could be deceiving, that people were not always what appearances suggested.
When he finally turned toward home, it was with heavy feet and a dull sense of apprehension. After the cozy and well-decorated parlor at Castle Carver, his walls looked sad and barren in comparison. He’d thought that he would do his penance of living alone with grace and forbearance, but perhaps his heart wasn’t as dead as he had once thought if he was capable of such pressing loneliness.
Prying open one of the two trunks into which he’d piled all his possessions, Gabriel began lifting out the artwork in their chipped gilded frames and wiping the dust off them with his sleeve. The art that had hung in their little cottage in Concord looked lost and out of place on the walls here. Like Mrs. Carver, Anna had loved art and the collecting of it. She had been drawn to amateur sketches, small pieces found in dusty old shops or given to her by friends. It was her imagination and eye that had imbued the artwork with meaning. But without their benefactress, they were simply trifles, not particularly attractive, and without substance. Perhaps he shouldn’t have stripped them from the only home they had ever known and taken them to this lonely place.
With a grunt, Gabriel lowered the trunk lid and stood. He didn’t want to think about Anna and the mementos she had left behind. He didn’t really want to think about anything. He was just about to see if either of the crates contained a bottle of whiskey he thought he remembered packing, when there was a knock at the door.
For some reason, as he put his hand to the latch, he fancied that it was Mrs. Carver on the opposite side, come to continue their conversation. So when his gaze landed not on Mrs. Carver, but on a girl of a few years younger and with bright red hair, he couldn’t help his disappointed exhalation. Then he remembered that someone had told him Mrs. Carver did not leave her house. Quickly regaining himself, he coughed and tried to look polite and nonthreatening. “May I help you?”
“Begging your pardon, sir; my name is Fanny Gibbs. My brother sent me, said you were looking for some house help?”
Gabriel stared at the girl blankly until he remembered his conversation with the young man named Jasper that very morning, and the promise that he would send his sister around. How long ago that already seemed since meeting Mrs. Carver. “Of course,” he said, holding the door open for her.
With a little sigh of relief, the girl stepped inside. Except for a rounder face and a brighter, gentler demeanor, she was the spitting image of her brother, right down to her sharp green eyes and generous smattering of freckles. She must have caught his look, because she smiled and said, “We’re twins, Jasper and me.”
She turned her attention to the modest entryway with wide eyes, and Gabriel ushered her into the front room.
He offered her a seat on the only piece of furniture—a threadbare sofa that the previous owners had left—while he stood, leaning against the door frame. “Jasper tells me you work for Mrs. Carver. What makes you want to leave?” He was more than a little curious about what she thought of her notorious employer. “Are you unhappy with your position there?”
Fanny Gibbs was small and plump, and Gabriel couldn’t picture her elbow-deep in laundry, or lugging buckets of water up and down stairs. He couldn’t even imagine her in Castle Carver; the house would swallow her up.
At his questions, the girl’s brow puckered in confusion and she stopped scanning the room to meet Gabriel’s gaze. “Leave? Oh, no. I’ve no intention of leaving Mrs. Carver.”
“But Jasper said you were looking for a new position.”
Something like anger flickered briefly in the girl’s green eyes. “I’m sure he did, but I’m more than capable of taking on more work while keeping my place at Castle Carver.”
Gabriel didn’t have experience with interviews, or anything to do with domestic help, for that matter. He wasn’t sure what he ought to ask, or what was a normal amount of work for a girl like Fanny. “What is it exactly you do for Mrs. Carver?”
“Well, I help around the house with light chores, and I do the laundry once a week. She needs me,” Fanny added with a stubborn jut of her chin.
“There aren’t other girls that she could hire?”
Fanny shook her head in exasperation. “I can’t leave Mrs. Carver, not after everything she’s done for me. She’s my friend. She knew that Jasper and I needed the money, and she hired me on to help.”
For a woman who claimed that the whole town was against her—and by his own accounts, Gabriel had found this to be true—here was someone who not only didn’t revile Sophronia Carver, but claimed to be her friend.
“Why did Jasper say you needed a new position then?”
She gave a sigh, fiddling at her worn cuffs. “Because Jasper hates her,” she said simply. “But she’s been kind to me, very kind. I know what her reputation is in the town, and I don’t share their poor opinions of her.”
There was so much more Gabriel wanted to ask her, but he couldn’t very well endlessly interrogate the girl. “Well,” he said, “if you’re already employed then I don’t suppose you’ll want the job.”
“Oh, no,” she said, sitting up straighter, her face becoming animated and her eyes shining. “I can do both. I only go over to Castle Carver a few times a week, and aside from laundry days, I’m only there for a couple of hours. I can do both,” she repeated, as if trying to convince herself as much as she was Gabriel.
“Well, I’m not looking for much. I can manage my own breakfasts, but you would be responsible for preparing dinners. Maybe some dusting. What do you think?”
“I think that would suit very well,” she said, smiling eagerly.
A weight that Gabriel hadn’t realized had been pressing on his shoulders suddenly lifted. He need not be completely alone in his exile, and Fanny was a good-natured, cheerful girl who would help keep the melancholy at bay. “Good,” he said. “If you’re ready, you can start today. But first, maybe something to eat?”
He’d heard the gurgle of her stomach, seen her slightly abashed expression and recognized the signs of hunger from his own youth. He vaguely wondered what Jasper earned on the docks, and onto what kind of hard times their family had fallen.
Fanny followed him to the kitchen and sat on one of the rickety stools while Gabriel scrounged up some leftover bread and hard cheese. “All I have,” he said apologetically as he laid it on the tabletop.
But Fanny eagerly broke off a piece of the bread, piled the cheese on top and chewed contentedly. “It’s perfect.”
They sat in comfortable silence while Fanny devoured the little meal and Gabriel let his thoughts wander. He’d spent so long fortifying his mind and his heart, forcing himself not to think of Anna or the events of the past year, and inevitably failing miserably. But since meeting Mrs. Carver that afternoon, his thoughts kept turning to the gentle curve of her neck, the quickness of her smile, and her generosity and warmth to the likes of him.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Fanny said, breaking the silence.
Gabriel realized he’d been staring at her as his thoughts ran away from him. “I’m sorry?”
She gave him a chastising look, a trace of hurt in her voice. “You’re wondering what someone like Mrs. Carver would want with someone like me.”
