The Soul Beneath Her Skin

Chapter 5: Terms

By breakfast, the burning had gone.

I found no line across my shoulders, no bruise beneath the skin and no change in the pale mark below my collarbone. Bess inspected my back with the thoroughness of a laundry maid deciding whether a stain had set.

“There is nothing,” she said.

“That is inconsiderate of it.”

“Pain generally is.”

I dressed in my second work dress and buttoned the collar high. My coat remained over the chair. Indoors, it would only slow my arms and invite questions about the repaired seam.

Bess held out an apron.

“Mrs Alder sent this?”

“She said if Alpha Vale objects, he may come to the kitchen and explain why a paid servant is being kept from earning what she is paid.”

I tied it around my waist. “I may grow fond of her.”

“You should wait until she catches you wasting onion skin.”

The kitchen had been awake for hours. Stock simmered on the range. Bread cooled beneath cloths. A scullery boy scrubbed the flagstones where yesterday’s spoon tray had scattered, though no stain remained. Kitchens cleaned disasters more quickly than great houses admitted to having them.

Mrs Alder put me on roots.

No ceremony. No whispering. She set a knife beside a basket of muddy carrots and pointed to an empty bowl.

“Even cuts.”

The first carrot rolled beneath my palm. I steadied it, trimmed the split end and began.

Work quieted the ache behind my eyes. Peel. Turn. Cut. The knife had a poor edge but a sound handle. By the sixth carrot, I knew where the blade pulled left. By the tenth, three maids had found reasons to cross behind me.

I kept my eyes on the board.

The kitchen door opened.

Conversation thinned without stopping. Mrs Alder had trained them well.

Darius entered wearing a dark coat and the expression of a man who had already been contradicted elsewhere.

His gaze went first to my hands. Then to the knife.

“Mrs Alder.”

She did not turn from the pot she was salting. “Alpha.”

“I gave instructions.”

“You gave Miss Sedge wages and prohibited work.”

“Yes.”

“That is poor accounting.”

A lad at the bread table bent very low over a loaf.

Darius looked at me. “Put down the knife.”

I finished the cut before obeying. Two even pieces joined the others in the bowl.

“Why?”

“You collapsed yesterday.”

“I remained on my feet.”

“You saw something that was not in the room.”

“So did everyone else. They saw a servant touch jewellery and began planning her funeral.”

His mouth tightened. “This is not safe.”

I wiped carrot grit from the blade. “The knife or employment?”

“You.”

That silenced even Mrs Alder’s spoon.

Darius seemed to hear the answer after he gave it. His shoulders set beneath his coat.

I laid the knife flat on the board. “I am not a cupboard you may lock until the dangerous guests leave.”

“You know the doors to Helena’s rooms. Her ring gave you a memory of her death. The pack reacted to you before you spoke.”

“And none of that improves if I sit upstairs without wages.”

“You will be paid.”

“For what?”

“For remaining here.”

The kitchen had become intolerably interested in the stockpot.

I untied my apron. “Then we should discuss terms somewhere your cook does not have to pretend she is deaf.”

Mrs Alder tapped her spoon against the rim. “My hearing fails whenever rank enters the kitchen.”

Darius glanced at her.

“Convenient,” I said.

“It preserves employment,” she replied.

Darius led me to a small office off the west passage. Tom Mercer waited inside beside a desk stacked with accounts. I recognised him only by the name Mrs Alder had used over the stillroom key. He was leaner than Oram, plainly dressed, with a stillness that did not demand witnesses.

The window behind him had turned black with evening. I had worked longer than I realised.

Darius shut the door.

I remained standing.

“You need a healer,” he said.

“I need a contract.”

“You woke in pain.”

I looked at him. “Who told you?”

“Bess reported it.”

Heat touched my ears, born entirely of annoyance. “Then Bess and I shall discuss what friendship costs.”

“She was concerned.”

“So are you. Neither concern nor friendship is permission.”

Tom’s gaze moved to Darius. The change was slight, but it made the room feel smaller.

Darius pulled out the chair opposite his desk. “Sit.”

“I prefer to bargain at the same height.”

His fingers stayed on the chair for a moment. Then he released it and remained standing as well.

