Chapter 2: The Woman In The Market
1059 Words
I couldn’t get her out of my head.
That’s not a poetic exaggeration. I mean it literally. Linda lingered in the corners of my mind like perfume on an old scarf, subtle but unmistakable. The more I tried not to notice her, the more I did. The way her footsteps barely made a sound on the marble. The slight arch of her neck when she leaned over to polish the table near the staircase. How she avoided eye contact when Beatrice entered a room but didn’t flinch from her the way the others did.
She wasn’t afraid of my mother. That should have terrified me. Instead, I found it deeply satisfying.
In truth, I kept looking for an excuse, any reason at all, to speak with her again. But the manor had rules, and my family had expectations. Not just my wife, though she was thousands of miles away, but the entire bloodline etched into the paintings on our hallway walls. Men like me were not supposed to chase housemaids.
But I was already following her with my thoughts.
Two days after our brief talk in the garden, I saw her again, not in the house, but back in town. It was the same market where we had first met.
I was there early, too early, really, before the stalls had fully opened. Something had drawn me back, a craving for coffee I could have had at home, or maybe just a craving for something that wasn’t routine. And there she was, in a plain grey dress, holding a woven bag. I stood near the flower cart pretending to inspect lilies, but I was watching her. Again.
She turned, and this time, she saw me before I could look away.
Her eyes narrowed with recognition. “Do you follow all your staff around the marketplace?”
I felt heat rise to my face. “Coincidence,” I lied. “I’m rarely here.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And yet here you are.”
“I could ask the same of you.” I replied.
“I work. You wander.” She said.
Her wit was fast. Cutting, but not cruel. I liked that.
“I was looking for something different,” I said.
She tilted her head. “And did you find it?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think I have.”
She looked away then, but not before I saw the flicker in her expression. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it wasn’t indifference either.
"You really shouldn’t talk to me like this,” she murmured. “Not here. Not anywhere.”
"I know.” I said.
"And yet.”
And yet.
We stood there in the morning noise of carts and chatter and the smell of bread from the baker’s stall. For a moment, it felt like we weren’t lord and servant, married man, and hired help. Just two people, dangerously curious about each other.
"Linda,” I said, trying her name out loud for the first time.
She glanced back, eyes steady. “Daniel.”
It sounded different from her mouth. Less polished. It was more real. I hadn’t heard my name spoken like that in years.
Beatrice’s voice echoed in my mind, her stern warning just the day before: “She’s too forward, Daniel. I don’t like the way she looks at people. There's defiance in her. Ambition.”
But the way Linda looked at people wasn’t ambition. It was survival. I recognized it. Maybe because I was surviving too in a house full of rules and shadows and a marriage that had long turned to ice.
“You don’t belong there,” I said before I could stop myself.
She turned. “In your manor?”
“Yes.” I answered.
“Then where do I belong?” She asked.
“I don’t know yet. But not beneath anyone.” I said.
For the first time, she smiled. Not a full smile, but enough to make my breath catch.
“I should go,” she said, but didn’t move.
“So should I.”
We didn’t move.
Not until the bell rang at St. Anselm’s tower, marking the hour, pulling us both back to the present, to who we were, to where we stood.
She walked away again.
I let her. Again.
Later that evening, I returned home before sundown. I told the driver to circle the property once before stopping. I needed time. Needed to shake the foolishness off.
Beatrice was in the drawing room, reading a letter. She didn’t look up when I entered.
“From Claudia?” I asked.
She nodded, eyes fixed on the paper. “She will extend her stay another two months. One of the children’s tutors fell ill. She will remain until things stabilize.”
“Of course.” I said it flatly, though something in my chest twisted not from longing but from relief.
“She sends her love.” Beatrice said.
“Does she?” I said, half-smiling.
Beatrice folded the letter neatly and set it on the table like it was an artifact.
“I don’t like the new girl,” she said.
I looked up. “Linda.”
“Yes. Linda.” Her voice wrapped around the name like it was a stain. “There’s something in her. Something unrefined. Dangerous.”
“She does her work.”
“She stares too long. She listens too well.” She said.
I fought the urge to laugh. That was what Beatrice feared most. Women who listened, looked, and remembered.
“She is not your concern,” I said, trying to sound neutral.
“She is if she’s in my house,” she snapped. “And yours, I suppose.”
She stood and walked past me, leaving behind a trail of lavender perfume and authority.
I stayed there a while, alone in the room where I had spent most of my boyhood. The same fireplace, the same rug, the same lead-framed windows looking out over the east lawn. And yet everything had changed.
Linda had changed it. With only glances, a few words, and the ability to say no in a way that made me want her to say yes.
I should have told myself to forget her.
But the truth is, I was already wondering where she would be tomorrow.
- Writer
