleepily at Lucy, but there was a dangerous glint in them. The panther yawned widely, as though she was taking the opportunity to demonstrate the sharpness of her fangs.
“Well?” Lord Grave said.
“I’m not going to work for you. I won’t clean your dirty boots or anything else. You can’t make me.”
Lord Grave opened a silver box, which sat on the side table next to his chair. He took out a cigar and a round piece of metal with a hole in the middle. He put the end of the cigar through the hole and pressed the side of the instrument. A blade sliced the end of the cigar off.
“I could make things very difficult for you. You’ve cheated at cards many times. I wonder what your victims would say if they found out?”
Lucy clasped her hands together behind her back to stop them shaking. Did this mean he knew about her card? “I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” she said aloud.
“You’re not fooling me, Lucy. You’ll stay here and do as you’re told. Do you want to see your parents end up in prison, let alone yourself?”
“We haven’t done anything wrong. Why do you want me to stay here?”
