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I hurried after Mrs. Seabrook the best I could. My coat, which had fallen once more, remained in a heap on the floor.

“I am never drunk,” I declared as I caught up to her. “I was foolish to go up to Mrs. Morgan, is all. I drank tea meant for her, which I believe had a drop of laudanum in it.”

“Nonsense.” Mrs. Seabrook turned on me. “None use laudanum in this house. Her ladyship has medicines from her doctor, but she’d not dispense them to the servants.

There’s naught wrong with Mrs. Morgan, in any case.

She’s malingering. She and her ladyship have been quarreling something fierce, probably over the menus.

They don’t see eye to eye. Mrs. Morgan decided to dodge cooking what she didn’t want by pretending to fall sick.

Her ladyship has been contrite ever since. ”

“No, no, Mrs. Morgan is quite ill,” I insisted. “Could scarcely lift her head from her pillow. There was laudanum in the tea, I’m certain of it, but I will be fine in a trice. I shake off these things quite quickly.”

Armitage had emerged from his butler’s pantry as we argued. “Nay, she’s tipsy all right,” he said to Mrs. Seabrook. “I told her, cooks what use wine in their sauces only want a good tipple from the bottle.”

“I am not drunk!” I shouted at the pair of them. “You can smell my breath, if you don’t believe me.”

Mrs. Seabrook and Armitage leaned to me, prepared to do just that. Armitage drew back immediately, his tone dropping to a mutter. “Well, some learn to hide it.”

Mrs. Seabrook continued to eye me suspiciously. “I’ll keep silent for now. You get back to the kitchen and produce that meal for tomorrow. If I find you nodding off over it, I’ll send you away and tell your mistress to give you the sack. I mean it.”

I drew myself up as much as my lingering stupor allowed. “I do not tipple, as I have stated. The meal will commence, Mrs. Seabrook. You look out for Mrs. Morgan and see her well again.”

“Not my place.” Mrs. Seabrook stuck her nose in the air and made for the housekeeper’s parlor. “Get on with it, Cook.”

“Yes, get on with it,” Armitage echoed. “And cease shouting in the hallways. I have work to do.”

I could smell his breath from where I stood, and the quantity of wine on it. No wonder he’d so quickly realized I had none on mine.

“If I am not subject to ridiculous accusations, I can commence with my own duties. Good day, Mr. Armitage.”

Armitage grumbled something, retreated to the butler’s pantry, and slammed its door. I heaved a sigh—I’d been doing much of that today—and returned to the kitchen.

All three young women paused to watch as I came in. My coat had been placed neatly on the coat rack, and I assumed Tess had hung it there for me. I felt a bit better already—my rage at Mrs. Seabrook and Armitage seemed to have helped clear the substance from my blood.

“I suggest we ignore further interruptions,” I instructed. “We have much to accomplish. Jane, when you’ve done the carrots, I’ll show you how to store the greens to keep them fresh for tomorrow.”

As both maids bent over their tasks, I stepped to the sink in the scullery and seized the cup I’d taken from Mrs. Morgan’s room before Mary could drop it into the sudsy water.

Mary regarded me with perplexity, but I hurried past her back to the kitchen, surreptitiously sliding the cup into a drawer in the dresser.

I moved to the table and began to sort what was in the basket, but my legs trembled, and I had to sit down quickly to do it.

Somehow, we managed to finish our preparations that afternoon, Tess and I recreating what we’d done in my kitchen and carefully storing the pastries and tarts we’d brought with us.

I mixed bread dough and kneaded it, letting it rise for baking in the morning, plus broke off a small piece to roll into buns for the kitchen staff’s supper that night.

Apparently, a meal wasn’t required for the household that evening, as his lordship and his son, Lord Alfred Charlton, had gone to their club.

Lady Babcock was out with her stepdaughter, Lady Margaret, who was quite a beauty and would likely marry anyone she chose, according to Mary.

Only the staff needed to be fed, and I knew I could prepare a good supper for us all.

As I worked on this and tomorrow’s feast, I felt much better, the effects of the laudanum wearing off. I wasn’t certain what I’d do with the unwashed cup I’d hidden, but it was evidence I hadn’t muddled my head with drink.

Mary, who’d quickly grown comfortable with me and Tess, chattered away about Lord Babcock and his family.

It was common knowledge that Lady Babcock was his lordship’s second wife, and that the son and daughter of the household, both in their twenties, were children of the marquess and his first wife.

Lord Alfred was being groomed to step into the marquess’s shoes whenever Lord Babcock popped off.

Lady Margaret, as Mary had mentioned, was quite beautiful and had any number of suitors.

Lady Margaret sometimes came down to the kitchen, sweet as you please, to ask for a dish to be made for tea with her friends, or to snatch a tidbit, as she’d been doing since she was a child.

