Sinners and Shadows Read Free Page B

not?’ Bronwen brushed out her hair and twisted it into a knot she secured with hairpins.
    â€˜Probably,’ Rhian conceded, ‘but only to see if he’s found me a coat.’
    â€˜I don’t blame you. He is very good-looking.’ Bronwen pushed in the last hairpin and reached for her maid’s cap.
    â€˜You’re so besotted with Ianto, I’m surprised you noticed.’
    â€˜Being besotted with Ianto doesn’t stop me from looking around at what else is on offer.’
    â€˜Joey Evans is on offer to any girl who’ll go out with him,’ Rhian pronounced, hoping Bronwen knew more gossip about him than she’d told her.
    â€˜Did I ever mention that he went out with my sister Ruby?’
    â€˜No. Which one is Ruby?’ Bronwen had five sisters and Rhian hadn’t met them often enough to sort one from the other.
    â€˜She’s two years older than me. You must have seen her in chapel. She’s the only one of us who doesn’t have brown hair and brown eyes. My father still jokes she’s the milkman’s daughter.’
    â€˜Is she the pretty one with dark hair and blue eyes?’
    â€˜Depends on what you call pretty. She has my gran’s Irish looks,’ Bronwen said dismissively. ‘Anyway, she only went out with Joey a few times but that didn’t stop her from mooning over him for months afterwards. She even went to the library and took out a book of Lord Byron’s poetry because it had a colour plate of a portrait of him in the front. She tore it out. Luckily for her the librarian didn’t notice.’
    â€˜Why Lord Byron?’ Rhian asked, mystified.
    â€˜Because Joey Evans is the spitting image of him. If you don’t believe me, look at the collected works of Lord Byron the next time you dust the library. It has the same picture inside as the one Ruby stole.’
    â€˜What happened between him and your sister?’ Rhian tried to sound casual.
    â€˜He brought her home one Saturday night after taking her to the Empire Theatre, thanked her for a nice evening, kissed her goodnight, and the next day she saw him walking out with Anwen Stephens. She got no sympathy from any of us. As my mother said at the time, “More fool her for going out with a Don Juan in the first place.”’ Bronwen squinted into the tiny scrap of brown-spotted mirror that was all the new mistress would allow in the attic on the grounds that the old cracked cheval mirror encouraged vanity. ‘Well, that’s me done and ready to lay the breakfast table. The washstand is all yours.’
    â€˜Thanks.’ Trembling in anticipation of the cold, Rhian gingerly stepped out of bed on to the wooden floorboards.
    â€˜You going down to do Miss Julia’s hair before breakfast?’
    â€˜Don’t I always?’ Rhian rinsed out the tin basin with cold water and tipped it into the slop bucket, before filling it with the jug of warm that Bronwen had brought up.
    â€˜Yes, but I still think it’s a bit much of her to expect you to dress her hair on your day off.’
    â€˜I don’t mind, Miss Julia’s good to me.’ Rhian unbuttoned her nightdress, pulled it down to her waist and soaped her flannel.
    â€˜That’s the mistress shouting, I hope it’s at the master and not for me.’ Bronwen slipped on her apron and tied the strings as she ran down the stairs.
    Rhian washed and dried herself before sprinkling lavender-scented talcum powder and cologne over her skin. She opened the chest at the foot of the bed where she kept her underclothes and stared down at the neat pile of winter-weight woollen vests, bust-shapers and drawers. Her summer-weight, embroidered and lace-trimmed Nainsook underclothes were so much prettier. But then who would see them, or know she was wearing them?
    Deciding that she would, she went for the pretty set and began to dress.
    Rhian set her candle on the window ledge of the first-floor