Free A Bloom in Winter by T. J. Brown Page B

You knew this was going to happen, didn’t you?”
    “I don’t even know what happened. How could I possibly when you haven’t told me?”
    “I was ordered to leave unless I was interested in the transcription position! They aren’t even going to publish the article he’d already accepted.”
    “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry.”
    The sorrow in his voice made her want to hit something. Hit him . She slammed her valise into his chest and he grabbed it.
    “But you knew it was going to happen like this, didn’t you? You knew! How did you know?”
    “I didn’t know. I just guessed. Most men aren’t ready for women like you and Rowena.”
    She turned to face him, her fists clenched by her side. “But that isn’t . . . ” It was on the tip of her tongue to say “fair,” but that sounded so childish, as if she expected life to be fair, when it most assuredly was not and never would be. “Right,” she said, not meeting Kit’s eyes. He knew what she’d been about to say, she was sure of it, and it embarrassed her to be so spoiled and childish that she would expect the world to play fair with her when it didn’t with anyone else. “It isn’t right,” she asserted.
    She turned and started walking again.
    “Victoria? Where are you going?”
    “I don’t know!”
    Out of the corner of her eye she saw him motion to the driver and the motor pulled out and began following them. She felt silly and cosseted, as if she were a bomb about to go off, and that only made her angrier. How could she expect anyone to take her seriously if she kept acting like a child?

CHAPTER
SIX

    K atie’s mother was a tall, thin woman with faded brown hair and snapping black eyes who radiated warmth. She looked barely older than her daughter, but arthritis had swollen her joints, making her hands look like a crone’s. After years as a scrubwoman, she happily kept house for her surprisingly successful daughter and three of her equally successful friends. Muriel Dixon made no bones about either her daughter’s illegitimacy or the fulsome pride she felt about her daughter working as an office girl. Sir Philip Buxton, the man who had made it all possible, was no less than a god.
    “And if he’s not a god himself, he was put on earth special by the Almighty, that’s for certain.”
    Prudence, who had been coming to see Muriel for housekeeping lessons twice a week for the past two weeks, would always agree.
    “I still can’t believe you’ve never even baked a scone before.” Muriel shook her head as she thrust her stiff hands into a bowl of dough. Prudence tried the best she could to imitate Muriel’s movements. Last week, she’d learned to make scones and iron sheets. She had washed and dried the sheets at home and brought them to Muriel’s to iron. She had only burned themonce, and Muriel said that if she kept the burnt spot at the bottom of the bed, Andrew would never notice.
    Today, Muriel was teaching Prudence to make a meat pie. It was just in time, too. If Andrew thought it strange that he had three straight meals of scones, he’d kept his mouth shut, but Prudence guessed that it wouldn’t be for long. Prudence picked up the carefully listed ingredients from the greengrocer and the butcher on the way to Katie’s house. She bought enough for two as payment for the lessons, even though Muriel told her she didn’t have to, that she needed to learn how to live frugally.
    It was a difficult lesson for Prudence, who had never had to budget before.
    “It’s the first time I’ve made a meat pie, too. Fancy that,” Prudence said, in her new brisk way. The only way she kept herself going was to accept each moment as it came. Some were good, some were bad, but all had to be gotten through somehow.
    She and Andrew had fallen into a routine that seemed to be working. Three days a week, he left early in the morning and picked up odd jobs for the day. Those were the days she came to Muriel’s house for housekeeping lessons, or,