The Governess Saw the Steam Iron Over the Crib, but She Was Never Just the Governess
"You're only the governess," Mrs. Van der Meer said, the brass steam button still dented under her thumb.
Cora Whitlock has six weeks of photographs in her leather satchel and no job to return to if she is wrong — and the small figure coughing in the white blanket on the left of the drawing room cannot wait for her to be sure.
The hiss is what brought her running from the kitchen. Cora drops her polishing cloth in the doorway and sees the iron's ivory handle in the mistress's right hand, hot vapor curling down over the crib railing.
"Is the blanket damp, Mrs. Van der Meer?" Cora asks, low and steady, lifting the small figure against her shoulder.
"I'm only removing a wrinkle from my scarf." The scarf is draped over the chair across the room.
"You are not to take him from this nursery," the mistress says, and her hand closes on Cora's forearm.
Cora turns her body so the small figure's face is against her shoulder, and she says she will scream for the master.
Mrs. Van der Meer smiles. "And who do you think he will believe?"
Cora's left hand slides the framed photograph from her satchel and turns it toward him as he comes through the kitchen doorway.
His hand closes over it before anyone in the room can speak.
Does Augustus Van der Meer choose the woman in front of him or the son in Cora's arms — and what was inside the sealed complaint his attorney filed six weeks before any of this began?
The full story is in the comments.
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