“Oh, coming to bed, are we?” A bleary-eyed Philomena asked, slowly sitting up in bed and pushing the blankets down over her linen shift. She’d kept a meager candle stub lit beside their bed, a luxury they rarely allowed themselves unless they absolutely needed the light for dressing or undressing.

Though the servants quarters were dark, cold, and inescapably damp at certain times of the year, they were fortunate that the rooms below the ground floor were properly walled off from each other. That meant Victoria was not at risk of disturbing anyone else as long as she spoke quietly with her bedmate and closest friend.

The only other maid in the house who came close to her age. Besides Constance, who had only just turned sixteen, if that even counted. At twenty-six, Victoria wasn’t sure she could handle sharing a room with a teenager. Philomena was at least twenty. So Victoria knew she could talk about their guest without being put at risk that Philomena would tell someone else or get her in trouble.

“I thought we used the last of the candle on saturday,” Victoria remarked, reaching up to untie her kerchief. In the process, a few pins clattered to the floor. She knelt to pick them up with one hand, while using the other to slowly release a few more that held her black braids fastened into a smart but loosening coil. Her scalp sang with the gradual release of tension when she set the pins aside on a small corner table and began to untie the braid.

“Thomas gave it to me,” Philomena lied. She was a miserable liar. Sometimes, Victoria thought, she would come up with lies for no reason at all. It wouldn’t be as bad if she was a little better at it, but her eyes always had a funny tell when she made things up. They traveled everywhere about the room but directly at the person she was talking to.

Victoria let out a deep sigh, shaking her hair free over her shoulders. “So you took it,” she said simply, “from where?”

“Oh fine. I took it from Lord Albert’s study,” Philomena immediately relented, “he had a couple tucked into the writing desk. He hasn’t gone in there for three years, I didn’t think he’d miss it. Would you rather undress in the dark?”

“I would if it meant I wasn’t at risk of losing a roof over my head!” Victoria hissed. She could be overly-cautious at times, but really. Her friend could be so irresponsible.

“Vikki, you have such lovely hair,” Philomena remarked, watching her as she knelt at the foot of their bed to open the chest they stored all of their clothing and toiletries in. She retrieved a hairbrush and began to brush it gently through her hair to find any more stray pins she’d missed. One or two slipped and clattered into the chest.

“I won’t have much of it for long,” Victoria replied with a soft smile, chiding her friend, “and you’re part of the reason.” She tossed her brush to the foot of the bed so she could get to work unfastening her dark woolen gown, once a finer black and now washed ashen from several years of use. One of her three dresses, this was the one she wore the most. A good work gown, thick enough to keep the cold out. The pins fastening the gown were discarded on the table alongside her hair pins.

Philomena scooped up the brush, climbing towards the bottom of the bed and perching on her knees with a bright smile, “I could braid it tonight for you. We’ve got enough light, and I could even do it in the dark–”

“--maybe before we break our fast,” Victoria said wearily, folding her gown and placing it in the chest, then making fast work of her quilted red petticoat, and the linen one beneath it. She untied the pockets fastened about her waist, and removed her busk that kept her posture stiff and elegant throughout the day. Each layer removed was a relief on her sore muscles and body.

“Would you help?” Victoria gestured to the back of her stays. Philomena obliged, reaching forward to deftly unfasten the strings holding it together. She tossed the brush casually into the chest before doing so. This garment was the last scrap of the day holding Victoria together, and once she’d managed to pack everything away into the chest, Victoria practically melted onto the mattress beside her friend. She flung her arms wide, nearly smacking Philomena in the process.

“Vikki!” The other girl protested, “mind your hands. You nearly broke my nose.”

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Victoria rolled her eyes, “I hardly think you’re quite that fragile, Philley.”

Philomena nudged Victoria’s shoulder, laying down beside her and reaching over to grasp at the stub of their burning candle on the side table.

