With an iron will, and no hesitation, she picked up the locked leather box, containing all the letters and papers. The desk was empty. Lucy carefully turned off the lights in what had been Charlotte’s final bedroom, and all her secrets belonged to Lucy now, along with her child. There was an element of revenge, since Charlotte had stolen Henry from her. But she forgave her for that now. She had Henry’s daughter, which meant more to her than Annie being a princess. Annie was Henry’s final legacy to her. The child that should have been theirs. Annie was her baby now, and always would be. No one could take Annie from her. Once back in her room, she put the locked leather box in her suitcase, and touched the key around her neck. She had Charlotte’s gold bracelet with the heart on her wrist. Annie was asleep in the crib in Lucy’s room, where she had slept for months now, and from that moment on, Annie, the little princess no one knew about and never would, was hers.
Chapter 5
Two days after Lucy had packed all of Charlotte’s papers into the leather box and slid it into her suitcase, she announced that she was leaving. She said she was ready to go back to London. She bought a gold-plated wedding band in a jewelry store in York, slipped it on her finger in her new role as war widow, and the next day, she packed up Annie’s things, said goodbye to the staff at Ainsleigh Hall, with a character from the housekeeper, and took Annie with her on the train to London. Her heart was pounding when she left, afraid someone would try to stop her. But no one did. The remaining maids, housekeeper, and hall boys all thought it was a good thing that Lucy was taking Charlotte’s baby with her. Without Lucy, where else would she go? Most likely to an orphanage. They hugged Lucy and Annie, and wished her luck. She promised to let the housekeeper know when she found a job. But no one would be writing to her in the meantime. The only people she knew were the staff at Ainsleigh Hall. All of her school friends had died in the bombing of London, and she’d had few friends anyway, working at her father’s cobbler shop every day.
The toddler was fascinated by the people on the train, and Lucy sat watching the countryside slide by, remembering when she had come to Yorkshire four years before, at fifteen, and now she was returning to London to make her way and find a job, with a baby of her own. The war had been good to her, after four years at Ainsleigh Hall, and the kindness of the Hemmingses. She had all of Charlotte’s papers in her suitcase, and life as a war widow would open new doors for her. There were plenty of girls pretending to be war widows, who had never married, and had babies by the men they met during the war. But none, she was sure, were absconding with a royal princess, pretending it was their own. She had won the prize with little Annie, and no one would ever know that she hadn’t given birth to Annie herself. She had everything she’d ever dreamed of. Now all she needed was a job, and a home.
She checked in to a small hotel in the ravaged East End. The streets were still littered with rubble and debris, and everything was dusty as she walked around holding Annie. She went back to see the building where she had lived with her parents, and there was no sign that anything had ever been there. It was a sad, empty feeling, as though further proof that they were gone. The apartment building had vanished the night it had been bombed and the explosion had killed her parents. She clung to Annie for comfort as she walked around the neighborhood for a while, and then went back to her hotel. The memories were too powerful and the sense of loss in their wake. It made her even more grateful that she had Annie now. None of the neighbors had survived the bombing and her father’s shop was gone.
The next day she went to the agency she’d read about in The Lady, to look for a job. She explained that she would have to take her daughter with her. Before the war, no one would have hired her with a child, now there were many girls like her who had no other choice, and employers would have to make allowances for it. The widows with children had no one to leave them with, and had to bring them along. Employers desperate for help in their city and country homes had to find a way to accommodate them, and many were willing to be creative and give it a try. The woman who ran the agency suggested three jobs to her. One employer wasn’t willing to hire anyone with a child, the other two expected her to find someone to care for her baby by day, but were willing to let the child sleep at their home at night. One was in the city, in Kensington, and the other was at a country estate in Kent, which sounded more similar to the life she had led at Ainsleigh Hall, on a grander scale, and seemed more interesting to her.
The woman at the agency called the potential employer, and arranged for an interview for Lucy the next day. The position was as a housemaid, at what the agency claimed was a magnificent estate. Ainsleigh had been more of a manor house, and nothing had been formal there with so little help during the war. The estate in Kent was much more elaborate, with a separate house for the servants, and cottages for the married ones, if both spouses worked for them. The woman at the agency said that they’d been hiring people in droves for the past month, to re-staff their home after the war. They wanted footmen, both a senior and under butler, a fleet of maids. They had excellent stables with experienced grooms and a stable master, and had just hired three chauffeurs and a chef.