Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 97740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 489(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 326(@300wpm)
I purse my lips and peek down at my morning dress, an elaborate button-down piece trimmed with endless lace and sporting needlework that’s really rather impressive. It’s a status symbol, that is all. Along with this house, the staff, and the parties thrown most evenings by various members of the ton, this dress is merely here to demonstrate our wealth and standing. It’s ironic, since no one will see it while I’m hanging around the house.
I lift the endless material so I can walk without tumbling, hearing the clanging and clattering of pots coming from the kitchen. Lunchtime. It has been only a few hours since breakfast, and it will be only a few more hours until dinner, and then tea, and finally supper. Eating five times a day is, apparently, a necessity when one is stinking rich. Because what else is there to do but hang around our mansion in a fancy dress constantly stuffing my face?
I pass the dining room, where one of our staff is laying the shiny mahogany table, and divert down the stairs to the kitchen. The smell of freshly baked bread is strong, the constantly raging stove and ovens making the underground rooms bordering unbearably hot. But it reminds me of home. I find Cook hunched over the flour-dusted table kneading more dough, probably in preparation for any one of the other three meals we will eat today. I release the bottom of my dress, not at all bothered by the mucky floor that will most likely dirty the crisp white muslin material. My hands are itching to sink into the mixture and get dirty.
‘Miss Melrose,’ Cook cries, her doughy hands held up. ‘You mustn’t be down here.’
I pluck a plum out of the basket and sink my teeth in, something catching my eye. I slowly move around Cook’s table. ‘The Art of Cooking,’ I say quietly, looking down at the open page. ‘Mama had this when we lived in the country.’
Cook wipes her hands on her apron, rounding the table, shooing me away as I sink my teeth into the ripe fruit. ‘I believe it is Mrs Melrose’s, Miss Melrose.’
My chews slow, a sadness that feels perpetual since I left the countryside overcoming me. Mother doesn’t have time to bake for us any more. She’s too busy being a lady in her new shiny manor. ‘Off you go now,’ Cook says. ‘We must serve lunch.’
Silently, I leave Cook behind to finish her bread and climb the stairs, one hand holding up my dress, only to stop myself tripping and tumbling flat on my face, the other holding my fruit. By the time I have made it to the dining room, I have a band of grime around the bottom of my white day dress and a juice stain on the bust. ‘Oh dear,’ I murmur, brushing at the mark on the perfect dress.
‘Eliza, you look like you belong in a slum terrace,’ Frank muses, looking up from the newspaper he is reading, seated at the far end of the table. ‘Perhaps even a gutter.’
‘I am not worthy, brother,’ I say, nibbling around my plum, eager to get every last piece of the juicy, sweet flesh as I present myself to the wall-hung mirror. I wipe my mouth and lean in, staring into my eyes that have always been described by my father as amethysts, and feeling at my hair that he says is rich like coco beans. I get both from my mother. And today, both seem significantly less… alive.
‘I trust your mind is being suitably entertained by high-energy, top-quality, highly substantiated, educational reports about London and its residents,’ I say, looking away from my reflection and back to Frank, who, ironically, has blond hair and blue eyes, like our little sister, Clara, which they take from our father.
Folding his newspaper, he sets it aside. ‘Of course, since it really is I who writes the high-energy, top-quality, highly substantiated, educational reports which grace the pages of Father’s newspaper these days.’ He cocks a brow, as if challenging me to challenge him. I would not, and he knows it. Frank wants to be a journalist about as much as I should like to be here in London. Not at all.
‘And how are sales?’ I ask.
His eyes narrow. ‘Sales are not something you should concern yourself with.’
‘Could be better, then?’ I ask, feeling the corner of my mouth lift as I sink my teeth back into my plum. ‘I know a great writer who may help increase readership. Not everyone wants to read censored, political and religious nonsense.’
‘Will you please sit down while eating?’
‘Now if I did that, brother, I would be on my backside permanently.’ I lower to a chair, my back as straight as it is expected to be, my neck long. This is not through practice, but more my natural posture through years of horse riding. ‘What treasures will I find in today’s edition of The London Times?’ I ask, reaching for the newspaper. ‘Are the Catholics threatening to take over England?’ I gasp, and it is wholly sarcastic. ‘Are they plotting to assassinate King George III?’