“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

Lina turned from the casement window in Edith Holland’s third-floor bedroom and showed her sister her most innocent expression. “Oh, I was changing the sheets…and it was such a pretty morning, I guess I got distracted looking outside.”

She had in fact chosen that chore at that time because she knew that Will had gone out on an errand for Mrs. Holland, and she wanted to watch him when he returned. She was so anticipating this small pleasure that she couldn’t help but linger, looking down on the street, in the hope that she might still catch a glimpse.

Claire came to her side and put her arm around Lina’s waist. “You’ve been so good and helpful these last few days, love. I want you to know I do appreciate it.”

Lina shrugged as though it all came easily to her. She had worked harder that week than she had since the winter, but mostly because when she was working she didn’t have to think about Will being in love with Elizabeth. She thought about how her arms hurt and her head ached and the stupidity of all her menial tasks, so that she could feel angry rather than brokenhearted.

“I know it’s hard for you,” Claire said in her gentle, mothering voice. “You are so much more restless than I am. But I hope you’re beginning to see that if we’re good, we will find the lives we deserve.”

Lina rested her head against her sister’s shoulder. She thought this was a somewhat deluded worldview, but she wouldn’t say so. That would only hurt her sister’s feelings, and Lina had never really wanted to do that.

“We’ll find real love, too,” Claire went on softly. “Just like Miss Liz.”

“What?” Lina said, jerking her head to look at her sister. She felt a renewed ache in her heart, until she realized that Claire was not talking about Will. Her eyes were shining with some wondrous news, and to Claire, Miss Elizabeth falling in love with the coachman would not be a romantic story. It would be a tragedy. “What are you talking about?” she whispered.

“Miss Elizabeth and Henry Schoonmaker, of course. I just read about it now.” Claire moved away impishly and threw herself down in the brocaded armchair by the window.

“I guess he wasn’t in love with Miss Hayes, after all. Do you want to hear?”

“Yes,” Lina replied with quiet urgency. “What does it say?”

Claire smiled and shifted in the chair. She pulled the much-folded broadsheet from the pocket of her apron and slowly ran her finger down its face. “Ah! Here it is: ‘At an intimate dinner party given this past Friday…’”

Lina listened intently as her sister read the announcement. Just as Claire was repeating the ridiculous and unimaginable cost of the engagement ring, Lina heard the sound of the carriage house door slamming shut.

“I’ll be right back,” she said with blunt intensity.

Claire’s face fell. “Where are you going?”

“I…the pillow cases, the embroidered ones…I left them soaking and they’ll be half-ruined….” Lina was already halfway to the door. She turned and grabbed the paper out of her sister’s hands. “Can I take this? I’ll bring it right back!” she called behind her.

Already she was flying down the stairs. The helpless self-loathing she had been feeling all week had been replaced, suddenly, by the certainty that she could sway events in her favor. She would tell Will that Elizabeth was engaged, and then she would be perfectly positioned to offer herself as a replacement. Soon she was in the kitchen, which smelled of broiling tripe. This was a familiar smell from her early childhood, when the Brouds had lived in their own small apartment, but she had never known the Hollands to consume something so common. The cook was nowhere to be seen, and one of the kitchen girls was working a pile of potatoes. Lina might have offered an explanation as to why she was hurrying to the carriage house at this time of the day, but the girl—Colleen was her name—barely looked up from her task.

As soon as she saw Will, sitting on a wooden folding chair, his whole body bent around a book, she began speaking. “Have you read the Imperial?” Her words were toppling over themselves. “Elizabeth has been lying to you!”

Will looked up at her nervously. His eyes were wide and blank; he seemed to be trying to think what to do next. “I…Do you mean Miss Holland?”

“Yes…Miss Holland,” Lina spat. “And I saw her leaving your room very early in the morning, so don’t think I don’t know what’s between you.”

Will shifted in his chair, his large shoulders rounding awkwardly. He kept his eyes to the ground as he replied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Liney, but I can tell you with absolute honesty that there is nothing between Miss Holland and myself. It is very dangerous for you to say things like that, and I wish I could make you stop.”

