Page 18 of The Heiress's Daughter
Betty grabbed her arm.
“White slavers?” Clarissa exclaimed, shocked. “Of course we’re not. I am Miss Clarissa Studley, and this is my maid, Betty, just as we said. We’re perfectly respectable, and you’re in no danger whatsoever.”
“Quite the opposite,” Betty said. “If what we think about you is right.”
The green eyes narrowed. “What do you mean,what you think about me?”
“I’ll explain when we get to my home,” Clarissa said hastily. “It’s too noisy in the carriage for conversation. But you’re perfectly safe with us, I assure you.”
The girl sat scrunched in the corner of the carriage, silent and suspicious, clutching her bundle and cardboard tube protectively before her. After a few minutes she said, “But you’re gunna try and make me into a lady’s maid?”
“As I said, we’ll discuss it in private.” After a minute, a thought occurred to Clarissa. “Miss Glass called you Susan Bennet, but you said something different.”
The girl snorted. “She don’t like my real name. She reckons it’s outlandish and foreign so she changed it to Susan Bennet, which is more like what she thinks is a proper orphan sort of name.”
Clarissa frowned. Was the girl telling the truth or not? “What is your real name, then?”
“It’s Zoë. Zoë Benoît.” Her narrow green gaze dared Clarissa to dispute it. “Zoë is Greek for ‘life.’ ”
“Zoë Benoît,” Clarissa repeated, and gave a brisk nod. “Then of course, that’s what we’ll call you.”
Zoë’s mistrustful expression didn’t soften. If anything, it hardened.
A few minutes later the carriage pulled up outside Lady Scattergood’s house, and they descended. Zoë stood staring up at the house. “This is your house?”
“It belongs to Lady Scattergood, my guardian’s aunt,” Clarissa explained. “But it’s where Betty and I live at the moment. And where you’ll live, too.” At least she hoped so. Because even if it turned out that she’d been quite wrong about Zoë—not that she believed in her heart that she was wrong—she would still owe the girl some kind of security—a job at least. Though not as a lady’s maid, apparently.
The butler, Treadwell, opened the door and, seeing Zoë, blinked. His normally impassive expression vanished and his eyebrows crept up to his long-vanished hairline. He turned to Clarissa. “Miss Studley?” he said in a clear demand to have the situation explained.
But Clarissa had no intention of explaining anything until she’d spoken to Lady Scattergood. “Thank you, Treadwell. Betty, would you take Zoë upstairs, please, and show her where to leave her things? Give her a cup of tea and something to eat and I’ll see you both back here when you’ve finished. Oh, and leave any explanations to me, if youplease.” The two girls departed and Clarissa sought out Lady Scattergood.
Over tea and biscuits she told the old lady her incredible tale, finishing, “And so you see, when I saw this girl, I knew at once—well, see for yourself and tell me what you think.” Clarissa rose and called Zoë and Betty in.
Zoë entered cautiously, gazing around the sitting room with wide eyes. Clarissa had forgotten how the crammed display of colorful and exotic items collected from far-flung corners of the world must look to someone who wasn’t used to it, let alone the sight of the skinny old lady swathed in a dozen exquisitely patterned shawls, wearing a large colorful turban and seated in a dramatic peacock chair that looked like some kind of throne.
“Lady Scattergood, I’d like you to meet Miss Zoë Benoît.”
The old lady blinked and leaned forward, groping for her lorgnette. “Good gracious me!” She gestured to Zoë. “Come closer, gel.”
Zoë glanced at Clarissa and edged warily closer. Lady Scattergood’s lorgnette slowly raked her from head to toe and back again, then she gave a brusque nod. “Well, well, well. And you found her in an orphan asylum, you say?” She shook her head and made a disgusted sound. “An absolute disgrace! Should have been drowned at birth.”
Zoë gave Clarissa an alarmed look and stepped back as if preparing to flee.
“She doesn’t mean you, Zoë,” Clarissa said hastily. “Lady Scattergood is talking about my father.” If the old lady had said it once within Clarissa’s hearing, she’d said it a dozen times.
Lady Scattergood nodded. “A vile, irresponsible rake, he was! Society is full of such appalling reprobates.”
“Indeed,” Clarissa said soothingly. “Now let us find out a little more about Zoë’s background, shall we? Sit down, Zoë. Would you like another cup of tea?”
Zoë’s gaze wandered to the plate of biscuits, but she shookher head. She perched on the edge of the chaise longue and faced Clarissa, her expression guarded. Several of Lady Scattergood’s little dogs had come over to sniff around her skirts. Keeping a wary eye on Clarissa and Lady Scattergood, Zoë dropped a hand down, let them sniff and lick it, then began to pat them.
Lady Scattergood nodded approvingly.
“Can you tell us about your mother, Zoë?” Clarissa asked.
Zoë stiffened. For a moment, Clarissa thought she was going to refuse, but then she sighed, and said in a flat little voice, as if repeating a tale she didn’t expect to be believed, “Maman was French. She came over here when she was eleven, fleeing from the Terror. She was all on her own. The rest of her family perished onla guillotine.”
Lady Scattergood tsk-tsked and muttered something uncomplimentary about the French.
