Read Online The Crimson Shard by Teresa Flavin - Free Book Online

to the open doorway.
    “Sleekie and I work for her father,” she heard Fleet say, “not for her.”
    “Little madam,” added Sleek.
    “My word,” said Mistress Biggins. “You do not know the half of it. A more spoiled creature than Miss Livia you have never met.”
    “Impertinent,” said Sleek.
    “Precisely,” said Fleet. “Do you know, she scolded us for appearing in this house today?”
    “But why?” asked the cook. “You come here to do business.”
    “I imagine she didn’t want them dinner guests to see us. We nightsneaks is of such low status, and they is Persons of Quality.” Sunni could hear the sneer in Fleet’s voice. “Though nobody’d ever heard of Mr. Throgmorton and Miss Livia before they turned up.”
    “And they appeared with no warning,” said Mistress Biggins. “I found them at the breakfast table with Mr. Starling one morning. No explanation then, and none since. I do wonder where they came from so suddenly.”
    “And Starling took them in!”
    “’Twas money,” Sleek said.
    “Aye, Sleekie. Throgmorton had ready money. Where from, you and I may both wonder.”
    Mistress Biggins agreed with a long “
Mmm.
”
    Fleet went on, “Why, if them Persons of Quality had an inkling of our business with the gentlemen in this establishment, they’d never be seen here again.”
    Sunni’s ears pricked up, but Fleet changed the subject, so she sneaked back into her room and blew out the lonely candle by her bed. Desperately hoping that Biggins, Fleet, and Sleek would stay in the kitchen and that she would not bump head-on into Mary, Sunni tiptoed upstairs. The hall was empty. She hurried to the front door and pulled on it, but it was locked. She put her head to the dining parlor door, but when guests began getting up from the table with a scraping of chairs, she sprang away.
    Sunni ran up the stairs just as the dining parlor door opened. She dived out of sight on the landing and darted to the top floor as silently as she could.
    The boys were tidying up and extinguishing candles in the workshop before going to their beds in the next room. Blaise flexed his drawing hand and rubbed his eyes.
    “Blaise.” Sunni hurried in and dragged him to the painted door. “Come on.” She ran her hands over the wall, as he had, and pounded on it in frustration when she could find no way to pry it open.
    “I told you it was closed.” He touched the wall once more just in case.
    Sunni faced the other boys. “You all know how this works, don’t you? You must! And you know we don’t belong here either. Blaise and I have to go back through that door, and you have to help us.”
    “Keep your voice down. They won’t tell you, because they don’t know,” said Blaise. “Besides, they’re scared to talk.”
    “Scared? Of what?” Sunni threw her arms out wide. “Go on, why don’t you run away from the Academy then, if you’re scared?”
    Robert murmured something, and though the other boys shushed him, he kept talking. “We can’t go. Mr. Throgmorton’s paid the parish for us.”
    “He’s put a roof over our heads and food in our bellies,” said Toby, giving Robert a warning look.
    “What’s the parish?” asked Sunni.
    “The poorhouse,” said Samuel. “Where we was all raised from babies. Mr. Throgmorton came looking for boys who was good at drawing, and he chose each of us.”
    “If we is clever at our work, we can stay here,” said Jacob.
    Toby’s eyes flashed. “Instead of rag picking or sifting the Thames mud for lost coins.”
    “But he paid
money
for you. That’s wrong!” said Sunni. “You’re human beings.”
    The boys said nothing until Toby murmured, “It’s the way of things. You do not understand.”
    “I understand that you all have to draw night and day. You never seem to stop working.”
    They all shrugged.
    “Do you ever leave this house?”
    Silence.
    Sunni wrenched one of her sleeves up to show her tanned arm. “You never feel the sun or the rain? Or run