The following morning Liara stumbled bleary eyed to the breakfast table in search of tea and instead was greeted with questioning scowls of her friends as they sat with empty plates and stomachs.

"Can I help you?" she asked sarcastically.

"As a matter of fact you can! "Verushka piped up.

"What kind of hostel do you think we are running, where you can just come in and out as you please without so much as a 'by your leave'?" Mina yelled.

Liara shuffled around the kitchen looking for cups and perhaps a crust of bread, "I don't know what you are talking about."

"Don't play coy with me," Mina argued. "I saw you duck out last night and then you came back in a completely different dress. WHAT were you doing?"

Verusha gaped, "Oh my god! Really?"

"Yes. And you would know that if you actually stayed put for five minutes too," Mina scolded. "Don't think I didn't see you leave to meet those boys across the fence line last night.

"Well...." Verushka hedged knowing that the secrets the she held now were not just her own. Could she really divulge the secrets of her country? In the end she decided that deflection was the best course of action and spat back, "I told you I was going out and anyway I don't have to tell you everything!"

"What world do you live in? We tell each other EVERYTHING!" Mina yelled.

Thanks to her late night, Liara couldn't handle much more screaming and edged her way into the pantry to look for flour. She should make pancakes, she thought. Everyone was always happier with pancakes.

As Mina continued her tirade, the hypocritical nature of her dissertation dawned on her. It wasn't as if she could come right out and tell the girls that she was training to be an Agent for Her Majesty.... or could she?

Liara waddled back in with an armload of bowls, butter and flour hoping that she siphoned the items discreetly enough to not be noticed by Madam Shiela. When she plomped them down on the table Verushka was rolling her eyes while still being harangued by the eldest girl.

"SO, Mina," Liara began loudly cutting through the tension. "What have you been getting up to with that gorgeous Duke?"

Mina scowled, before her face softened. "He had the nicest jaw... and those eyes."

"Eyes?" Verushka pricked up at the mention of her secret sibling.

Mina smiled. "Yeah, he had grey eyes that gleam like the Bexley silverware."

Verushka's mouth twisted. "I have grey eyes..."

"Verushka, nobody cares about your eyes right now." Liara joked.

Ver scrunched her nose in playful annoyance.

"He was gorgeous though wasn't he?" Mina continued in her daze.

"Was?" Verushka asked

Mina slumped down a little dejected on her stool, "Well, I haven't seen him again."

It was Liara's turn to frown, "Well if you haven't been out philandering with him, where have you been. Cos, I can certainly tell you that you weren't around when I had to beat the dust out of all the rugs yesterday morning!"

Mina shifted uncomfortably before answering with unease. How could she explain the story of how she met Dra'gaan without incriminating her pickpocket ways? "Umm.. so I was out in the Garden and this guy kinda grabbed me."

Verushka's eyes widened with shock. "Oh my God, Mina! Are you okay?!"

Mina brushed off her inquiry with casual deflection. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine."

"How fine?" Liara's eyes narrowed with suspicion

Mina rolled her eyes. "Honestly Liara, not everything is about that!"

"Hmmph," Liara shrugged. "Well, you said that he 'grabbed' you. How was I to know you didn't enjoy it?"

"Anyway!" Mina continued. "So, this guy says he would like to offer me a job."

"In his pants.." Liara mumbled between large sweeping stirs of batter.

Verushka's eye widened. "A job doing what? You're not leaving us are you?!"

Mina sighed and picked up the large wooden spoon covered in leftover batter. "No. Definitely not. But..."

"But, what?" Liara cut in sharply, mid-pancake toss.

Mina bit her lip and wrestled with her conscience. Could she betray Dra'gaan and the Queen? Something in her gut coiled and twisted, and she suspected it was lies knotting with the truth. "The thing is, it was someone who knew that I used to work as a pick pocket down in Covent Garden-."

"Ha ha!" Liara laughed. "Used to!"

Mina's held her breath in shock. "What are you saying?"

Liara arched an eyebrow over the rim of her favourite skillet. "We're not stupid Mina. There are days that you come back jingling with coin in your pocket and icing sugar around your mouth."

Mina's eyes darted to Ver who was nodding and grinning in agreement.

"Well, well....why didn't you say anything?"