Mary had no use at all for the second Lady Babcock. It seemed no one did, though she’d been Lord Babcock’s wife for the past twenty years.

I did not condone gossiping in the kitchen, but I admit I didn’t stop Tess asking questions. Nor did I make myself not listen to the answers.

“Lord Alfred will likely toss her ladyship out on her ear when he inherits,” Mary said with confidence. “Stands to reason. She ain’t their mum, is she?”

“Is Lord Babcock likely to fall off his perch any time soon?” Tess asked with unfeigned curiosity.

“Could be,” Mary said. “He’s seventy, if he’s a day.”

“That’s no great age,” I said as I competently rolled out dough for the buns and tucked the edges under. “Not in these times. Patent medicines can do wonders.”

“Lord Alfred loves his dad, that’s for certain,” Mary went on. “Is ever so gentle with him.”

Jane, who’d listened to much of the conversation in sullen silence, let out a snort. “That ain’t true. Lord Alfred wants to be marquess, not just a marquess’s son.”

“Lord Alfred is too kind for that,” Mary said insistently. From the flush on her cheek, I deduced she had a fondness for Lord Alfred.

“You think the best of everybody, Mary,” Jane sneered. “’Cause you’re a fool.”

“Now, Jane, mind your tongue,” I admonished. I agreed with her that Mary was a bit too quick to trust, but Jane’s philosophy seemed to be to dislike everyone on sight.

I wondered what had happened to give Jane such anger. The likes of us had to drudge for a living, and while some complained, others did it cheerfully and managed to live a happy life. I concluded that more than hard labor had turned Jane bitter.

“Lord Babcock must have had his children later in life,” I mused. “If Lord Alfred and Lady Margaret are not yet thirty.”

“His first wife had trouble carrying little ones,” Mary said. “Lost a few before Lord Alfred and Lady Margaret came along, and it was touch and go with both of them. That’s how the first Lady Babcock died, so it’s said. Trying for another child.”

“How very sad,” I said in sudden sympathy. “That must have been difficult for the family.”

“That’s not what everyone says,” Jane broke in with a scowl at Mary. “Some say Lord Babcock poisoned the first Lady Babcock so he could marry the second one. She was young then, quite a beauty in her day, I’m told.”

“A lady who miscarried children and had trouble bearing them likely was weakened by it,” I said. “It is not surprising that the first Lady Babcock died. Not every death is helped along by poison, even if it might seem unexpected. A person’s constitution can be a complicated thing.”

My mother had been a robust woman, but working so hard to keep us in bread and butter, not to mention the rent for our tiny rooms, had worn her down. When her illness came, she hadn’t had any strength left to fight it.

I busily formed more rolls, willing my eyes to remain dry.

“What about your patent medicines that keep a body fit?” Jane asked with sarcasm.

I sent her an admonishing frown, both in disapproval and to disguise my emotions. “Do not be so impertinent, Jane. Have you finished with those carrots?”

Jane shoved a plate of them to me, cut into a perfect dice. I admit, the reason I didn’t send Jane off on errands that would get her out of the kitchen was that she was proving quite competent at her job.

Mary, on the other hand, fumbled even at stirring a batter, more interested in chattering. I kept her sorting and stacking dishes and pans when she wasn’t washing them. Mostly, she rested her hip against the table and talked while we worked.

“Excellent,” I told Jane. “Now please do the same with the parsnips. They’ll make a fine addition to the ham.”

Jane made a face at me but fell to chopping once more.

When I served the staff their supper that night, I observed a softening in belligerence toward me. The three footmen shoveled in the pork, potatoes, and soft buns slathered in butter with great enjoyment, and even Mrs. Seabrook gave me a grudging, I suppose you do know something about cooking.

I did not hear from Armitage, who snatched a plate and shut himself in his butler’s pantry, but the dish that Mary brought back from him had been scraped clean.

Jane said nothing at all as we ate our meal in the kitchen, but she ceased glowering at me and helped herself to two buns.

After we finished, I took a basket of food scraps up to the street, as was my habit, to give to any lingering beggars.

To my surprise, the men and women who usually waited for me outside the Mount Street house had turned up here. Word had spread of my whereabouts, I supposed.

After I’d emptied the basket, I walked a little way down the road to a figure who huddled beneath a tree near the railings to the square’s park.

“I suppose you’ve come to look after me,” I said to the motionless lump. “And told these others to as well.”

Daniel unfolded to his full height, shrugging off the tattered blanket he’d pulled around his shoulders. “I will always look out for you, Kat.”

I did not like the warmth that filled me at his words.

I kept my tone brisk. “If you wish to be useful, will you find something out for me?” I pulled the cup I’d hidden from the bottom of the basket.

“Will you have someone test the substance in here for me? I believe it is only laudanum, but I want to be certain.”