“Will, listen to me. I’m your friend.” Lina knew she must look ugly now, with her lips set and her eyes large and agitated. But she couldn’t help it. What she was trying to convey to Will had to be conveyed. “It doesn’t matter what you tell me, anyway. Lie to me, if you want. But I think you’ll want to know that your Miss Holland is engaged.”

Will pushed his back into the rickety chair, and his eyes roamed across the floor. He still wouldn’t look at Lina, but after a few moments of forming silent words, he managed to say: “How do you know?”

“I read it in the paper, like everybody else. And before you say it’s just a rumor, you should know that it’s to that man who came by the other afternoon—you saw him, Mr. Henry Schoonmaker.” She paused and raised the paper in her hand. She continued in a softer voice, “You can read it yourself if you like.”

Will stood suddenly, his chair skidding over and clattering against the hay-covered ground. He walked several yards and then stopped with his hand resting against a post. He faced away from her, but she could see the rigid anguish in his stance and wondered if she had underestimated his feelings for Elizabeth. Across the thick-smelling room, the Hollands’ horses breathed and shifted quietly in their stalls. Will’s head shook back and forth, and he pushed his hair behind his ear. Lina was almost sorry she had had to tell him, but only almost.

“What does it say?” His voice was ragged and breathless.

She paused and looked down at the paper before reading the item aloud. When she was done she added softly: “It doesn’t seem made up to me, Will.”

Will drew back his arm and smashed his fist into the post. Like all the wood in the stable, it was rough and splintered easily. He hit it again and again, with such fury that Lina feared what he would do to himself next. Pieces of the post flew into the air. He hit it a fifth, and then a final time, and when he turned to Lina, she could see the blood bursting from his knuckles, and the bits of wood that it was washing out. Finally, he raised his eyes to hers.

The hurt in his face was clear, and she couldn’t help but move toward him, lifting up the chair as she went and forcing him to sit down on it. “Here,” she said. “Just sit.”

She looked around for things to clean the wound and found what she needed. She grabbed the basinful of water, the one Will used when he cleaned the horses, and doused his hand. Then she took the bloodied fist, and with her fingers—long and nimble from stitching—she pulled out the big, obvious splinters. She used the white cotton petticoat under her skirt to stanch the blood, and then continued like this: plucking the rough bits of wood, stopping the blood with her skirt. When his knuckles were clean of splinters, she ripped a long section of fabric from the bottom of her petticoat and wrapped it around his hand. It looked a little puffy and amateurish, but at least her bandage seemed to be soaking up the blood.

She put the folded paper on the floor by his feet. Without looking at him, she climbed the ladder to his little loft, where she knew he kept his whiskey. The early-afternoon light filtered in over the old chest of drawers and his books and his piles of clothes. She found the glass bottle, half full of brown liquid, stashed in one of his drawers, and carried it back down with her.

When she reached Will again, she offered him the bottle but he shook it off. His thick lips still trembled slightly from whatever emotion was coursing through him, and the paper was resting on his knee. He must have read it again.

“I’m sorry,” was all Lina could think to say. She was stunned silent by his reaction. She had certainly underestimated whatever it was between Will and Elizabeth, and though she had hoped this would be the perfect time to confess her love to him, his grave expression made that seem impossible now.

Will looked at her with damp eyes. His lashes were dark and clumped, and his mouth was twisted up. She offered him the bottle again, and this time he took a long pull. “No, I’m glad you told me,” he said as he passed the whiskey back to her.

She took a sip and felt the burning against her lips and the warm drop of the whiskey into her belly. She watched Will shake his head in disbelief. Eventually, his eyes turned to her again. “Thank you for telling me, Liney,” he said. “Just stay with me for a while longer, okay?”

She smiled at him, feeling dizzy with joy. There was nothing so good as Will needing her. If they could just spend a few hours like that, she felt, she wouldn’t have to tell him anything.

“Of course I’ll stay with you,” she said as she took his hand, the one he hadn’t smashed up, and squeezed it. “I’ll stay as long as you want me.”