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valise.”
    â€œâ€™Tis only clothes and the like, sir.”
    Margaret heard shuffling and a clasp being unsnapped and snapped. “Be sure that is all you take or I shall hire a thief-taker to hunt you down.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œMr. Benton?” Murdoch called from the landing below. “Sorry to disturb you, sir. But that man from Bow Street is here.”
    What man from Bow Street? Margaret wondered.
    â€œThank you, Murdoch. I shall be down directly.”
    Margaret risked a glance around the corner in time to see Sterling turn his icy blue eyes on the quaking maid. “I trust you will see yourself out and do no mischief on your way.”
    Joan nodded.
    â€œBe out in ten minutes or I shall have Murdoch toss you out.”

I won’t be a cook; I hate cooking. I won’t be a nursery
maid, nor a lady’s maid, far less a lady’s companion. . . .
I won’t be anything but a housemaid.
    â€”Charlotte Brontë, in a letter to her sister Emily
    Chapter 3

    T en minutes later, Margaret turned from her dressing table mirror to face Joan.
    â€œWell?”
    She wore an old grey frock Joan had unearthed from the attic, the apron she had worn as a milkmaid, and the dark wig pinned securely over her hair.
    Seated on the bed, the maid studied her. “It changes you a great deal, miss. But I still think you need a cap.”
    The only cap Joan had found had yellowed beyond wearing. Margaret lifted the small lace cap she had worn to the masquerade.
    Joan shook her head. “Too fine.” She pulled something from her own valise. “You may borrow my spare. But if you keep it, it’ll cost you one of those shillings.”
    â€œVery well.” Margaret pulled the floppy mobcap over her wig and looked at Joan for her reaction. “Now will anyone recognize me?”
    Joan tilted her head to one side. “If they look close they will.”
    Margaret looked back into the mirror. She lifted a stubby kohl pencil and darkened her eyebrows, as she had meant to do for the masquerade before abandoning plans to wear the wig. She then pulled open the mahogany writing box and from it extracted her father’s small round spectacles. She placed them on her nose and hooked the arms over her ears. Again she faced Joan.
    â€œWhat about now?”
    â€œMuch better, miss. As long as you don’t talk, I think your brother could pass you in the street and not know you.”
    Margaret thought of the accents she had heard daily as a girl, spending hours with first her nurse and then the housekeeper while her mother was busy with this society event or that charity. Nanny Booker was from the north somewhere and Mrs. Haines from Bristol, she believed. Margaret had made a game of mimicking their accents, though now she wondered how charming they had really thought it. “An’ wha’ if I changed m’voice? Would ya know me then?”
    Joan’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t talk like that.”
    Margaret quickly reverted to her normal way of speaking. “I know. And I am not trying to ridicule anyone. Only to disguise myself in every possible manner.”
    Joan lifted her chin in understanding, then dubiously eyed the narrow carpetbag. “Is that all you’re taking?”
    â€œWell, I cannot take a trunk, can I? Nor do I wish to arouse suspicion when we leave by the servants’ entrance.” Margaret riffled through the crammed bag. “I have an extra shift and the milkmaid frock as a spare—it doesn’t weigh a thing. A nightdress and wrapper, slippers, comb, tooth powder, and the kohl.” She did not mention her father’s New Testament, nor the cameo he had given her, wrapped in a handkerchief. She slipped a shawl over her shoulders and looped bonnet ribbons over her wrist. “What else do I need?”
    â€œDon’t forget some of that nice paper for my character,” Joan said.
    When Margaret had slid a