"It's none of our business really." Verushka responded poignantly. "We don't have to tell each other everything."

Mina glared but continued her story. "Look, anyway this guy offered me a job, using my.... skills to help out some of the Runners." She hedged around the truth, dancing as fleetingly as if on the branches of a tree. The Agents were definitely more than Runners. They were the bosses of the bosses of the runners and she was investigating the possible assassination plans of the Queen! Perhaps some things had to remain a little bit of a secret.

"The Bow Street Runners?!" Verushka gawked.

Liara set her pan down with a thud. "WHAT?"

"Girls, I don't even really know what's happening. It's all so sudden and I don't know much yet. Anyway, I haven't really done anything so far. It's not as if I'm policing the streets or anything. "

There was stunned silence. Verushka was the first to respond with emphatic congratulations and Mina had to smile. She could always rely on Ver to be truly happy for her.

Liara stood with both eyebrows raised as she came to terms with the change that would eventually follow this innocuous announcement. Eventually she tilted her lips into an encouraging half-smile, "How's the pay?"

"I forgot to ask." Mina admitted.

It seemed that this was always the way with them. Ver reaching for the stars and Liara making sure they never lost their footing on firm ground. It was an odd combination but it was one that she loved and had come to rely on.

"Now Liara, It is well passed your turn to catch us up. What happened that night with that Spanish soldier??" Mina delved.

Liara's eyes frantically darted around the kitchen at the swift change in topic. "Nothing...kind of. Anyway I have to finish baking, so Ver can go next!"

Verushka used Mina's trademark scowl. "I haven't seen Cain yet and he still hasn't given me back my bloody book! I want to know how it ends."

"I can tell you how it ends." Liara smiled, having read the novel first.

"Don't you dare!" Verushka scolded. "Anyway, I may not have seen Cain but I did see your man."

Liara brightened, "You did?

"Aha!" Verushka triumphed. "So you admit that Marco IS your man."

Mina eased the tightly held pan away from Liara and began scraping off the burnt pancake. "You may as well tell us now, before you burn anything else."

"Okaaay," Liara eased herself reluctantly into a chair by the stove so that she could monitor Mina's attempt at flipping pancakes. "So, I skipped out on dinner-"

Verushka scoffed

"-and then went for a bit of a wander down to the stables when Mr 'Oh so handsome in tight pants' came by. Well, I guess we started talking and then the lights went out and he got all precious about his horse, one thing led to another and we...umm....kissed."

"OH MY GOODNESS!" Verushka squealed then jumped up to give Liara a hug. "Your first kiss! Yay! How was it?"

The usual brash maid became a little coy and shifted uncomfortably under all the attention, "It was... nice. More than nice I guess." She smiled.

Mina slid another cooked pancake onto the pile with a grin, "Welcome to the club, Li."

Liara made an unimpressed face. "Can I sit at the big table now, Mina?"

Ver swatted her on the shoulder, "Don't be silly. Mina wasn't being patronizing. She's happy for you, isn't she? Aren't you, Mina?" She looked poignantly in Mina's direction.

Mina rolled her eyes. "Thrilled."

Liara narrowed her gaze.

Verushka saw the classic signs and carefully slipped in between their line of sight. "So tell me more! Tell me everything!"

Liara leaned back a little. It was sometimes difficult to be around someone who was so bright and cheerful in the morning. It was almost a sin really. Surely the Holy Father meant to include something about early rises in the Bible.... not that she read the Bible.

Verushka looked so eager, with eyes wide and chin propped up between two palms. Liara wanted to hide from the inquest. There was nothing like the scrutiny of a well-meaning friend. "There isn't really much to tell I s'pose. I don't think there will be any more kisses in the dark with him."

"Well he is the Duke's friend, so you might see him around." Mina offered, bringing the finished pancakes to the table.

"It's not like he is going to come searching for me in the stables, and anyway he doesn't even know I am a maid." Liara countered and then realised her gaff.

Ver's eyes narrowed, "What do you mean, he doesn't know."

"Yeah, didn't your filthy uniform and the hay in your hair give it away." Mina laughed in commiseration.

Liara was beginning to think it was far too hot in the pantry with so many questions. "Umm...well, about that... I might not have been in my uniform."

