“He had friends at the alehouse, didn’t he?”
“Out. Get out.”
“Five or six or seven of them. One called the Swabian. Men who’d beat a lone man in the dead of night to get what they wanted—”
“Yes!” She bounced to her feet and slammed her body into the wall. She hid her face. “Yes, yes, yes, he knew Swabian. And they killed. And stole. And lied and cheated and loved on their trollops, the lot o’ them.” Sobs escaped, half muffled with her bony hands, so loud that even the little girl awoke and began to whimper. “And they…they …”
“They what?”
“Curse the Swabian for what he did to my Josiah. Curse him for livin’ and breathin’ and ruinin’ everything. Curse him for makin’ me bury my baby.”
Felton took one step closer. “Please, Mrs. Hodgetts. What did he do?”
“He gave my husband…opium. He put the devil in his soul.”
“How do you feel?”
Eliza sat across from Felton in the drawing room, idle needlework in her lap.Feel?Like a bird she’d once seen caught in a thicket, with injured wings, with little black eyes that seemed frantic and afraid. She’d tried to set it free, the little thing. She’d crooned, and smiled, and moved slowly enough so the winged creature might trust her.
But it hadn’t, and she’d thought it such a fool.
Now she was the bird. The fool too—whether for trusting too much or not enough, she didn’t know. Pressure hammered at her temples, but she’d grown used to the headache.
She hadn’t grown used to Minney’s words. How they’d stayed with her, making her half afraid every time her father spoke a word, making her tense now that Mr. Northwood had finally come to visit.
Making her sick in the bottom of her stomach.
She didn’t want to believe it was true. Not of the two people she’d come to believe in. Even if she did wish to leave, to flutter her wings and fly free of the thicket herself, no part of her wished to go with the knowledge that one of them had betrayed her.
“Well?”
She swallowed. “I—I feel mostly recovered.”
“Good.” He tossed his hat to one chair and lowered into the one adjacent from her, but he only remained sitting a moment before he rose again. He seemed distracted today. Uneasy. Guilt-ridden, perhaps?
No, no. Why couldn’t she let it go? Minney was mad. What could she know about who Eliza trusted or shouldn’t trust? No truth dwelled in such nonsense.
Felton was her friend.
Lord Gillingham her father.
She would not allow some haunting warning from a mad child make her doubt. They had been kind to her and good to her. They cared about her, both of them—didn’t they? Or had Captain been right? Was there only cruelty and hurt and deceit in the people of this world?
“The whole thing is a deuced mess.” Felton raked both hands through his hair. “I understand none of it.”
She watched his face—the smooth features, the intense gaze, the muscle in his jaw that seemed to flex with concentration. “Yesterday I went to the home of the man who tried to kill you.”
The pounding grew. “Who was he?”
“A rogue of a husband. An opium smoker too. And I have reason to believe he is one of the men who attacked me in hopes of discovering your captain’s hideout.”
How did that make sense? ’Twas true Captain had enemies, yes. But what would those enemies have against her? How could it possibly connect with the night her mother was killed?
“What are you thinking?” He moved in front of her chaise lounge and bent next to her. “Tell me.”
“I don’t think’ee can trust the ones’ee think’ee can.”
Over and over.
