In Victorian England slums, the oldest and quietest girl of four trying to keep a roof over her family's head accepts a job with an odd staff and mysterious employer. Until she finds out all the maids before her are dead and she must face a mystifyi...
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"Mr. Howard" I whispered in time before his lips touched mine, "I can't."
"You must do it for the pain..." He opened his eyes and let go, "or have you no idea how far I had to go to admit such things?"
"Sir I understand but I have sinned enough for you as well, you are not the only who has gone through agony, please leave my room."
"Why this sudden need to keep me away?"
"Do you not perceive how things are? Do you not understand that soon and engagement must take place between Mr. Henry and I?"
"Oh you certainly know how to surprise me."
"I do not care to surprise you but you must understand that..."
"Understand? Understand that after months away from society your plans about that foolish boy continue unchanged? Understand how you have been entangled like every other lady by his charms?"
"I have not been entangled, and he intends to make me his wife, not his past time sir!"
"Of course which makes the whole deal bleaker, you will be stuck to him forever faithfully I imagine in your part. I thought you wiser Alice but once again you prove me all women are unreliable. You all fall for any sort of shell of a man, nothing else matters than good society breeding, my disappointments will never end when it comes to the female population," he was changed his tenderness gone, his dare I say lovely conversation done.
"And my disappointment never ends with you!"
"Why are you so hell bent on marriage? Cost what it may!"
He meant to expose marriage was the priority of my life like it was every other ladies' so I did not argue this point because it was true. Along with every other female I was to do what my grandfather wanted, be married and bring honor to our family name once again by erasing the past falling out of my father of the family.
"Do you for a second believe you will be happy with him? Can you not see how it all ends?"
"Sir! I have too many reasons to not break my promise to Mr. Henry! First my word that I would court him once the mourning period was over, second the fact my grandfather chose him for my husband, and last he remained true to the promise he made a year ago to come for me without any incentive from my part which makes him a proper husband for me..."
"Forsake it, forsake it all!"
"No! I cannot forsake who has never forsaken me unlike you! Mr. Henry was more than merciful when he came to visit my mother in her illness, he sought out help in every way he could instead of leaving my side which would have been his right to do. He has been present and while I was wilting away heartbroken over you last year he was the one to give me a glimmer of hope which you had all but destroyed with your unbearable force of character."
"Then accept my apology," he waited and the pain Mr. Howard caused my heart came back as a fresh reminder of something I did not ever wish to go through again.