The girls waited patiently for the words to slowly crawl out of Liara's mouth with the speed of an earthworm inching across a ballroom.

"I might have found this dress... a pretty dress, and I might have put it on. And, when Marco assumed that I was a Lady I might not have been exactly honest with him."

Mina frowned and stopped long enough to pause the motion of food into her mouth and comment, "There were a lot of 'mights' in that sentence."

"So, you pretended to be a Lady?!" Ver gasped "I'm sure that must be illegal or something, Mina?"

Mina recoiled, "Don't look at me! I 'aint the law. All I'm doing is listening at a few doors... I think."

"Look it doesn't even matter. I put the dress back after that and he kind of said that I wasn't good for him, or he wasn't right for me, or something like that. I mean, I tried to tell him that I wasn't a 'maiden' but I think my obvious lack of knowledge in the area assured him that I was. And while we are on that note, come on, it's almost as if the servant class have to be hussy's!" Liara ranted.

"It's not that-," Ver rationalised while applying a smear of strawberry jam to her breakfast. "It's more that we are not so stuffy about showing love."

It was Liara's turn to roll her eyes, "I don't think that what the footman was doing to the downstairs chamber maid was out of 'love'."

Mina giggled through mouthfuls and stood up to pop the kettle on.

"Actually, speaking of hussy's..." Liara twisted the corner of a dish cloth nervously which earned her the narrowed gaze of both her friends.

"I might have met the Mistress of the Crimson Guild." She coughed on the final words and stared intently at the spiralled piece of fabric.

"You mean that famous actress?" Verushka enquired.

"Oh yeah, I've seen her about Covent Garden once or twice." Mina nodded

Liara's head snapped up, "Don't tell me that you stole from her too?"

"Hah! No way. That broad would see me coming a mile away. Got a sixth sense she has."

Verushka leaned forward with questioning eyes. "So, what did she say to you?"

Liara licked her chaffed lips and wondered where she had stumbled from truth into trepidation. "I, I think we talked about the demimondaine for a bit and the stage. And then..."

"And then?" Ver prompted.

"And then I think she offered to teach me." Liara blurted out.

Mina frowned deeply, "Teach you what?"

"To be an actress?" Ver's eyes glowed with excitement. Between the Duchess trying to teach her, the Agent offering Mina a job and the Crimson's mistress teaching Liara this whole change might not be so very scary, and she might not feel so alone.

"Um, yeah. Sure." Liara agreed with the easy half-truth. It was one thing to tell your friends you were learning to tread the boards and quite another to slip from the boards to someone's bed. Although most actresses had wealthy patrons or benefactors that bestowed jewels and lodgings in exchange for amorous liaisons, it had become strikingly clear that the courtesans were a different breed entirely.

"Oh.My.God" Verushka's jaw dropped, her mouth still full of pancakes.

"Try not to blaspheme." Mina cautioned while still trying to wrap her head around the surprise of Liara's news.

"Oh.My.Goddess." Ver repeated with a slight variation.

Mina rolled her eyes, "I doubt that she would appreciate that either."

Verushka bounded to her feet and seized Liara's hands. "Oh my, oh my, oh my."

Liara raised an eyebrow, "You know, your brilliant use of the English language is something to be admired."

Ver just continued to hop from one foot to the next, "You are going to have to tell me EVERYTHING! You have always wanted to be an actress, I know that you have! And, you can teach us what she says and I can teach you what the Duchess shows me."

The bouncing stopped. "What do you mean 'the duchess shows you?' " Liara asked shrewdly.

Ver's eyes darted between her friends, "Oh, yeah... she wants me to learn how to be an upstairs chamber maid...kind of."

Mina stepped away from her plate, which was a telling sign that something was finally more important than food. "Is that why she called you to see her the other day in her room, and why she asked you to clean that cottage outside?"

Ver nodded a touch too enthusiastically. Better to admit to a lesser mystery than acknowledge the one that was burning away at her brain.

"Oh, wow. That's great" Liara effused, grateful to have the spotlight off of her.

Mina walked up and took Verushka's hand, slightly sticky with maple syrup. "It is great but doesn't anyone think that this smells a bit like...." She trailed off.

"Like what?" Liara grew concerned.

