“Then you go, Son, but I have not stepped foot in that house in fourteen years. Too many chances I might drop my watch fob and take the blame for any—never mind. No sense talking about it anyway. Lord Gillingham means well enough, I suppose, but—”
“But what?”
Papa leaned deeper into his parlor chair and turned another page of theGentleman’s Magazine.“Hmm, looked at this meteorological journal yet, Son? Why, it says here more dry days than showery—”
“You are afraid.”
Of course he was. He always was. Even now, his eyes never left the magazine. “You think I enjoy being whispered of as the murderer?”
“What are whispers? To what end must we avoid them? You have scarcely left this house in fourteen years. Not even for church. Is this not greater injustice to the Northwood name than the slander of the ignorant people who—”
“Felton.” From her chaise lounge, Mamma finally looked up from the two letters she’d been reading from Aaron and Hugh. She hugged them close to her chest. “You should not speak so to your father.”
“Someone must say it.”
“Felton—”
“Mamma, I must be heard. They have already taken our dignity. They have already slandered our name. Are we to hide away with our heads bent like frightened dogs?” He needed to stop. He needed to leave his father alone and bend to his mother’s frail command and pretend—pretend as always that everything wrong did not exist. Hadn’t he said it all before?
Felton crumpled the invitation and tossed it into the hearth. “Never mind. I shall attend alone—”
“No, Felton.” His mother laid aside the letters. Her head lifted. “He is right, Richard, and we are cowards if we do not show our faces.”
“But your illness—”
“I am not so weak that I cannot stand alongside my son and defend our name.”
A swell of pride tightened Felton’s chest, as Papa lowered his magazine. A sheen of moisture filled his gaze as it turned upon Mamma. “By Jove, you’re right. The both of you.”
Eliza yanked off one slipper. Then the next. How cool was the courtyard grass, damp with the evening dew, as soft as the moss back in the forest.
Let Mrs. Eustace find out. Let them all find out. It did not matter and Eliza no longer cared. What were these people to her anyway? Mrs. Eustace was as cruel as the world Captain had always warned her about. Minney was mad. Lord Gillingham was elusive. Why did he go to such pains to avoid her? Even when he did see her—in quick passing down a hall or for a few moments during breakfast—he had trouble meeting her eyes.
And Felton.
She ran to the farthest tree in the courtyard, the one closest to the gate, and grabbed a low-hanging limb. She didn’t care for him either. Sometimes, for a moment or so, she imagined she did.
But she imagined too much.
She was making him some noble hero in her books, or the mysterious stranger in her dreams, or the brave knight in so many stories. He was none of those. Was he?
Everything was his fault. She would not be here were it not for him, for his incessant desire to nudge the ghosts of a long-ago murder. Ghosts that kept her from sleeping. Ghosts that made the nightmares worse, so wretched she feared to close her eyes because the beast grew larger. And larger. And larger.
Ever since she’d entered that chamber.
Her mother’s.
Higher and higher she ascended the tree, until she settled on a limb that draped over the courtyard wall. The gate was locked, but how easy it would be to climb to the top of the stone wall. Then jump over. Then run and run and keep running until there were no more servants or manor houses or nightmares—
“They said I would find you here.”
She jumped.
From near five feet below, Felton Northwood dangled both her slippers from each hand. And grinned. “They just did not tell me to look up.”
She gathered her dress tighter around her legs and fought a rush of tears. What a savage child he must think her. How he must laugh at her. The silly little fool who was more animal than lady—
“What is it?”
