Chapter 1

(Pov Nadia)

I should have seen it coming.

And looking back now, I think I see the signs clearly. The way the other maids stopped talking when I walked into a room. The way Chef Margaret started giving me the worst chores again after months of leaving me alone.

The way Mrs. De Montclair's personal assistant, Gloria, looked cruelly at me at breakfast that morning.

I saw all of it. I just haven't understood yet what was going on.

:

At half past nine, They called me into the east drawing room.

I remember smoothing my uniform before I knocked, well that's just a habit I'd picked up in this house ever since I started working as a maid, always trying to look neat and trying to be enough.

My apron was pressed, my shoes were clean and I'd done everything right.

I knocked twice at the door, just the way we were trained to, and waited. Then came her voice. "Come in."

Mrs Helena De Montclair, my boss said, as I pushed the door open.

She was seated at the head of the long settee, draped in a cream silk blouse that probably cost more than my mother's rent for six months. 

Her silver hair was pinned back severely, her reading glasses were off, folded in her hand, which meant she wasn't here for any jokes.

Gloria stood to her left and two other senior housemaids, Priscilla and Bette, flanked the far wall, and behind them, three junior maids I barely knew by name. All of them watching me the way people watch something that was about to fall.

My stomach dropped but I cautioned myself immediately. “Elena don't panic. You have not done anything wrong. Or have you?

I stepped inside and kept my hands clasped in front of me. "Good morning, Mrs. De Montclair. You sent for me."

She didn't answer immediately but rather looked at me with a very deadly, spiteful look. 

"Do you know why you're here, Nadia?" "No, ma'am."

"No." She repeated the word like it was a joke.

"So you don't know." She said as Priscilla, the head housemaid chuckled under her breath which I heard clearly. It was a miracle to hold myself at this period. ‘Nadia be still, just keep your face still and straight.’ I encouraged myself.

Mrs De Montclair rose from the settee as she crossed the distance between us slowly, her heels clicking against the marble, and stopped two feet in front of me. 

I could smell her perfume, expensive roses and something that reminded me, absurdly, of winter.

She continued. "I'm here to talk about my son," she said despitefully.

"My son's name is in people's mouths this morning. All just because of you."

My breath left my lungs so fast I almost swayed. "Mrs. De Montclair….. "

"Shhh! You don't talk while I'm talking, you this thing." She said as I nodded in fear.  "You will not speak until I am finished. Do you understand me?"

I closed my mouth, my jaw was trembling and I pressed my back teeth together to make it stop.

She walked towards me and continued. "You came into this house," she began, moving slowly around me now, the way someone circles something they're deciding what to do with.

“You came in as a nobody. A church rat, with no family, no breeding, no prospects. You came here with absolutely nothing and we gave you a roof over your head. We clothed you, fed and  paid you generously for work that required nothing from you "

I stared straight ahead at the wall as she spoke, with my hands shaking as she continued. "And what did you do with that generosity?" 

She stopped in front of me again. "You SPREAD YOUR LEGS for my son."

Her words hit me immediately like a slap, worse than a slap as my face burned so hot that tears came to my eyes instantly from the sheer force of the shame she threw at me. 

I blinked hard to force the tears back. “No, Nadia, you would not cry. You would not give Priscilla and Bette the satisfaction of watching you cry.”

From the wall, I heard Bette murmur to the girl beside her. 

"I knew it from the start, she was always walking around like she was better than us."

"Disgusting," someone else said, almost cheerfully. "Obviously she slept her way up and then looked down her nose at the rest of us."

Mrs De Montclair didn't silence them. She allowed them to murmur at her back.

"And she is a common maid," Gloria said from her position to the left, shaking her head slowly with a smile sitting on her mouth that she wasn't even trying to hide. 

"A little church rat maid, and she thought she could touch what doesn't belong to her. I thought the uniform gave her class." She mocked.

Mrs De Montclair folded her arms and looked at me the way you look at a stain on a white tablecloth. "You have humiliated this family enough. You have taken advantage of a young man's weakness. Do you even understand the damage you have done?"

"Mrs. De Montclair, please… " I replied as my voice cracked. “I didn't mean any harm to drag this family's name to the mud or hurt your son. I care about him and I wouldn't do anything to hurt your family. "

"Care?”  “Hold on, did you just say care? A maid who cares about my son. Did you even hear yourself or have any idea of how pathetic you sound right now?"

Bette covered her mouth with her hand, as their laughter erupted the more. The junior maid beside her wasn't even bothering to cover hers.

“She's a pooper. Always thinking she was something special because the young master looked at her twice. A very Delirious girl. A poor thing that doesn't know the difference between being used and being wanted.”

I heard one of them say it and I don't know who but my ears were ringing as I bowed my head in shame.

I didn't know exactly when I even gave in, my shoulders finally dropped. I tried so hard not to cry, trying to hold myself straight. I hated that I could cry in front of them but I couldn't hold myself anymore as tears welled up in my eyes. 

And still, their words kept coming. "Seductress! A Home-wrecker! Absolutely nothing but a looser” They kept cursing me.

"Now, go in there, pack your dirty bags, Nadia."

Mrs De Montclair's voice cut through the rest of them and brought the room to a sudden silence as she spoke finally.

"Pack whatever pitiful things you brought into this house and remove yourself from my property before noon. I will not have you under this roof for another hour."

At this point it was all over, as my feelings split open in my chest. "Please…."  I knelt and begged in tears.

I hated myself for it, but I couldn't pull it back either. I imagine about the scholarship letter I have sent already, the acceptance that was still waiting, the life I had been building in quiet hours between mopping floors and reading textbooks by lamplight.”

"Please, Mrs. De Montclair, I haven't done what you think, if you could just let me explain. I'm begging you, please. I have nowhere to go to. Just let me explain."

She looked at me on the floor without mercy and ordered the bodyguards to come and drag me out. One of the two hefty guards grabbed my left arm and the other took my right.

"No…wait… " I tried to resist as my knees scrambled against the marble. 

“Please ma.” I wept bitterly as they hauled me upright and moved me toward the door forcefully which somehow made it worse as I sustained a slight injury in my ankle. One of the maids was already with my bags as they threw it on me outside the house and shut the door.

I watched them maltreat me like a nobody and I wondered what my life would be after this.