"Like horseshit." Mina finished.

"What? No way!" Ver doubted.

Mina strode to the kitchen door ensuring that it was shut firm then reapproached with a calculated look in her eyes. "You are being promoted to chamber maid, Liara gets a shot at being an actress and I am asked help out with the bobbies all at pretty much the same time." She raised both her eyebrows, "Doesn't anybody else think that we are being played? Like someone else is the puppet master and they are pulling our strings?"

Liara slumped onto a stool. She had felt the exact same way more than enough times when in the presence of Veronique. "It does seem to be a little coincidental."

"More than a little." Mina corrected.

"Nooo," Verushka affirmed incredulously. "I am sure they are just being nice."

"All at the same time?" Mina replied.

Liara patted Ver on the shoulder, "Do you also believe in fairies?"

Verushka scowled. "Ok, fine. Maybe, MAYBE it is a bit strange but that shouldn't mean that it isn't a good thing. I mean, don't we deserve a little bit of good luck for a change? Can't you two just accept what's happening and be happy about it?"

"Of course we can be happy about it," Mina started "but we also can't be stupid. I think we should all just go into this with eyes wide open, whether they be grey, green or brown."

Ver twisted her lips wryly, "Oh, now someone cares about the colour of my eyes."

Liara chuckled. "Fine, you have grey eyes and we will all be a little bit more cautious in the future. But for now, can we just finish breakfast before all my hard work goes to waste."

The girls chatted companionably over tea for the following half hour or so but Liara stayed well away from revealing her agreement with Veronique, Verushka avoided discussing her secret dealings with the Duchess and Mina was sufficiently preoccupied with food to question her friends' unaccountable absences any further.

When their regular duties were dispensed they lost each other in the rush of chores and the now constant chaos that came with the London season. It seemed like the streets were busier, people were more stressed and less at ease, and what were previously tiresome chores, now became mammoth tasks. In the brief glimmer of rest that Madam Shiela allowed, Verushka slipped out of sight and hopefully out of mind and headed for a rocky outcropping at the side of the house. It was partially covered by the overhanging upstairs balcony that offered additional wreaths of ivy in summer to sequester a solitary person within. The rain was still falling quite insistently from the night before and the trails of ivy were dripping with constant droplets of water that pooled at the base of each vine.

Verushka made her way through the curtain of foliage to the relative quiet shelter within. It wasn't precisely warm but not even the heat of the bread oven could tempt her back to the pantry. She just wanted to curl up with her book for a few moments. No sooner had the thought entered her mind and she reached within the folds of her apron to find nothing there and remember who was to blame for her empty pockets. The grumble in the skies reflected her mood as she realised that she may never get her book back. In the grander scheme of things she supposed that she should not be concerned about a little book. After all, last night she found out that she was both the daughter and the sister of a duke; not to mention that her batty employer wanted her to run some secret agency for the Queen.

Verushka started to laugh. At first it was just a little, a few giggles and blurts then it rolled into a constant stream of cackling with just an edge of insanity. The absurd hilarity of her situation dawned on her and she had no other expression with which to manage it and so her body decided that manic laughter was appropriate. Even as she wiped tears from her eyes she realised the insanity of her predicament.

"Excuse me, Miss" came a familiar husky voice. "Could you tell me how long Bedlam hospital for the mentally infirm have taken up residence in my alcove?" Cain's asked amused as he peered through the hanging foliage. Stepping through, he brushed some droplets off his broad shoulders and moved to sit next to Verushka on the stony bench.

Ver tried scrambling to her feet and making her excuses profusely, "I'm so sorry my lord, I was just laughing and thinking... I was thinking about..."

"About?" He prompted, his gaze peering beyond apron and artifice.

She gnawed at her full lower lip. Why did he have to sit so close? How could she be expected to formulate an intelligible answer when he looked at her that way? The way that Mina looked at food! There was no way that she could tell him that she was his friend's sister and there was also no chance that she could tell him that his mother offered her a job as a spy. Spies life spans tended to be particularly short and even more so if they blabbed... but the Duchess was fairly old.... so maybe....

Cain toyed with her apron strings and watched a plethora of emotions flit across his maids face. She was certainly contemplating his simple questions for far too long and he was about to enquire after her health when she finally responded.

