Rose Read Online Free PDF

What was this place?
    â€œAre you lost?” an amused voice said in her ear. “You’ve been standing there for ages.”
    Rose squeaked and sat down with a thump on the stairs. She could have sworn the blond-haired boy had appeared from nowhere. Surely there hadn’t been anyone there before?
    â€œWho are you?” she gasped, too surprised to remember that servants shouldn’t ask impertinent questions.
    The boy raised his fair eyebrows, and his voice was rather cold as he replied, “I am Frederick Paxton.”
    Rose stood up quickly, reminded of where she was—and what she was—by his sharp tone. “I’m sorry, sir, you startled me,” she murmured, bobbing a curtsy. “I only came today, and—and I can’t see my way back to the kitchen somehow.” She gazed around in confusion. The stairs seemed to look different every time she blinked.
    â€œFollow these stairs down, and then the back stairs. Those for the servants are on the left,” said the boy. It was odd to be spoken to so coldly by someone her own age—someone Rose thought she could fairly easily have taken in a fight.
    â€œThank you, sir.” Rose bobbed again and scuttled away, glancing back only once. The boy was staring after her, and his face was hard to read. He looked disgusted, rather as though she were some sort of beetle, but there was something else. Unless she was very much mistaken, he was also curious. And—possibly—somewhat scared…

Four
    Rose hadn’t been sure what to expect now that she was working. Would it be harder than the orphanage? At St. Bridget’s the girls had worked most of each day, with lessons fitted in where they could be. It was felt that as long as the girls could read and write up to a point, they were better off learning to sew or clean fireplaces. After all, that was what they were going to spend the rest of their lives doing. They would only ever need to read enough to do the shopping.
    Rose told herself that first day that she didn’t mind how difficult the work was. She was free! She was going to be paid—she still found this hard to believe. If the mood came upon her, she could walk out of the house and leave her job, and no one would be able to stop her . The mood wouldn’t, of course, but it was nice to know that it could.
    Susan woke her at six the next day by slamming open her door and snarling, “Get up, you. You’ll be late.”
    Rose sighed. She didn’t know late for what , and she still wasn’t sure what she had done to make Susan dislike her quite so much, but there didn’t seem a lot of point in worrying about it. She smiled as Susan stomped back to her own room, and Rose went to the water jug to wash. The lilac print was still pristine, and she and Sarah and Miss Bridges had almost finished sewing a pink-striped cotton between them the previous night.
    After her experience with the swaying staircases the day before, Rose had decided that once she got onto the family floors, she would just stare at her feet. Hopefully that way she wouldn’t be distracted by dancing furniture, unless the carpet started too—it was quite fiercely patterned. She managed to get to the door to the servants’ stairs with only quick glances out of the corners of her eyes but nearly impaled herself on an ornamental sword hanging from the wall at stomach height—one that she was sure hadn’t been sticking out as much yesterday. She scurried down the back stairs and flung herself into the kitchen, glad to get there in one piece with no holes.
    â€œGoodness, child, whatever’s the matter with you?” exclaimed Mrs. Jones, slopping tea into Miss Bridges’ saucer and tutting. “Fetch me a cloth, Sarah, do.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Mrs. Jones.” Rose automatically bobbed at the knees in a little half curtsy. It seemed to appease Mrs. Jones, but she clearly still wanted an