He pulled away and hastened to the other side of the kitchen.
She couldn’t move. Maybe she’d never move again.
Turning back to her without looking into her face, he nodded to the kitchen door. “Go back to bed now, Eliza.” His voice was husky. “I shall check outside and make certain nothing is astir. Goodnight.” He rushed from the kitchen before she could answer.
As if she could have answered anyway.
Morning dawned too quickly.
Eliza stood before the gilt-framed mirror in Miss Haverfield’s chamber, as the woman adjusted the last purple flower on Eliza’s poke bonnet.
“There. You look much better in this dreadful thing than I ever did. Indeed, you make it lovely.” Miss Haverfield smoothed the collar of the matching purple pelisse. “The entire outfit is yours. What do you think?”
Eliza squeezed a finger past the straw bonnet and scratched an itch. “It is…very nice. Thank you.”
“La, think nothing of it. What are women for but to aid each other in fashion?” She locked arms with Eliza, declared they were ready to depart, then led the way to the last place Eliza wanted to go.
The breakfast parlor.
Pressure built along her chest, and for the hundredth time since last night, she moistened lips that felt unreal to her. He had kissed them? No, she had only dreamed it.
Yet he had. She knew he had. How strange that he should have done such a thing. She knew he pitied her. She knew he wished to protect her. She knew, in some way or another, he cared for her—all things she understood and made sense of.
But she didn’t understand why he kissed her.
Not at all.
The breakfast parlor door swung open before she was prepared. She didn’t want to face him, not when it was Miss Haverfield he would be smiling upon, and Miss Haverfield he would be speaking to, and Miss Haverfield he would be wishing he had kissed last night.
But as they approached the quaint round table, it was not Felton Northwood who glanced up from a newspaper to greet them.
“Good morning, Mr. Northwood.” Miss Haverfield curtsied, and Eliza mimicked the movement. “I do hope your wife had a tolerable night?”
“Yes indeed. Yes indeed.” He stood from his chair, wiped a bit of marmalade from the corner of his mouth, and motioned to the sideboard. “Do help yourself to anything you wish, my dears. I am quite finished and must be off to sit with Mrs. Northwood.”
“Of a certain. You must not detain yourself on our account.” Miss Haverfield was already moving to fill her plate. “I have persuaded Miss Gillingham to accompany me on my weekly visit to the poor, so unfortunately I shall not be here to assist you.”
“Tut, tut, we shall need no such assistance. You have quite done enough these past days, dear girl.” Tucking his newspaper under his arm, he turned to Eliza. “Miss Gillingham.” A nod, a smile, a shift of his eyes.Miss Gillingham.
Then he bowed and was gone.
Her mind spun.Miss Gillingham.The voice. The words.Miss Gillingham, Miss Gillingham.Images flashed through her mind—shadows moving, the tapestry, another window, a hand suffocating her mouth.Miss Gillingham, do not scream.
“Dear?”
Eliza jerked before she realized the hand on her arm didn’t mean to hurt her. She raked in a breath and met the rounded, skeptical eyes of Miss Haverfield.
The woman frowned. “Whatever is the matter?”
“Nothing.” She turned to the sideboard and stared down at blurred, nauseating food. “It is nothing…truly.”
“Well I do hope you heard some of what I said. I was telling you of the dearest little curiosity shop in Lodnouth. We simply must go if we finish our visits before teatime, as there are so many wondrous things there. Why, once I found the most darling little pearl necklace and …”
The words drained away. Everything drained away. She gripped the edge of the sideboard and squeezed her eyes shut against the memories.
Only they weren’t memories. They were lies. Imaginations. The result of too much pain and too little sleep—because it was not possible Richard Northwood had been there that night.
He was an innocent man.
