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She hadn’t thought a person could be so hungry that just the sound of cooking could make a mouth water. Thump. Flip. The cook was kneading bread. Sara O’Connor took a tentative step across the courtyard toward the broad clapboard building in front of her.

She closed her eyes, picturing the soft dough stretching and rising to fill the bread box. For a moment, she forgot about the uneven cobblestones poking through the worn soles of her shoes and the earthy smell of the stables behind her. If Mrs. Cooper took her on, she’d have fresh bread to eat.

At the sound of footsteps, Sara’s eyes flew open. A woman, tall and raw-boned, emerged from the back of Cooper’s Inn. She marched in Sara’s direction, her full skirts a garish slash of color amid the drab gray and brown of the courtyard.

Mrs. Cooper herself. The woman’s eyes swept over Sara, lingering on the frayed hem of her gown. She frowned.

There’d been a day when this would have bothered Sara. When she would have straightened her shoulders and put the woman in her place with a cool look and a few well-placed words. But not anymore.

Sara lowered her eyes and reminded herself to start with a curtsy. Above all, keep her words to a minimum. “Good morning, ma’am.”

The woman ignored her greeting. “Awful young to be a washerwoman, aren’t you?” She reached out and circled Sara’s forearm with two meaty fingers. “Awful scrawny, too.”

Forgetting her resolutions, Sara twisted her arm and shook off the older woman’s touch. “I’m twenty-nine. I’ve taken in laundry for years.”

Mrs. Cooper’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you put on airs with me.”

Sara bit her lip and dropped her gaze. Her voice always gave her away. “No, ma’am.”

“Hmmm. What’s your name?”

“Sara O’Connor.” She willed herself to stay still under the woman’s scrutiny.

“Well, beggars can’t be choosers.”

Their eyes met. Did this mean—?

“Start on that.” Mrs. Cooper gestured to a heaping basket of linens next to a shed in the back of the courtyard. “You get all that hung out by the time dinner is over, and I’ll consider taking you on.”

Even the mountain of soiled laundry couldn’t stem the rush of relief. Maybe tonight she’d have food to fill her stomach, and some left over to bring home for Granny. She wouldn’t have to avoid Granny’s questions or see the worried frown the old woman tried to hide.

The thought gave her strength, and she strode to a wash kettle tipped on its side next to the remnants of a fire. A search of the shed yielded a tub of soap and a washboard, but not the chains that would hang her kettle from the tripod.

She glanced at the kitchen. The noon meal was well underway. Delicious wafts of something savory—beef stew, she was sure of it—drifted across the courtyard. What would Mrs. Cooper say if she returned, and Sara hadn’t even started?

Returning to the shed, she scanned the barrels that lined the wall. She tugged at one, but it didn’t budge. Maybe if she tilted it up and rolled it to the side—

“Reckon you won’t find the chains there.”

Sara jumped, her face heating. The voice belonged to a boy, perhaps ten or eleven years old.

He leaned in the doorway, a long stalk of hay between his teeth, dressed in a ragged shirt and a pair of trousers held up with rope.

Sara winced at the hollow look on his face that spoke of hunger and wondered if she looked the same.

She focused on his eyes, clear and sharp. Knowing.

“Where are the chains then?” she asked with studied disinterest. He nodded toward the stable, adjusting the stalk of hay between his teeth. Sara considered marching into the stable herself, but this boy could save precious minutes. If he told the truth. “Would you fetch them for me?”

“I might.”

Sara shrugged and looked around the courtyard as though his answer didn’t matter to her. “I suppose I can ask the groom—”

“I’ll get ’em. If...” The boy took in her clothing, almost as worn as his own, and sent an uncertain glance to her pockets.

“If?”

“You make it worth my while.”

Sara held back a smile. Streetwise boys who’d grown old before their time were nothing new to her now. “I’ve got nothing to offer you, not even a scrap of bread.” His face fell. “But I could mend your trousers. Make them fit right, too.”

The boy tugged at the rope around his waist. “Nothing wrong with my trousers.” A dull red flush crept up his face.

“Of course not.” Sara kept any trace of pity out of her voice. “But you look like a sharp one. A boy who wants to move up in the world. How are you ever going to get a position as a groom in trousers like that?”

The boy assessed her. “You’d kit me out proper? Like a real groom?”

“I’d do my best. I can sew.” One of the few useful skills she’d learned as a girl.

The boy nodded and scampered off. Sara started the fire, crossing her fingers that he’d come back with the chains as promised. He did. Helped her hang the cauldron, too, and carry over buckets of water from the pump.

