Mandy Hubbard: Prada and Prejudice

I sit up and stare down at my shoes. Maybe if I were wearing something more comfortable, walking around the house wouldn't suck so much. I reach down to adjust the buckle, loosening it one notch. As I go to adjust the other shoe, I see something. It's a stack of papers, shoved between the small table and the leg of the couch. I reach down and slide them out. There's a ribbon around them, so that the bundle is a few inches thick. They're letters. The wax seals are broken, so it's clear they've been read. I slip the ribbon off.

That's when I hear the door click open. What do I do? Hide? Oh God, I'm probably not supposed to be digging around in here, picking up letters that are not mine. And what if this room is supposed to be off-limits?

Panicked, I duck behind the sofa, the stack of papers still in my hand. It's elevated off the floor with four spindly legs, so I can make out the shoes of the person stepping inside.

I recognize the leather riding boots of Alex. The duke.

Crap. Why am I hiding? Doesn't this look suspicious? The letters practically burn in my hands. What if these are his? Maybe I should have just sat there, all casual. But now what do I do? Pretend like I lost a contact?

Oh, right. They don't have contacts yet.

God, this is so stupid!

I try to keep my breathing steady, even though I am terrifyingly close to panting like a dog. He walks up and down the room for what seems like an hour but is probably ten minutes. I can hear him sliding books in and out of the shelves. I will him to just pick up a book and leave with it. If he's looking for these letters, he's not going to find them without finding me.

My knees are starting to ache from kneeling on the thin carpet. Haven't they ever heard of carpet pad?

When he gets to the Shakespeare section near the far window, he pauses. What did I do with that Hamlet book? Did I put it back, or did I just set it down on the edge of the shelf?

And then he starts walking toward me. I cover my mouth with my hand to keep from freaking out. Part of me wants to pop to my feet and yell, Boo! like it was just a little joke, but somehow I don't think he'll find it funny. Plus, he's probably still pretty mad about the whole breakfast thing earlier today.

I watch his boots pivot slightly, and then he stops moving. What's he looking for?

What's he waiting for?

But then he turns on his heel and walks out, just in time to keep my lungs from exploding. I heave a big sigh, and then breathe deeply for the first time in ten minutes. My heartbeat returns to normal. My palms are sweaty where I've been gripping the papers.

These letters must be what Alex was after.

I sit up and look around to make sure no one else is in the room.

I'll just take a teensy little peek...

I flip over the first folded note. The Duke of Harksbury is all it says on the outside. It's written in a feminine scrawl, little curlicues and elegant loops all over the place.

I know I shouldn't be reading this. It's probably a bunch of love letters. I should just shove it back between the couch and the table and forget about it.

But I got stuck here somehow, and I need to discover everything I can about where I'm staying. There's no telling what kind of clues I could come across if I pay attention. Clues that could lead me back to the twenty-first century.

And okay, I'm a teensy bit curious as to whether he has a girlfriend.

I take a deep breath and slide my finger under the fold and open the letter. The same cute penmanship greets me.

Your Grace,

I am certain my previous correspondence has been lost, for I have written you with each passing month, and yet still I receive no reply. Is it so easy to forget all of your whispered promises?

Your daughter was born two months ago.

I jerk backward and the letter flutters from my hand. Alex has a daughter? He's freaking nineteen and he has a daughter?

The world swims as I scramble to put together the pieces. He's not married, is he? Even if he were, this lady is definitely not living here. I mean, I would have seen her by now.

Not to mention a two-month-old little baby.

I shake my head. Maybe I shouldn't jump to conclusions....

It pains me to ask for money, hut I have no choice. The daughter of a duke should not go hungry, and I fear that is in her future. Please, I will not shame your family or utter a word of this to a soul. There will be no scandal, for no one will know, hut I beg of you to help me. I amunable to find work —

I snap the letter shut, suddenly feeling nauseated.

He has a daughter and he abandoned her. And she and her mother are poor? He's living in this giant mansion with servants at his beck and call, and his own daughter has nothing?

This is disgusting. Did he sleep with a maid or something and then send her away?

Oh God, he's so much worse than I could have possibly imagined. He's not just an arrogant jerk... He's an absolute wretched human being!

I gather up the letters and tie the ribbon back around them, wishing I'd never found them at all. I'll read the rest of the letters later and figure out what to do.

I jump up and swiftly leave the room. I'll deposit the letters somewhere in my bedroom and then finish exploring.

An hour later, I've figured out the layout of Harksbury, but I haven't found a single item to prove my theory of make-believe.

I mean, these people don't even have indoor plumbing. There are chamber pots in most of the bedrooms. For real. And I think I found the laundry room, except they sure don't use washing machines. Forget about the kitchen. It was sweltering in there from actual fires for cooking with, and the servants looked at me with such shocked expressions I backpedaled and fled before they could yell at me for being there.

God, 1815 really stinks. In my century, a girl gets child support if a guy like Alex does something like this. Or a big college fund, in my case, though I would have preferred an actual dad. One who didn't up and move to the East Coast and start a whole new family three years ago, and then invite me out, like that wouldn't be the most awkward summer of my life.

I shake my head and hope it sends the memories flying to the back of my mind, where they belong. At least my dad calls twice a week and pays child support on time.

Alex is such a schmuck, to live like this and have a kid on the side. What a rotten person. And seriously, he's nineteen. That's just wrong.

I reach the bottom of the steps and head down the east wing.

Harksbury seems to be made up in sort of a rectangular fashion, around the courtyard I'd seen earlier. The two main wings come together at the big foyer and grand staircase, and then go off in opposite directions, a good couple hundred feet or more, each hall lined with door after door after door. It'll take me days to open them all, hut I don't think I'm going to try because nothing I've found so far has been useful.

Downstairs are a bunch of sitting rooms and dining halls and a few smaller bedrooms.

Upstairs are the library and more bedrooms, but those are bigger, some with whole sitting rooms attached to them.

Only parts of the house have hardwood. The rest is carpeted. Everything is bigger than normal, stately and grand. The doors would accommodate a seven-foot guy and the ceilings are so high I could stand on a chair and leap into the air and not be able to touch them.

But it's all sort of cold in its grandiosity. Three people do not need a house this size. Especially since the servants seem to keep to the lower level, except when cleaning.

Which they do a lot of. They're everywhere, dusting and sweeping and beating rugs.