“You know I don’t like that nickname. Thomas calls me that, too, and he knows I hate it. I’m not a horse!” She complained, blowing out the candle. The scent of smoke reminded Victoria of her earlier chore tending the fire with Lord Albert’s guest.

“We have a Viscount in the house,” she whispered to her friend, tucking the thin sheet under her neck and allowing Philomena to pull their quilt over them. There was something about the comfortable darkness of their narrow space that made the tongue looser. Gossip seemed to be a lesser sin in their private confessional.

“Really!” Philomena whispered back excitedly, then she paused and added a follow-up, “why?”

“Do you think I asked?” Victoria replied in kind with her own rhetorical question. She stared up at the admittedly low ceiling, squinting in the dark. “He was talking about investing. That’s the sum of what I heard.”

“Investing.” Philomena repeated. Their thin mattress shifted under her weight as she turned to her side to face Victoria, “then he’s likely very slow or very desperate. There’s not one debtor in this county or the next who doesn’t know Lord Albert’s got nothing to his name but this house and the little bit we gather for the yearly harvests. Even most of that goes to patching the roof when it leaks, then maybe food and wages.” She stifled a yawn, “I use the word ‘wages’ lightly, too. We live on scraps, Vikki.”

“Maybe,” Victoria admitted, closing her eyes, “but better here than a workhouse.”

“What did he look like?” Philomena swiftly changed the subject, drawing a slight smile to Victoria’s lips.

“Why do you ask? Thinking of trading Thomas off for a title?” She teased.

Philomena huffed, giving Victoria a sharp poke in the shoulder, “just tell me!”

“He dressed quite fashionably,” Victoria admitted, thinking back on the Viscount.

Philomena responded with a flat, unimpressed tone, “really? Do you mean to tell me a man just shy of being an earl would dress well? I am in deep shock. I fear I shall never recover from this news. Vikki, if you wake to find me a corpse tomorrow, I insist you take my best hair ribbons and give them to my mother.”

Victoria laughed, “I would, but those hair ribbons are mine, you grubby thief. She’ll get your second best brush, and that’s it.”

“Vikki, I will strangle you. Tell me more about him, you snake! Tell me about his eyes. His hair. His voice. Paint me a portrait I can keep close to my heart to stave off the cold this winter.” Philomena proceeded to poke and prod her shoulder even more, giggling mischievously.

“Fine, fine!” Victoria shrugged her away, rubbing at the spot that was swiftly growing more tender, “you really should cut your nails,” she added.

He really had been very handsome, Victoria allowed herself that. How best to put it to words, though, she wondered?

“He was tall,” she began, keeping her hand over her shoulder to protect it just in case she raised her friend’s ire again, “he had dark hair. Not black, like mine. More brown.” She paused, nibbling at her bottom lip as she tried to summon more details. It had been hard to capture much, given how much she’d been trying to do the exact opposite. “His eyes were blue. A very pretty shade of blue, like the lace on Mrs. Pragajh’s apron. The good apron.”

“The good apron?” Philomena asked, though somehow Victoria suspected there was just a hint of sarcasm hiding under her sweet voice.

“The good apron, yes, the one she uses on Sundays. With the little flowers.”

“I didn’t ask about the apron, Vikki. I asked about the Viscount!”

“That’s all I remember!” Victoria insisted. “He was handsome, Philley, but I didn’t sit with him for a painting. You’ll just have to see him for yourself.”

They fell into a sleepy silence, Victoria moreso. She could feel the anxious energy Philomena held back in the way her friend shifted in bed, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

“I guess I will,” Philomena said with a deep yawn, “we’ll find his room and peep in the keyhole tomorrow after supper.”

“Absolutely not!” Victoria snapped shrewishly. She somehow doubted she was going to be able to keep her word, however. Guiltily, she realized, she rather liked the idea of doing just that.

Philley, Victoria thought to herself, not entirely sure if she was more annoyed at her friend or herself, you really are the devil on my shoulder!