Sara opened her mouth to thank him when a bellow echoed across the courtyard.

“Henry, you good-for-nothing idler, get back here.”

Sara sent Henry an apprehensive glance.

“Not to worry, miss,” the boy said with a cheeky grin. “Ol’ Rawley’s bark is worse’n his bite. Mrs. Cooper, on the other hand...” He looked over his shoulders at the inn and grimaced. “Well, if I was you, I’d get the wash done right proper.”

He trotted back to the stable and Sara bent to her task, putting the linens in to soak.

She searched for stains that demanded extra attention and soon lost herself in the methodical movement of fabric over the ridges of the washboard.

Granny had taught her well and she’d come to enjoy the work.

At the very least, it left her so tired at the end of the day that she had no time for worries. .. or regrets.

By the time Mrs. Cooper approached her corner of the courtyard, her arms ached, but she’d filled two lines with gleaming linens.

“Could be whiter.” Sara peeked around the clothesline. Mrs. Cooper examined the linens, her mouth turned down in a frown. “Next time, boil them longer.”

Sara nodded, pressing her palms together. Next time. She cleared her throat. “Does that mean—”

“There’s more wash to be done. You’ll collect the dirty linens after the guests eat.”

Sara was too relieved to be daunted by the woman’s words.

She’d found work, all on her own. No longer would she be under Molly’s thumb, doing the laundry in exchange for veiled insults and rations that couldn’t possibly sustain her.

In a few months, she might have enough saved to pay for better rooms for Granny and a hot meal once a day that would bring the color back to Granny’s cheeks.

A young woman in a starched apron approached as Sara hung the last of the sheets. “Mrs. Cooper says you’re to follow me. Servants eat in the kitchen.” She turned back to the inn without another look in Sara’s direction.

The maid’s dismissal didn’t bother her. Unlike other servants, the washerwoman worked on the fringes of the household with no pretensions of moving up. Sara wouldn’t join in the kitchen gossip nor walk to the lake or the park with the others on their half day off.

She’d be alone. Exactly where she wanted to be.

The coffee was cold. Never a good sign.

James Kinney set his cup on the table. Mrs. Hobbes governed his row house on Duke Street to the highest standards of efficiency. Cold coffee was no accident.

He rose and paced to the window. An early frost dusted the small square of grass that separated his house from the muddy road, empty but for a few servants bent on errands.

A crisp breeze brought golden leaves tumbling from the maple tree and swept away the smoke and dust that usually hung in the air above the city streets.

James contemplated his escape. He could avoid whatever bee was in his housekeeper’s bonnet, head to his chambers, and attack the mountain of work involved in his latest case.

Taking on the Canada Land Company required delicate maneuvering.

One misstep and he’d be branded a rebel and lose the standing he’d spent a decade building.

But he never left without saying goodbye to Evie.

Mrs. Hobbes returned with breakfast, her shoulders stiff with unsaid words. He recognized the signs. She wouldn’t be put off.

“Was there something you needed, Mrs. Hobbes?”

The older woman faced him. “Me, Mr. Kinney?” Her eyebrows lifted.

She wanted him to pry it out of her. Well, he wasn’t a barrister for nothing. “The new maid isn’t working out?”

“Betsy’s able to handle things while I’m away.” Mrs. Hobbes drew up her formidable bosom and swept her hands down the front of her black serge dress, smoothing an imaginary wrinkle. “But now that you mention it, I’ve had my worries about Evie lately. She seems... unhappy.”

James straightened. Here was something new. “Unhappy?”

“I hardly see hide nor hair of your girl these days. Curled up with a book or writing those stories of hers.”

James thought of the composition she’d written the day before, the stack of books she’d finished last month. “She’s ready for more challenging lessons.” He took a bite of breakfast. “I’ll work on a new case for her tonight.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Kinney, but it’s not more lessons she needs. She’s lonely, sir, and that’s the truth.”

“Lonely.” His stomach clenched at the word. James claimed a long acquaintance with the state, but Evie? “What evidence do you have?”

The older woman crossed her arms. “I won’t submit to interrogation like one of your criminals, Mr. Kinney, that I won’t.

” She sniffed. “But since you ask, the only other children she sees are across the aisle at service. On Sunday she wouldn’t even look up when Charlotte Cooper’s girls spoke to her. ”

Evie seemed fine to him. Last month she’d presented the best argument against the Poor Law he’d heard yet. “Nonsense. You should have heard her debating Andrew.”