“Entertaining me.”
Eliza jerked at the voice. She pushed back to her feet, panic gashing through her, the lightless candlestick slipping from her fingers.
A shadow moved closer. He backed her into the brick wall of the stable and stood close enough Merrylad growled. “Charming little pet you have there, Miss Gillingham.”
“Who are you?”
“Do you not know?”
“No.” She raked in air but couldn’t exhale.Scream.She needed to scream. Why couldn’t she scream?
The shadow moved like lightning. A crack, a thud, then Merrylad hit the ground and didn’t scamper back up.
“No!” Eliza dove to her knees, groped for him, but something cold and metal rammed into her temple. The blackness deepened. She must have landed over top of Merrylad, because for a brief second, his fur tickled her face and his smell and warmth drained away some of the terror.
Then a second blow.
Pain flittered through her, as the blackness blurred into colors, the colors into red curtains, the red curtains into blackness again.
“You will know me.” A roar in her ear. “You will.”
Then she heard nothing at all.
Felton turned in bed for the hundredth time. Not that he wanted to sleep. He didn’t. He had too much to figure out and too much to determine.
Like what to do about Eliza.
And her lies.
Too restless to remain under his coverlet, he jerked it back and walked to the hearth. He stoked the small fire, then sat before it on the floor and watched the flames lick the air.God, what do I do?A prayer he’d prayed a thousand times.What do I do?
He wanted to hate her. He almost did. He wanted to run like Hugh to the battlefronts of France or hide like Aaron in the university books and lessons.
But he couldn’t. He’d never been able to. He’d been forced to stay, chained to it somehow, and every day the wretched chains grew heavier.
He worked his jaw into a clench. By all that was holy, he needed the truth. He needed it to be over. He was tired of defending his father, his name, his family, to every dashed fool in Lodnouth.
He never imagined Eliza would be among them.
Sighing, he jabbed the poker into a log—perhaps too violently, because it shifted and a flock of tiny sparks besieged the air. One of them landed on his forearm. The pain was dull next to the hurt pressing into his soul.
Eliza, why?He’d trusted her. He’d told her everything. He’d invited her into his home and deeper than that—into his heart.
But she’d forsaken his confidence and betrayed them. She’d spit on the Northwood name just like the rest of the world.
For that, he could not forgive her.
Not when his father was an innocent man.
Mayhap if she kept her eyes closed, they would leave her alone. Cold, uneven stone jabbed into her cheek, and she eased the musty air into her lungs. Pounding filled her head. One breath in. One breath out. One in, one out. In, out.
“She be young.” An old, solemn voice. Sad almost, as if the reality of her age had an effect on him. “Very young.”
In, out.
“Yet much older than the last time she was in our clutches, is she not, Swabian?” The same voice from the stable. The one that made her stomach knot. “Breage, go and relocate theCélestine IIto Ozias Bay.”
“But sir, we have not a crew—”
