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against metal. “He don’t much care for school.”
    Only then, in the warmth of that spacious kitchen, with snow drifting past the windows, did Susannah recall her first impression of Jasper—that he was three or four years of age. Surely he was too young for school.
    â€œHow old is Jasper?” she asked.
    â€œSix,” Maisie answered. Her gaze was discerning, though she was obviously a woman of simple meansand background. “He’s a bit small for his age. Smart, though. Smart as a whip.”
    Susannah smiled and nodded. “Have you any other children, Maisie?”
    Maisie’s strong, plain features teetered on the brink of something, then assembled themselves into a stalwart expression. “Nope. No husband, neither. It’s just me and my Jasper.”
    Susannah devoutly hoped Maisie wasn’t feeling defensive; it was nothing new for a woman to be left alone with a child. “How long have you worked for Mr. Fairgrieve?”
    â€œNigh onto a year,” Maisie said, spooning dried tea leaves into a crockery pot while the kettle chortled on the range. “My man done got himself sent off to prison, over yonder in Montana somewheres, and me and Jasper wound up here in Seattle after knockin’ around this way and that for a spell. The mister hired me to do for his new wife.” She assessed Susannah. “What about you? You ever been married?”
    Susannah had always kept her hopes and dreams to herself, for all were fragile as butterfly wings, not to be shared with the other students at St. Mary’s, with the nuns, or with Mrs. Butterfield, her crotchety employer. Somehow, though, in the presence of this unassuming woman, it was easier to let down her guard. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve never had a husband, or a child.”
    â€œAre you plannin’ to stay on here?” Maisie asked, meeting Susannah’s gaze squarely in the snow-dampened morning light. The fire made the room warm, fogged the windows with steam. “That baby needs you. Mr. Fairgrieve, he cares for the child right enough, whatever he’d like folks to think, but he’s a man, and they don’t know chicken scratch about raisin’ up a little one.”
    Susannah spoke moderately. “I came to Seattle to look after Julia’s baby, and I mean to stay.”
    â€œAnd the mister?”
    â€œWhat about him?” Susannah retorted, wary.
    â€œHe’s a good man, miss. He can look after himself out there in the world, and better’n most, I’d say, but when he comes back here, he needs to have somebody waitin’ for him. He didn’t build this here house just for himself, you know. I reckon he was powerful lonesome. And the reason there’s lots of bedrooms is because he hopes to have lots of babies to fill them up.”
    Susannah hoped the hot blush rising around her cheekbones wasn’t visible on the outside. “I’m sure there are many women who would marry such an attractive—such a prosperous man,” she said stiffly.
    â€œNot out here there ain’t,” Maisie countered. “Oh, there’s the tawdry ones, down on Water Street and thereabouts—he don’t hold with such as them, but they say he’s got himself a fancy lady down at the Pacific Hotel. Thing is, a mistress ain’t the same thing as a wife. Ain’t the same thing at all.”
    It nettled Susannah mightily—for poor Julia’s sake, of course—to think of Aubrey Fairgrieve keeping such a woman. Why was Maisie telling her all this? “Perhaps he is the sort who expects to have both,” she said uncharitably. “Wife and mistress, I mean.”
    But Maisie laughed, rattling stove lids again. “He’s the sort that wants a woman, all right. That’s normal, ain’t it? But he never strayed from his promises until Mrs. Fairgrieve turned him out of her bed.”
    Susannah could