Mrs. Holmes left a few days later to one of her frequent trips to the eminent shopping centers of Paris. I imagined she had merely run out of patience with the degrading and insulting behavior of her husband and used the trip as an excuse to escape. Her husband, for his part, had disappeared into his beehives and seemed to be doing some extensive study on them. I knew that meant I would thankfully not see him all day which suited me just fine as the last encounter we had consisted of him making oblique remarks about Irish spies that discomfited me.

My morning was occupied by controlling vermin, which Mrs. Holmes was convinced were going to overrun her kitchen until the floor was a living carpet of roaches, black beetles, and even crickets. I filled in all holes with cement; cleaned everything with water filled with carbolic acid and poured more carbolic acid through the cracks in the floor. Any creature determined to crawl through into the house was now taking its life into its own hands. Just for good measure, I allowed the stray cat that roamed the grounds into the kitchen to root around for mice. By the time Mrs. Holmes returned, her house would be absolutely free from critters of any sort.

My mother had put a roast on to bake the Saturday before her return. With the house fairly empty, the meal was to be a less formal affair with only Jane and the young master in attendance. Unfortunately, Jane's beau had come for tea, and between cutting the vegetables and basting the roast, I had to serve them as they cavorted with each other in the drawing room.

I hadn't seen the young master all day; even when I had tried to knock on his door for his afternoon tea, I was completely ignored. I wouldn't force him to eat, so I let him be.

As to the occupants of the drawing room, I did not care for Quentin Finch; he tried valiantly to look down my dress – as impossible as that was in my high-collared somber shirtwaist - as I poured his tea for him, and I wasn't sure, but I suspected he had brushed his hand across my backside when Jane wasn't looking.

I fumed in silence though, applying myself to my cutting tasks and trying not to think of it. I had just finished dicing an onion when I turned to see the bane of my existence (at least, presently) watching me.

I curtsied, "Mr. Finch."

"I don't mean to be a bother, but could I trouble you for a scotch?"

I highly doubted alcohol would make him any more pleasant. I obliged, though, and pulled the bottle from under the cupboard, "Would you like it warm, sir?"

He smiled brusquely at me, his dark eyes and hair fetching yet disagreeable in my opinion. "Whichever tastes better?"

I poured a bit into the glass and confessed, "I don't really know the answer to that, sir."

"You're Irish, are you not?" he laughed. I set the cup down next to him on the counter and turned back to my cuttings. I nodded absently, hoping my lack of interest would deter him from staying any longer.

"Then you should know all about it, shouldn't you?" He was laughing at me. I wasn't used to snobbery; I spent my life amongst the lower classes that had no sense of superiority. It angered me that he patronized me so. I had never tasted alcohol in my life.

He was staring down that straight nose of his at me, so much so that I half expected him to climb up onto the stool so as to get a better look from a higher perch.

"I know that the ancient Celts practiced distilling. They called Scotch 'the water of life'. But I've never tasted it," I said, I admit, a little haughtily. "Besides, I didn't live in Ireland for very long," I dismissed, trying to temper my tone. He was endeavoring to exasperate me, I knew.

"And after you moved to England, did you live in Whitechapel or near the Haymarket?"

I bristled immediately. It was a subtle insult, one that he could plead innocence to. The Haymarket housed many fancy restaurants and theaters but was also an egregious area of prostitution.

I continued my tasks and failed to respond, forgetting my manners. I thought he would leave in a huff, perhaps even complain about my insolence, but instead, I felt his hot breath on my neck, and his hands were on me from behind. I gasped and dropped my knife loudly onto the cutting board, clutching and pulling vainly on his fingers.

He took it as enthusiasm and dropped his lips to my shoulder. "Were you popular at the Haymarket?" he snarled.

I shoved him back and tried to squirm away. He spun me to face him, pulling at my neckline, and popping two of my buttons. He snickered at my resistance as if it were all part of some terribly amusing game.

I tried to push him while keeping the front of my dress closed, a hard feat, and would surely have failed in one or the either had not footsteps interrupted our tussle.

The young master stood in the doorway, and I spun away shakily, trying to find some way to tuck the folds of my shirtwaist together to close the now buttonless gap. My hand reached for the knife in a vain attempt to pretend as if nothing was happening.

Quentin Finch acknowledged him; sounding for the entire world as if nothing out of the ordinary was taking place.

"Mr. Finch," he responded, "will you be joining us for dinner?" His voice was calm but beneath the still surface, I could sense a feral hum of emotion. I worried that he thought I had been a willing participant in what he had witnessed. I clutched the countertop with the two fingers not wrapped around the knife's handle. I felt warm with mortification. My hair brushed my shoulder, letting me know that some of it had fallen from its pins.

"I cannot, I'm afraid. I was merely sharing tea with Jane in the sitting room," Finch responded smoothly.

"Ah, so you are here for a reason." Mr. Finch grew silent at the ice in the young man's strong voice.

"Of course," he responded evenly, "I wouldn't be here without a reason."

His footsteps sounded across the floor, but my rescuer's voice stopped him, "By the way, Mr. Finch, could you be as kind as to refrain from roaming my house as if you owned it?"

There was no response, but I heard Quentin Finch depart, leaving us now alone. I pressed my bodice to my chest, my hands quaking badly as I attempted to slice through a whole onion. My eyes watered with tears. He was still standing there. I needed to find my buttons but did not want him to see me. It was appalling enough that some of my hair was down in his presence.

