Page 22 of A Little Light Mischief
“Elf in tree,” Katie said firmly, not letting go of the linen but letting Alice look at it. It was indeed one of the handkerchiefs Alice had embroidered, the one with the elf in the cherry tree. Alice’s mind reeled. Molly had lied about selling them and must have given Alice her own precious coins.
“Here’s your tea,” Mrs. Fitz said upon returning to the sitting room. “Goodness, miss, have you taken a turn?”
“Just a bit of air,” Alice managed, “and I’ll be quite all right.”
Molly was bone-tired when she turned the corner onto Mrs. Fitz’s street. She had sold the diamond and given the proceeds to Jack for safekeeping. Then she had returned to Eastgate Hall, only to find that Mrs. Wraxhall and Alice weren’t there. The butler, after regarding Molly’s dusty and rumpled clothing and noting that it was highly unorthodox for a lady’s maid not to know such pertinent information as the whereabouts of her employer, told her that a letter had arrived from Mr. Wraxhall, and within the hour Mrs. Wraxhall had left with her servants to meet his ship in Dover. So back Molly went to London. She’d pop in to give a kiss to Katie and then go to Mrs. Wraxhall’s house, if the woman was even there yet—not that she’d have a job anymore, but she needed to find Alice and let her know the money was waiting for her. She told herself that what came after that didn’t matter: Alice was free to do as she pleased. The fact that it had evidently pleased all Molly’s previous lovers to vanish from her life after they had done with her had no bearing on the matter. Alice was different.
Molly snorted at her own stupidity. Alice was different all right. She was decent and kind and would be ashamed of herself for having shared a bed and a felony with a woman who knew how to fence stolen jewels and launder the proceeds.
She frowned when she approached Mrs. Fitz’s stoop. Someone was sitting there. Really, this was not the kind of neighborhood where she expected women to be lounging around in doorways. At least, not women in gray pelisses. Her eyes went wide.
She ran the rest of the way.
“What are you doing here?” Molly demanded. “You’re supposed to be in Dover.” Before she could think better of it, she had clasped Alice’s hands and drew her to her feet.
“I’m getting the money from my father.” Alice squeezed Molly’s hands. “He’s returning the money that my mother meant me to have. I’ll get fifty pounds a year.”
“What?” Molly reeled but didn’t let go of Alice. “How?”
“I was quite threatening. You’d have been proud.”
Where on earth was the shy, self-effacing girl who had come to London a few months ago? “You’ve gotten quite good at blackmailing people.”
Alice let out a shaky laugh. “I’m not letting anyone treat me like I’m not worthwhile anymore. I deserve better. I have what’s rightfully mine and I’m going to live the life that I choose.”
“And you came here to tell me.” It was... fine. Molly told herself that she didn’t want more. If Alice wanted to go be the fine lady she was, then that was only right and proper. “You’ll also have the money from the diamond. That’ll be enough to set you up nicely.” She tried to let go of Alice’s hands but Alice’s grip was too strong.
“Half the money from the diamond,” Alice corrected. “And I didn’t come to tell you. I came to see—” She sucked in a breath and Molly found that she was doing the same. “I came to see if you’d like to set yourself up too. I mean, with me. Despite what you think, I expect Mrs. Wraxhall isn’t going to sack you for this. But I thought that maybe you’d want to try to figure something out with me? It doesn’t have to be a boarding house. Whatever it is, Katie would come, of course. It could be—”
“I’d love to run a boarding house with you. Or anything you liked. Anything, Alice. I was trying to tell you that the other day.”
“I know that now, but I just couldn’t make myself believe it was possible.” She pulled Molly a bit closer so the brims of their bonnets were nearly touching. “You’ve made me feel like I deserve good things. And you’re the best thing of all.”
Molly didn’t go in much for tears, but she was crying now and there was no use pretending otherwise.
Epilogue
One year later
The calluses had returned to Alice’s fingers, and her hands were a bit red from the harsh soap she used to scrub the stairs. At the end of a day of cooking, cleaning, and looking after Katie, she and Molly collapsed wearily onto the bed in their little room at the top of the house.
Alice had never been happier.
The winter was bitterly cold, but inside the boarding house it was warm. They spent too much on coal, because nobody was getting chilblains in any establishment Alice ran. It was Saturday, so after supper Alice had collected the coming week’s rent from their lodgers and was counting it out on the kitchen table. She liked to see the rent, touch each coin with her fingers, as if to prove that she had earned that money with her own work. And she had the further satisfaction of knowing that she was doing something good: their boarding house offered safe and clean rooms to women. When a woman came to the door and looked hungry and desperate, Molly lied outright about the cost of a bed and offered it for a penny a night.
The kettle whistled, so Alice rose from the table and set about making two cups of tea. By the time she finished, Molly had come in from feeding the hens and wrapped her arms around Alice’s middle. She mumbled something that sounded like “bollocks on this weather” into Alice’s neck.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Alice protested, trying to sound stern and failing utterly.
“I’m going to do filthy things to you in the kitchen. Right next to that nice hot stove.”
Alice snorted. “Right now what you’re going to do is sit next to that stove and warm yourself.” She loosened Molly’s grip with the intention of turning to face her.
“No,” Molly wailed, clinging onto her like a limpet. “You’re so warm. Don’t let go of me. I love you. Don’t you love me too much to let me freeze?”
Laughing, Alice managed to get Molly closer to the stove. “I do love you. And you can do whatever you like to me later,” she whispered.
Molly pulled back, raising an eyebrow, and Alice felt an answering warmth. “That a promise?”
“Always,” Alice whispered, brushing her lips against Molly’s temple.