Only he grinned, grinned big, as if it meant much more than the world itself. For right then, it almost did.
Eliza stole back into the manor and removed her half boots at the door. They were much too loud for one attempting to not be heard.
Hurrying through the darkness, she touched her chin. Silly thing, but it still tingled warmly where his finger had rubbed. Why should it mean so much? Why had she sent for him at all?
Only she’d needed to.
She’d needed to see him after so many days without him. She’d needed to tell him what had frightened her, what she’d suspected, even knowing he wouldn’t believe it to be true.
Maybe he was right. Of course he was. A father could not hurt his child that way. A father could not murder his own wife.
Not when he loved her so much. Not when he still ached for her touch and treasured her dress and hurt so much he couldn’t visit her grave.
Halfway up the stairs, a bang cut through the quietness. Her heart jumped. A gunshot?
No, it couldn’t be. She dropped the boots and darted up the stairs, ran for her bedchamber, and grasped the knob of her room.
Locked.
“Minney?” The word escaped, raspy. She’d asked the girl to come in secret, to wait for her here in Eliza’s bedchamber so she might have help getting off her stays and dress. “Minney!”
From down the hall, a door opened and a sleepy-faced Leah rushed forward. “I heard a terrible noise—”
“This door. Can you open it?”
“Why, yes, Miss Gillingham.” The girl disappeared through the same doorway, then rushed back seconds later with a key. She jabbed it in, twisted it, then swung open the door.
Eliza flew inside. Everything was dark except the moonlit curtains fluttering at the window. Had she left the window open?
“Minney?”
Something moved. On the floor. Under the window…the window …
No, no.From behind her, Leah screamed. Then ran.No, no, no.
She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to come closer, but she did. Just as she’d done at the other window, when there’d been a scream and her mother had broken the glass.
Shaking, she collapsed next to the girl lying face up. “Minney, can you hear me?”
The eyes were closed. The lips half-open, moving without noise.
And her shoulder.
Eliza let her eyes stay there, where the circle of blood was already widening. Red, red, red. Why was there always red?
She hated red. She hated windows. She hated breaking glass and lions and claws and—
“Out of the way, Miss Gillingham.” From behind, Mrs. Eustace’s quick hands guided Eliza away from the body. “Over here, men.”
One manservant hurried Minney into his arms, while the other peered out the window. “Looks like someone got a rope around the chimney. Used it to pulley himself up, he did.”
“Well, gather more men and scour the grounds. Send someone else for the constable and doctor.”
A blur of movement, a hum of voices, but Eliza understood nothing. She backed away to a quiet wall and clasped her face. Minney was going to die. She was going to die in Eliza’s stead because Eliza had asked her here. She was going to be murdered, just as Lady Gillingham, just as Eliza would be, one way or another.
God, I cannot do this any longer.
She stifled a sob with her hands.
