“But you sent for me tonight.”
“I have no choice. I’ve no one else.”
He put distance between them as she hugged her arms. Silence stretched on. Then the tears he’d been waiting for flashed into her gaze. “I want to believe you more than anything…and trust you. I want to trusthimtoo.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“You can trust him.”
“He knew I would be at the graves. He could have sent someone—”
“He would not have done that. He is no more the killer than my father is, and I would sooner think myself more capable of such a thing than to imagine Lord Gillingham trying to hurt you.”
“I’m not imagining.”
“Eliza—”
“You don’t know. You don’t know the way he looks at me sometimes, as if he sees someone else…as if I were my mother.”
“Even I see your mother in you.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No.”
“And you do not believe me.”
“It is too preposterous to believe.”
She jerked around, covered her face with both hands, and said nothing.
He crept behind her and eased her to face him. Pried away the fingers over her eyes. Breathed in rose water before he remembered to stay away from the scent. “You are afraid.”
She trembled beneath his touch. If only he could banish that fear. If only he could make everything go away. The danger, the secrets, the nightmares that plagued her.
“And I do not blame you.” His thumb slid down her chin. “But these suspicions of your father…they cannot be true. You must forget them.”
“And if you are wrong?”
“I am not wrong.”
She stepped away from him and grabbed her candle. “I must go now before they realize I am gone.”
“Eliza?”
At the door, she paused. “Yes?”
He didn’t want to ask the question. Shouldn’t matter anyway. “Do you truly think I could be the one behind the attempts to hurt you?”
Different expressions crossed her face. Hesitation, worry, then confidence with the slightest, shaky smile. “No. You are good and noble and brave, or so I’ve imagined you. Funny thing about me. Once I imagine something for so long, I start to believe it. I guess I’ve believed it of you all along.”
The words shouldn’t have meant a thing to him. What did it matter what she thought or believed? What was her good opinion against the rest of the world’s bad opinion?
Nothing, that’s what.
Nothing at all.
