The Apprentice Girl // Book 3 in the Rosie Grey series

Chapter One

"Close the window, Rosie. It's freezing in here," James said, poking his head around the door.

I pushed myself off the bed and crossed to the other side of the room, grabbing onto the small hook on the window frame to pull it shut. The sun shone down on the street below, but it provided no warmth. A cold, bitter chill filled the air and every time I exhaled, a small cloud would form from my breath. On the street below, London had only just started to wake up with carriages and horses moving along the street and women out for a morning stroll arm in arm with their husband or a friend. Even in the early morning, as the birds in the trees had started to chirp, London was a busy place to be living.

When I had first moved in with James, I hated living back in London and being so close to the factory. I could see the top of the tower from my bedroom window and it felt as though it were mocking me every time I glanced out of it. It would always be there no matter where I looked or tried to draw my attention to. Once again, I couldn't escape the place that had caused so much pain for me and my friends. The thing that had caused so much difficulty in my life stood still and proud despite the secrets it still held. I had hoped, after the factory, that it would have been demolished, removed from sight so we could all move on. Yet it stood on and prouder still than ever before.

The streets below my window had a continuous flow of people from dawn until dusk with horses and carriages driving along the roads and conversations carrying through my open window. After spending six months in the country, living with the noise and chaos that came with the city remained something to be desired. Although we could hear the busy streets when we were in the factory, it had never been all that loud. This time it took place right under my window and not even closing it could block out the noise. I missed the quiet of the country, but I had finally returned to my family and that mattered more.

"Do you think it's going to snow?" I asked as I pulled the window shut and turned the key.

"It might, though I cannot say for certain." He paused. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes. I've been ready for ages, I've been waiting for you."

"We can't all be earlier risers like you, sometimes I wonder if you actually go back to bed or if you just sit there, fully dressed and wait." He chuckled to himself. "Come on, the shop won't open itself."

"If it did, you'd never go to work."

"Oi!"

James flicked the end of my plait towards my face as I walked past him, grinning slightly as I stepped out into the hallway and down the stairs. I grabbed my jacket off the hook as I passed by it and met Kitty in the hallway who glanced at the large clock and raised an eyebrow to James. The two do them appeared to have a conversation without speaking to one another, something I had grown used to over the past month. Kitty shook her head slightly but said nothing as we left the house and stepped out into the busy London street.

A bitter wind darted past us and I drew my jacket closer around my body to fight it off. Winter had been in full force for several weeks but there had been a lack of snow for the duration of that time, and it had been the one thing I had been missing. Instead, the sky remained bright with only a few clouds dotted here and there with no sign of snow, despite the cold. It would be the first year in a long time I could enjoy the snow when it eventually fell. I could build a snowman, have a snowball fight or make a snow angel. I could do all the things I had done years before and no one could stop me. I could be a child again.

The walk to James' shop took us past Jack's bakery and within the vicinity of Doctor Ealing's office, though I had never seen him or Robert. In the month since I had left service and the Ealing household, I hadn't seen any of the family on my wandering's through London. Tommy saw them more than I did when he delivered the meat, but he never said more than a few words about them. All I knew was that within two days of Samuel driving me to London, Mrs Ealing had hired Sarah and it had become as though I had never been there. I expected nothing less.