"I was just thinking about something ...umm... that Liara said the other day."

"And what was that, pray tell?" He asked feigning concern.

Verushka's eyes widened perceptibly, "What was what?"

"What did Liara say?" He encouraged.

Ver racked her brain for some semblance of wit, and failing that, some memory of a funny quip Liara had made. Think mind, think!

"Oh, um... she said um. . ."

Why can't I think? She scolded herself. You have to pay better attention Verushka, read more books! Learn words! What is WRONG with you?

Cain smiled congenially, glad to still have some effect on scattering a woman's wits. "Liara is funny to be sure, but if you'll forgive my noticing that there was a certain edge of the uncontrollable to your mirth. Are you certain there is not something you wish to talk about? Perhaps something that you would like help with, Verushka?" He shifted even closer to her, pressing the warm weight of his thigh against hers.

Verushka looked up at him startled. He said her name like a secret and in the small confines of the garden alcove with only the patter of rain behind the ivy curtain it felt like too private a moment for a Duke and his maid.

The air became thick and warm with memories from the pantry two nights ago when they had first sat side by side. His shoulder touched hers and that kindling spark sizzled between them heating the small and stony alcove. It wouldn't have surprised Verushka if they could bake some bread in there with all the rampant steam in her employer's eyes.

She watched him run a hand through wet dishevelled hair sending rain drops flying in all directions. A single bead of moisture flicked onto her lips and she darted the tip of a tongue out to taste the rain like a heathen sipping sacramental wine. With unkempt locks of sand and gold he looked so much like the first morning that she saw him sprawled across his bed.

Verushka frowned, she doubted that she was the only one who had seen his bed. It wouldn't surprise her if he really was engaged to a woman, it wouldn't surprise he were engaged to twenty! Perhaps his honeyed tongue had coated hundreds of lies so that he could get what he wanted, like her book!

"Well as a matter of fact, my lord. I would like to discuss the small matter of my book." She declared, managing to put a sliver of distance between their bodies.

Cain opened the left side of his jacket to reveal her novel tucked into the inner lining. "Oh, you mean this book." Verushka launched with grasping fingers to seize her prized possession. Cain however, was far quicker than his quarry and sealed his coat leaving Verushka with only a fist full of his expensive morning suit crumpled in her palm.

She fell firmly against the solid wall of his chest and stared up at him with wide eyed anger, dimly registering that she should try not to make a habit of this.

"You promised to return it to me TWO nights ago," she accused with a shade less confidence.

"Did I?" Cain grinned down at her.

"You know you did!" Verushka shouted affronted and tried to flutter and fly away from him like a bird in a cage; a cage of warm muscle and flesh that held firm and gleamed like Grecian gold dust.

"Perhaps." He acknowledged with affected lazy humour to match the twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "But what have you to give me in return?"

Verushka stilled and her mouth hung open in shock. "But, but...it's MY book!"

"So you say. But, I seem to recall a certain wager regarding this exchange and surely if it is in fact your book then I owe you something."

Cain wrapped his hand around her closed fists and refused to let her regain either her seat or her composure. "I hate to leave my debts unsettled. My accountant has often warned against falling in to arrears so, I really feel that I ought to pay them right this minute, don't you Verushka?"

Verushka doubted that the vast Bexley wealth was in any danger of bankruptcy yet, she made no response, gripped by a silence a touch too exciting to be called fright.

Cain however persisted, "Don't you Verushka?" He repeated before lowering his lips to hers with painstaking seductive leisure, as if he possessed all the time in the world to make her his.

There was time to think, time to move, time to stop the inevitable descent of his lips and still she could do nothing but wait with eyes full of longing and a heart brimming with anticipation.

Her fingers now clutched at his coat, coiling around the soft linen as the heat of his arms burnt through the flimsy fabric of her dress. His eyes locked onto hers and no power on earth could tear them away with something as simple as a blink, and when hers finally fluttered shut with supplication he touched her lips with his.

