The older man stretched out his hand. “Let me read the note.”
“I cannot.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason I must go after Eliza alone.” He left the dining room and its nauseating smells, aware that the viscount dogged his steps. At the door, he turned. Pain surged its way through their stare.
“You are not bringing her back, are you, Northwood?”
“No.” How could he when she was so afraid? What right did he have to pull her into danger a second time? How could he hope to protect her when he didn’t even know who to trust?
“Perhaps it is best this way,” said Lord Gillingham.
“Perhaps.”
“She was happy in her forest.”
Felton nodded, pulled open the doors, and made it halfway down the stone steps when the viscount called out to him, “Do not bring back the note.”
Felton glanced back up at him, as the older man’s features contorted, and his voice lost volume. “Burn it or shred it or leave it with my daughter—but do not bring it back. I should never like to know what made her run from me.”
Enormous loss burrowed into Felton’s chest. If only he could have been spared the note himself.
Back in the forest, Eliza had wandered into the pines at night—catching fireflies, dancing in the moonlight, listening to the stream rush by in the magical darkness.
But this was different.
Bumps raised her flesh as the horse plodded deeper into the blackness. How quiet everything was. So quiet that every snap of a twig or flutter of wings in the air made her heart kick faster.God, please protect me.From the men who wanted to kill her. From the night, with all its disconcerting noises and shadows.
And from herself.
Because in all the hours she’d been running away, the hurt had been running after her. Like vicious poison, all her memories of Monbury Manor were sickened. How could she ever think upon her father without seeing death in his eyes? How could she ever remember Felton without imagining the glorious Miss Haverfield in his arms?
Eliza shook her head, dismissing the fog of approaching sleep and tired thoughts. She reached down to rub her horse. She must leave it all alone. She must be brave, and she must press on, her and Merrylad, with no thought of what they had left behind.
After all, in a few days, they would be home.
Everything would be well again in the forest.
Bowles glided his fingers down the harp-lute strings as his parlor filled with music. Only during these morning hours, when he played undisturbed from the turmoil beyond his house, did some of the pressure leave his being. He felt celestial. Like a seraph.
Or a god.
Behind him, the squeak of a door disrupted the lulling music. He cursed and turned.
“I’m sorry, sir. I—I’m terribly sorry.” His maid of all work entered, hands wrung together, eyes already lowered to the rug. “I don’t be meaning to come and bother you when you be playing—”
“Pray, what is in your pocket?” He approached her, amused when she stiffened, and snatched the paper from her apron pocket. “A letter?”
“Only f–from my daughter, sir. She l–lives in Devonshire, she does, and I was just—”
“Reading when you should have been working?”
“Oh no, I wasn’t, sir. I wasn’t truly, I—”
“Enough.” He ripped the letter in two. Then in four. Then in six. “Now, Miss Reay.” He stuffed the shreds back into her pocket. “What was so important you wished to bother me?”
She bent her head. “Th–the Sw–Swabian, h–he wants to—”