“What terms?” he asked.

The question was better than an order. I did not trust it yet.

“My wages are paid for kitchen work, not for being watched.”

“You cannot return to the kitchen.”

“Then you cannot call the money wages.”

“I do not care what it is called.”

“People who have never missed a meal often feel that way about names on money.”

His expression cooled. “You think this is about economy?”

“Everything is about economy when one person can afford to ignore it.”

Tom studied the ledger as if hoping numbers might intervene.

Darius moved around the desk. “A memory took you out of the room.”

“For seconds.”

“It could happen over a boiling pot.”

“Then Mrs Alder keeps me from the range.”

“Or with a knife.”

“She can give me pastry.”

“Or on the stairs.”

“I have carried water on ice.”

“You do not know what this is.”

“Neither do you.”

The words struck harder than I intended.

Darius stopped close to me. Not touching. Never touching. The restraint should have eased something. Instead, I noticed the clean scent of soap at his collar, the small scar near his mouth and the way his hands remained open at his sides.

My ears grew hotter.

I disliked my body for introducing a second argument.

Darius’s gaze dropped to my mouth, then returned to my eyes. The movement was quick and unmistakable.

Something passed between us that had no right to feel private with Tom Mercer six feet away.

I stepped back first.

“Kitchen duties,” I said. “Cold preparation until the episodes are understood. No range, no carrying boiling water, no cellar stairs alone.”

Darius’s face had closed again. “You are setting restrictions on yourself.”

“I am showing you how adults preserve both work and skin.”

“And if another memory comes?”

“Someone calls for the healer. No one gives me Helena’s belongings. No one locks me in a room.”

His gaze sharpened. “You went back to her door alone.”

“That was my choice.”

“It was reckless.”

“You do not gain ownership because I frightened you.”

Silence settled.

There it was: the wound beneath his orders. He was afraid, and fear had dressed itself in authority because authority fitted him better.

“I am not claiming ownership,” he said.

“You told me I could not leave the grounds within ten minutes of learning my surname.”

“To protect you.”

“Protection that cannot be refused is confinement.”

Tom looked towards the black window.

Darius followed the movement, then faced me again. “What do you want?”

“Written duties. Full kitchen wages from yesterday. My own room or a bed with Bess, no guard inside it. I may be asked to see the healer, not compelled unless I am unconscious or unable to answer. And the right to leave Hallowmere whenever I choose.”

His voice went quiet. “You cannot leave safely.”

“That is not one of the terms.”

“The wolves beyond these walls may react as ours did.”

“Then tell me the risk. Do not become it.”

His eyes held mine.

For several seconds, the room seemed reduced to the distance between us. I was aware of his anger, the grief he carried like an old injury and the unwanted pull that had begun in the kitchen when he said my name.

Mate meant nothing I had chosen.

This did.

That made it more dangerous.

Darius turned away and braced both hands on the desk. “If you leave, you tell me first.”

“I tell Mrs Alder. Employers receive notice.”

“I am not only your employer.”

“You are not anything else yet.”

Tom’s head lifted.

Darius looked back at me. The anger had gone out of his face. What remained was worse: attention without the excuse of command.

“Yet,” he repeated.

I wished I had chosen another word.

I rubbed my thumb across my forefinger, then stopped when I realised I was doing it. “Do we have terms?”

“Full wages,” he said. “Kitchen duties under Mrs Alder’s restrictions. No guard in your room. The healer asks. She does not compel.”

“And I may leave.”

His mouth flattened.

I waited.

“Tell Mrs Alder before you go,” he said. “You will not be stopped.”

The knot beneath my ribs loosened. “Put it in writing.”

Tom reached for a clean sheet before Darius could answer.

He wrote quickly, sanded the page and turned it towards us. The terms were plain. I read every line twice.

Darius signed first.

I signed beneath him.

The two names looked improperly intimate on the same paper.

Tom dusted away the last sand. “I will have a copy sent to the kitchen.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Darius remained beside the desk. “There is one more matter.”

“Those usually cost extra.”

He ignored that and looked at Tom.

“Find out who put Clara on that wagon.”

In the black window, Tom Mercer closed his eyes.