Page 5 of A Deal with the Devil

As the woman who oversaw the household accounts, however, and knew exactly how much sugar and tea cost, mercenary was not the insult it might once have been.

Although “sly” hit a nerve she did not wish to explore.

At any rate, there might not be pots of chocolate of a morning, but there would be honey for toasted bread. And butter. One day. Soon.

“You’re grumbling to yourself again,” Evie pointed out.

“I’m reciting poetry, if you must know,” Kitty lied. She did not want to worry her sister, who was nineteen years old and ought to have been enjoying a truly spectacular come-out, dancing until dawn, gathering posies and truly awful sonnets written about her nose.

“Most poems do not use those words, and certainly not in that order,” Evie pointed out.

“Well, not the interesting ones, anyway.” Kitty stubbed her toe again, a bruise upon a bruise. “Arsemonkeys.”

“That’s a new one.”

“Shut your ears.”

“Not on your life,” Evie returned cheerfully. She hurried to steady the tray Kitty had brought her, teacup wobbling precariously. “You know you don’t have to bring me breakfast, Kitty. I’m perfectly capable of fetching it for myself.”

“I have to bring Aunt P her tray anyway.” Kitty shrugged and nearly upended the coddled eggs slipping across the plate.

“I can do that too.”

“You have been doing that,” Kitty reminded her. “While I’ve been at the shop. I just happened to wake up early today.” She did not add that it was worry that woke her, as it always did. Lord knew their father did not worry. At least not in any way that was productive. Having Aunt Priscilla peruse the gossip papers and parading Evie up and down Rotten Row every afternoon hoping to catch the attention of a single man of good fortune was not particularly useful.

Last month, the woman had bodily shoved Evie into the path of an earl’s oncoming carriage in the hopes that something might come of it. Something like a marriage proposal.

Instead, Evie had turned her knee. She might have died.

“Have the Four Horsemen arrived in London?” Evie asked.

“That’s a bit grim, even for you. It’s early but hardly the apocalypse.” Evie might look like an angel, but she had a wicked streak as wide as Kitty’s. Everything else about her was softer, though, and so people did not notice. Kitty was not soft. There was no time for softness.

If only she could convince the burning in her esophagus that she had everything in hand.

“When Kitty Caldecott willingly rises before the sun, it is dark days indeed.” Evie snorted. “Literally and metaphorically.”

Kitty could not argue with that.

“Have you taken Papa his breakfast yet?”

“No, it’s still in the hall.” As she had lovely daydreams of upending the lot over his head, she had opted to wait. Anyway, Evie did not deserve cold, congealed eggs but he certainly did.

It occurred to Kitty, not the first time, that she was not the forgiving sort.

“I’ll do it.” Evie shrugged into her wrapper. Her long, honey-hued curls fell in a delightful tangle down her back. It hardly needed saying that Kitty had woken to a bird’s nest on top of her own head.

“You did it yesterday. And the day before that. Not to mention you have been waiting on Aunt Priscilla, and that is unjust punishment.”

“She gets cross when her tea is tepid.”

“Her tea could be made with the burning coals of hellfire and she would still find it tepid enough to be cross over.”

Taking Aunt Priscilla her morning tray should not have been a harrowing experience. And yet Kitty had drunk an entire pot of strong tea down in the kitchen just to wake herself up enough to manage carrying it up the stairs, never mind dealing with her aunt. Neither was at their best before noon and avoided each other by tacit agreement. Actually, it was more of a peace treaty brokered by Evie for the good of the rest of the household. And the state of the crockery. Her aunt tended to throw things when she was vexed. As had Kitty’s mother before she died, only they had never noticed the loss of objects then. They were always cleaned up and replaced as though by magic. Her father still had his fortune then.

Alas.

“I’ll take it,” Kitty sighed. “I deserve it.” She muttered the last, but Evie heard her.