It was a kiss so brief that it lasted only in the space between two heart beats and yet left them both immeasurably altered. It was as if he was testing the waters; lapping at the waves to gauge their tide. Only Cain knew what he found in the rough texture of her skin that was softened by his caress where the words she was so fond of found no place. The sweetness of breakfast syrup that still laced her breath enticed him to drink deeply of her pitcher. He pulled her more firmly into his arms and deftly entwined his tongue with hers, massaging its bed until she moaned in unbridled response and he was reminded that restraint was the better part of valour. He reluctantly relinquished her embrace and felt the cool air replace her warmth as she pulled back in surprise.

"You... you just kissed me." Verushka stated with bee sting befuddled lips and her traditional wide eyed stare.

"Yes, I did." He responded while lovingly twisting a wet strand of her blonde hair into a ringlet around his index finger.

"You can't kiss me." She turned away from him sharply.

Cain raised an eyebrow and pressed his heated lips to the exposed flesh of her neck. "I believe we just proved that assertion incorrect," he purred against her skin.

"But why?" Ver turned to face him and questioned with an edge of desperation. She looked into his green soulful eyes that radiated honesty and warmth and she realised that she just couldn't handle any answer that he might give. First her brother, then the spy agency and now this- she didn't think she could bear another moment of truth for at least a fortnight.

She stood up flustered, "Forget it, forget that I asked." Her eyes dashed this way and that before she hastily brushed her skirts and beat a speedy retreat from an alcove that falsely promised peace.

Her feet hit the rain soaked ground in the heavy successive beats of a drum and Verushka only made it as far as the orangery when Cain grasped her wrist from behind. "Wait, Verushka," he entreated with that voice that could melt butter. She supposed it was a good thing he didn't work in the pantry.

Verushka attempted to continue walking while dragging him behind.

"Stop!" He commanded in his most authoritative ducal tone.

She halted in the shade of a netted citrus tree. The gardener once told her that the nets protected the oranges so that the birds would not destroy them. She wished that she could protect her heart just as easily. A man with a reputation such as the Duke could ruin her before she even truly discovered who she was.

Cain moved to face her and kissed her as gently as the dew kisses the grass.

"I'm sorry I startled you" Cain murmured. "But I'm not sorry that I kissed you."

"I, I..." Verushka stumbled over her words

"You what?" he asked brushing a frizzy lock of hair behind her ear.

"I don't think that it was wise for you to have kissed me, Your Grace."

Cain smiled and its glow matched the sunlight now filtering through the trees. "Well, sometimes one has the choice to do what is wise and what is wanted. And sometimes Verushka, I want you more than I want air."

Verushka had never wanted anyone with that much fervour, she wasn't even aware of wanting air. She definitely needed air.

She shuddered

The thought of needing another person as much as the next breath of air was a giddy, terrifying thing.

Cain ran his fingertip down the curve of her cheek.

She hated her cheeks, she always thought that they were too large.

He stared at the soot it had collected. He smiled to himself. Where had this girl of soot and dust come from to change his world? She was unlike anything he had ever known, she was innocence and light. She was joy to chase the deepest sorrows and without rhyme or reason she had risen from the ashes to spark a fire in him. He gazed at her befuddled face and found something fascinating.

He had known many beautiful women, some carved as if from stone but the face before him touched his soul. Perhaps it was the clumsy way in which she moved, the simple beauty in her heart or the wonder in which she saw the world; whatever it was, it glittered like a diamond in the rough.

"You are an amazing woman, Verushka." He marvelled, threading his hands in her sunflower hair.

"I am?" She wondered doubtfully.

"Yes, you are." He nodded, before once more brushing his mouth with hers.

"Are you sure" She questioned in between the passing of lips.

Cain chuckled sending vibrations through the kiss. "Most definitely," he assured her. "There is not a lady in England who could stand next to you."

It was Ver's turn to laugh, "That's probably because they couldn't bear the smell."

Cain's emerald eyes twinkled with amusement and he wrapped his arms around her small frame pulling her in to rest his head in the curve of her neck before inhaling deeply of her scent. "I like your smell. You smell of musk, of rain and flour, butterscotch and bread."

Verushka found herself lost in the rhythm of his words. He spoke with a poetry to his inflection that caressed her spine like feathers in the wind. She had an uncanny feeling that he could undo her, that he could wield a story all his own and in her passion for words she could lose herself between the realm of make-believe and reality.

