Page 108 of The Maid's Secret

“Where’s my mother?” I asked.

“Your mother?” Mrs.Peterson echoed. “I’m afraid no one really knows where your parents are.”

“But…this is Gray Manor,” I said, a certain learned righteousness creeping into my voice.

“Not anymore,” she replied. “The Brauns put it up for sale months ago, and my husband and I were the winning bidders.”

I must have looked about to faint, for Mrs.Peterson reached out a hand to steady me. “You didn’t know,” she said.

Tears threatened to spill from my eyes.

“Please,” she said. “Come in.”

The next thing I knew, I was seated in the parlor of what was no longer my home learning that my parents had forfeited the manor and simply vanished. Rumors abounded about where they’d gone once their fortune was stripped from them. Questions were raised about me, and many of my parents’ former acquaintances, the Petersons included, had heard Mama and Papa had gone to France to meet up with me.

“They said you were at a Parisian finishing school,” she revealed.

It was glaringly obvious that wasn’t the case.

“And how’s Percival?” I asked. “Where is he?”

“At university,” she said. “He went abroad. My son was never a great student, but somehow he passed his entry exams.”

I broke down entirely then, sobbing into my hands. Mrs.Peterson rubbed my back. I confessed where I’d been sent, described the farmhouse and Mrs.Lynch and the girls, how we were worked to the bone.

“I now know how to cook, clean, launder, and raise chickens—all skills I never in my life thought I’d learn.” I alluded to the horrors of the place and the fact that not all mothers and babies made it out alive.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry to hear this,” she said.

“I don’t believe my parents meant to abandon me. They must have sent word, but I never received their letters. Are you sure you don’t know where they are?”

She looked at me with such pity when she said, “Flora, I have no idea. There was a young lad who came by a few weeks ago,” she said. “He said he used to work here. He was asking about you.”

“John Preston,” I said.

“Yes, that’s the name. Is he the—”

“If he comes again, you never saw me,” I said.

She noticed my shaking hands. “Tea?” she asked.

“Please,” I replied. She disappeared into the kitchen, returning with tea and scones. I was so famished I ate mine in two bites.

“Have another,” said Mrs.Peterson, offering me the basket. “I’m not great in the kitchen, but I try.”

“You have no cook?” I asked.

“No cook, no maid, no servants at all. It took everything we had to buy this manor,” she said, smiling tightly. “Flora, what will you do now?”

I stared into my teacup and began to weep yet again. “I don’t know.”

“A girl in your condition doesn’t have many options,” Mrs.Peterson said, pointing out the obvious. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in using your newfound skills.”

I had no idea what she was suggesting. I stared at her, dumbfounded.

“I could use the help,” she added, “in exchange for free room and board.”

“Are you offering me…a job?” I asked.