The Crimson Gown

Chapter Five

Lydia set the bucket of hot water on the floor, lowered herself to her knees, and began to sweep the cold ashes out of the fireplace. Her hands were already black with filth, the dirt embedded deep into her knuckles and the cracked skin around her fingernails. She attacked the grate with an energy that brought out a layer of sweat that prickled under her arms. She licked a bead of perspiration off her upper lip and bent forward again, this time with her fingers wrapped around the handle of a stiff wire brush.

She scrubbed until her muscles ached, until the wisps of steam that had curled and writhed across the surface of the water began to dissipate. She scrubbed until the bricks shone dark red and brown and the once-clean water was swirled with black and grey. When the water was too dirty to continue, she carried the pail outside, dumped the waste, and refilled it with clear, cold water from the pump. Her arms trembling with her burden, she trudged back inside and began all over again in the next room.

She had returned to The Lamb's Head only a few minutes past dawn. Cold and wet, her boots caked with mud and her skirts soaked through up to her calves, she'd slipped inside the rear entrance that led directly into the kitchen, paused long enough to stoke up the smouldering fire, and set herself to work.

There had been no breakfast for her, no tea. She wouldn't allow any sustenance to pass between her lips until she could declare herself deserving of it. Her father had commented on her early return when he'd arrived downstairs an hour later, and she caught the note of suspicion in his voice, a wariness in his manner that caused her to withdraw into herself. A few muttered words about how she was no longer needed at Mowbray Hall, that the majority of the heavy cleaning was finished, and she shuffled away from him. But still, guilt spread through her. Because the lie had been such an easy one, as if her short absence from home had been enough to make all manner of falsehoods tumble readily from her mouth.

Breakfast passed, and the rhythm of the day swallowed her up inside it. Guests arrived, calling for beverages, for food, for fresh horses and hot bricks for the inside of their coaches. Lydia buried herself in her work, making beds, sweeping floors, soaking and scrubbing sheets that would later be hung out to dry in the cold, biting air.

The bell for the midday meal rang out, and Lydia disregarded it as she sank her blistered and bleeding fingers into a bucket of hot water and lye, the mixture needed to scrub the layers of mud from the stone floor of the kitchen. The pain and discomfort were no more than what was warranted to her. She had allowed herself to be tempted, and now her every thought was overwhelmed with memories of the previous night, of the panting cries of the woman as her husband had dipped his fingers inside of her.

But the pain did not succeed in dulling the ache that had awoken while she'd been away. She remembered the pressure of Lord Cailvairt's hand, of his touch seeking that secret place between her legs, of the wetness that had spilled out of her as his thumb teased her breast.

Every sensation had contributed towards that nascent yearning, a yearning that refused to be fought off with starvation or aching muscles or another dose of lye on her already bleeding skin.

By the time she finished with the fireplaces, the middle of the day had come and gone again. She rinsed her hands at the pump in the yard behind the inn, where the paths were crossed with hundreds of muddy footsteps and the deep ruts of carriage wheels. The dirt adhered to her nails, had taken up residence in the seams of her damaged skin. Her apron was a sight, streaked with soot and dust, and she would have to change it for another or risk spreading more dirt on places that had previously shown at least some semblance of cleanliness.

As she walked back towards the inn, her father appeared in the doorway, blocking her entrance into the kitchen. In the pale light of the day, his fair hair shone, nearly colourless against his skin. His eyes were brown, streaked with gold and green, and when he took a step forward, she saw the flash of anger in them.