A loud shuffling of trodden autumnal leaves pushed Verushka back into her senses and she stumbled and fell away from Cain. Beneath the netted orange trees she could easily make out the Duchess' slippered feet and instinct more than intellect prompted her to start frantically picking up fruit and collect them in the folds of her apron.

Cain had somehow managed to secure an orange and already peel half while the other was in his mouth when his mother appeared around the crop of trees.

"Oh, my darling." She seemed surprised but Verushka deemed that highly unlikely given her occupation.

"I am so glad to run into you Cain," the Duchess continued.

Verushka snickered, drawing the gaze of Cain's mother to her instead.

"Oh Verushka, what a pleasant surprise. How nice to see you again. I had not thought it was yet the season for orange picking," she noted flicking her eyes across her maid's collection of unripened fruit.

Ver looked dejectedly at the slightly green oranges which she had plucked in haste and found their sour reflection in Cain's eyes as he chewed through his own mistake.

The Duchess pursed her lips together and raised an all knowing eyebrow before turning back to her son. "How fortuitous that I have found you both together. Cain, since your rather embarrassing little speech about a fake proposal at my dinner I now have the need of additional help this season and Verushka has kindly agreed to take on the role of my ladies maid and perhaps companion."

Verushka dropped her oranges.

"And since I uphold my companions to a higher standard whether they be behind the scenes or at the fringes of the ballroom I think it is only fair that you assist me in training her on the short notice that you have extended to me."

"Train me?"

"Train her?"

"Yes," the Duchess casually fluttered her silk latticed fan. "I will of course have her schooled in the basics of comportment but I expect a certain grace and conversational wit to be apparent should she engage with any one in our circle."

Cain appeared lost for words which he valiantly tried to find while Verushka fervently wished she could blend into the bark. It wasn't as if he didn't want to spend time with his maid but such a request from his maker seemed more than a little suspicious. "Mother, I am not certain that I am the best person for such a task-"

"Oh, but I am." She assured him with a loving pat on his arm. "She requires experience in conversing with men and you happen to be a man... or so your mistresses tell me."

"Mother!" he shouted in affronted shock.

"Son." She answered plainly. "You will do this small favour for me, or so help me God, I will have you married off before the end of the Season and you will not even see it coming."

"As if that would stop you," he smirked. "I doubt I would ever see you Mother, you seem to come like a thief in the night."

"Cain!" Verushka scolded

The Duchess merely raised an eyebrow at her maid's candid use of her son's name.

"Um, I mean...My lord, perhaps I should leave."

Cain smiled.

The Duchess smiled

And Verushka was left wondering why everyone was smiling but her. She began mumbling her excuses and backing away when she smacked into another maid who seemed to have all the speed of a forward projecting cannonball.

"Mina. What are you doing here?" Ver wondered.

Her friend scowled and Verushka deliberated if Mina could be hungry again. She tried to discreetly search for a leftover crust of bread in the pockets of her own dress.

"What are you doing?" Mina queried Ver's fluttering hands "Are you still looking for that book?" She whispered discreetly noting both of her employers lingering not ten feet away.

"No," Ver sulked grumpily and indicated in Cain's direction.

Mina laughed under her breath seemingly amused with her friend's inability to secure so small an item, then continued her trajectory and barrelled through Cain and the Duchess with mumbled apologies of imminent work.

The older woman appeared to take her cue from the interruption and called out confirming Verushka's first lesson that evening in her chambers before sailing off in the direction of the main house.

Cain strolled back to Ver with a sailor's swagger and grinned mischievously, "It would seem that now you owe me. I wonder if you will make a diligent pupil." He chuckled as he surveyed her from soil stained boots to bonnet, "I suppose we shall see tonight."

Verushka lifted her chin proudly. "And, you had better bring my book."

"Oh don't worry," Cain assured her tapping the spot he had placed it in his jacket, "I shall keep it very safe."

Verushka saw the moment he realised that the book was no longer in his coat. She remembered Mina's deft fingers that were famed all over Covent Garden, and finally Verushka had reason to smile.

Hi my dearest readers. I hope you have enjoyed this rather long chapter. It went through three drafts before it reached completion! I would love to hear what you thought of it and as always, I appreciate each and every one of your votes. Thanks!