Grabbing the candle, he pulled open her drawer and found the letter. He scooted next to her on the bed, read it aloud, and handed over a handkerchief when she cried at the end.
“Very gallant all of it is, my son…but I only wish he would have never left.”
“He will come home soon, I’m sure.”
“And Arthur too.”
“Yes. Him too.”
“Promise me something, Felton?”
“If I can.”
“Promise you shall never leave me. A mother needs her children. A wife needs her husband.” More tears came, as she sucked in shallow breaths and leaned into his shoulder. “You never did stop believing in your papa, did you? All those years ago. When the constable came…when people threw eggs at our house, when the other children told you your father had killed a woman.”
“Papa would never kill.”
“No. There is too much goodness in him. I knew that the moment they told me what had happened. I knew without asking him questions or seeing the watch fob or even looking into his eyes. A wife knows these things. She feels them.”
“We all believe him, Mamma. We always have.”
“Do you think…do you suppose this child you’ve brought back …” The sentence lingered without answer. As if it meant too much to be spoken aloud.
“I do not know, Mamma.” He grasped her hands. “But in the name of mercy, I pray she can.”
If she could keep her mouth from falling open, maybe Lord Gillingham would not realize the disbelief his words imposed.
“All that to say, the decision is yours. Say the word and I shall dismiss the idea immediately.”
She grasped the stairwell banister halfway up the stairs, where he had stopped her on her way to bed. All those evenings came flashing back to her. The ones where she’d slipped into her one silk dress, blue but stained, and wandered off into a quiet section of woods. No music played except the wind. No people except the trees. No ballroom floor except the needles and dry leaves of the forest ground.
But she’d danced just the same and pretended it was real. She never dreamed one day it could be.
“Eliza?”
She took one step down. “A true ball?”
“Of the most modish kind.”
“With dancing?”
“Indeed.”
“And lemonade?”
The questions seemed to amuse him. He half laughed. “Anything you wish.”
“I am sorry. I did not mean…well, it is just that I’ve only read of such things. I never thought I could go to one.”
“You shall do more than go to one, Eliza. You shall be the most remarkable person there. It will be, of course, in your honor.”
What had she ever done to deserve such a thing? Why would the man gift her with this when she’d only ever shown him unkindness?
He must have misread her thoughts because he shifted on his feet from the bottom stair. “I have frightened you, have I not? There need be no ball, not until this ordeal with the danger is over and you are settled in—”
“Please, I should like the ball.”
For a second, that same look came over his face. The one Captain always wore when she’d done something good, or surprised him, or just kissed his cheek.
