The door swung wider and the light began to move, until a small figure appeared in the doorway. She wore a dress any viscount’s daughter would be proud to wear, only the hair was all wrong. Unrestricted and uncurled, it draped across her shoulders in waves that looked soft enough to stroke.
Never mind her hair, though. Never mind anything about her. “I received this.” Pulling the note from his waistcoat, he followed her back into the tiny room.
“I didn’t want to send it.” She shut the door and motioned Merrylad back to a corner. Then she turned to Felton, eyes aglow in candlelight, with an expression he couldn’t decipher. “I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“Something has happened?”
“At the churchyard. There was someone there. He was waiting for me.”
“Did he—”
“No, he didn’t hurt me.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“No.”
He frowned and forced his eyes to peruse the tack hanging on the wall. Not her face. “Something must be done. I have no intention of standing by as someone preys upon you. You told your father, of course?”
She bent next to her dog, left the candle on the floor, and rubbed the animal’s ears.
He said again, “You told Lord Gillingham?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Nothing.
Gads, why did she keep evading questions? Why was he here in the first place—late at night, in the carriage house, as if they had something to hide?
He waved the note. “You said there was a matter we needed to discuss. What is it?”
“Mr. Northwood, I think …”
“You think what?”
She came back to her full height, and color flooded her cheeks. “Never mind. I am sorry to trouble you. Goodnight—”
“Eliza, wait.” He seized her arm. “Wait.”
“You are angry.”
“Only because I am helpless. This is one thing I cannot fight, at least not yet. Now why have you not told Lord Gillingham about the man at the churchyard?”
“Because I think…I think he sent him there.”
A cold fear unfolded inside him. He gripped her arm tighter, but only because he needed the touch. “What?”
She shrugged free of him. “I know Minney is strange, that she isn’t like anyone else…but I believe her.”
“You believe what?”
“That there’s someone I cannot trust. Someone Idotrust.” Pleading eyes stared into him. “I even wondered if it were you.”
The words stabbed something inside him—and it wasn’t his pride. “Do you still feel this way?”
“I do not know what to feel.”