The knife rattled against the counter, my hand trembling violently. I stubbornly refused to turn to him and continued to wield the blade clumsily. His hand slid onto my elbow to prevent me from raising it once more.

"You will cut yourself."

I spun from him and rushed to the door, my dress held closed only with my fist.

"I am not done speaking to you," he demanded. I stopped halfway to the door and safety. I kept my back to him.

"You are to tell me if anything like this occurs again," he continued. I felt a small bit of relief that he knew I had not welcomed the advances.

I bowed my head, "I will. I will inform you or your family."

"No," he snapped, "You are to tell me. I'll lay a whip across his shoulders if he ever attempts anything like that again."

I nodded.

"Why won't you face me?" he asked, and my trembling started anew. I did nothing but stand there, my face burning and my breathing so rapid and shallow that I felt as if I were about to inflate and float away. He moved again, and I heard the distinct sound of something scraping the floor and then he was behind me, reaching his closed hand over my shoulder. I let him drop the buttons into my palm, my head still lowered in embarrassment. He cleared his throat awkwardly, "You are excused; I'll tend to the roast."

I fairly ran from the room and made it to my chamber without incident. My mother was terribly upset, though I was quick to reassure her that the young master had not molested me.

"I did not think he would. Was it that horrid boy that loiters about the place?" she asked after she had calmed a bit.

I nodded silently.

"I will speak to Mrs. Holmes about this. I will not have you alone with him anymore."

I retrieved a needle and thread to fix my buttons. The thread was not the right color, but it was hardly something I was concerned with. "Do not do that, mum. It won't happen again, and we're hardly in a place to make demands on the house concerning what company they allow." I did not mention that I did not want to unduly anger Jane, who had taken a sudden dislike to me and strove to find reasons to scold me and draw me into arguments.

"How do you know it will not happen again?"

I threaded the needle. "Because young Mr. Holmes saw, and he told me he would not allow it."

She stared at me for a bit, her face flushed with anger and her eyes searching mine. "And you trust him?

I nodded.

There was no hesitation.

When Mrs. Holmes arrived home the next afternoon, she called all of us into the sitting room. I had no intention of relating my molestation to her. After thinking it over, I felt safe that the young master would not tolerate such things happening again. It was an assumption based on very little actual knowledge of him, but I reveled in it all the same.

My mum and I stood at the threshold as Mrs. Holmes pulled box after box out onto the couch next to Jane. Her son sat on the settee, looking bored but not as bored as I would have thought considering the many dainty objects she was holding up. But then, his mother was always given special attention and he often went out of his way to be kind and polite to her.

She handed out gifts she had picked up for her family, offering her son an expensive-looking, velvet-lined violin case to keep his precious fiddle in. His eyes lit up and he promptly began examining it minutely, an act that would have been considered rude by any other standard, if it weren't for the unabashed happiness that shone from his eyes.

"I have something for you two, as well," she addressed us.

"That's really not necessary, ma'am," my mother deferred politely.

"Oh, it was nothing," she responded, pulling out a modest but finely made cotton shawl, perfectly suited for my mother. It was thoughtfulness on Mrs. Holmes's part not to buy anything more expensive - opera gloves or an expensive dressing gown would have been vastly insulting to a servant, who would have no use for it. My mother accepted the gift graciously.

"We're buying presents for the servants now?" Jane muttered but was masterfully ignored by the lady of the house.

"And for you, Mary. I hope you like it." She held out an object folded in plain brown paper.

I unwrapped it, curious to see what it was. I leather-bound book stared up at me, thin and light. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland read the title. I ran a hand over it and looked up at her curiously.

"I thought you might like it, I heard it's quite good," she explained, looking strangely self-conscious about my reaction.

"I'm sure I will. Thank you."

"What possible use can she have for it? She can't even read," Jane scoffed.

"Jane," her surrogate mother reprimanded softly, and I stood there embarrassed, not sure whether I should correct her and uncomforted by the encouraging hand my mother discreetly pressed into my back.

"Remind me, Jane, what was the name of that last book you read?" The boy's voice cut through the air, carelessly, as he continued to examine his gift as if nothing of interest was happening around him. Jane's face turned bright red, apparently unused to being talked down to by anyone. I smiled at his sharp words and as Jane turned her glare from him, she caught the tail end of my smirk.

Mrs. Holmes, sensing the strain, shooed us out of the room, "All right, you're free to go. This is your day off and you needn't waste it on my nonsense."

We thanked her hastily again for the tokens, and she waved away our expressions. Patting my hair gently she instructed, "No need to thank me, it's my pleasure. Just as long as you-" She didn't finish her sentence, but rather, grabbed at her chest and almost tottered. The boy sprung from his seat, his violin case forgotten, and rushed to her side as my mum and I steadied her. He guided her back to the couch.

"I'm all right," she protested, but her voice was strained.

"Sit down for a bit," her son commanded, settling her next to Jane, who began feeling her forehead, much to the annoyance of Mrs. Holmes.

"See, you've gone and upset her!" Jane shot in my direction as I hovered behind them, concerned.

"Jane." His voice was sharp and cold, and the warning in it was unmistakable. She fell silent at it, as I imagined anyone would.

"I said that I'm fine, just a bit faint. Stop fussing over me so." Mrs. Holmes shoved at her son's shoulder, ordering him to cease his coddling. He resisted her, crouching down in front of her, observing her closely.

"I'll stay home tonight if you need me here," Jane offered. She had made plans to dine with her beau that evening.

"No! Stop it right this instant." She rose and pushed past us all, disappearing down the hall and up the stairs.