“He wished to sit with your mother and partake of his meal in her chamber.” Miss Haverfield tilted her head, beguiling, earbobs dangling. “I have been quite devoted to your mother since my arrival, Mr. Northwood, but it is such a minuscule thing. I only wish I could do more.”
“It was good of you to come.” He lifted his eyes to Eliza before settling them back to Miss Haverfield. “But I can make no promises the visit will not submit you to village gossip.”
“I dare to say, people are not so cruel as they were back then. Indeed, I fathom some have all but forgotten.”
“Your father included?”
A laugh trilled out. “You tempt me to tell you a secret with such a question. But let us speak of it no more. As soon as you are finished with your meal, we shall take a stroll outside, and you may walk me through the garden and grape arbors.”
Eliza stood, chair nearly toppling, heat rising when their attention shifted to her. “Excuse me.” Without meaning to, her eyes caught Felton’s gaze. She was drawn into his eyes, the deep and soothing pull, as green as the forest trees she loved so much.
He looked away. Then down at his plate. Then up to Miss Haverfield—always Miss Haverfield.
Eliza left the room and locked herself into the tiny upstairs chamber she’d been given. Evidence of his kindness. His nobility. His pity.
She waited at the window for a long time before the two of them reached the garden.
Together, arms linked, they ambled the paths. Talking. Laughing. Drifting closer as they ventured from the garden to the distant grape arbors. Wasn’t it lovely?
She’d always thought so before. She’d always sighed and been happy and smiled at the stories Captain told her of two people growing in their love for each other. There had been magic in the tales. Enchantment in the touches.
But there was no enchantment in this.
Eliza pulled the lilac silk curtains over the pane. She found her bed, burrowed herself into the soft folds, and tried not to remember one day ago when she’d been held in his arms.
The arms that would likely never hold her again.
One thing was certain. Felton had never once imagined Miss Penelope Haverfield, daughter of the squire, deigning to aid the Northwood family. He didn’t know how to feel about such a thing.
Maybe he was elated.
Yes, of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be? Was this not a long-sought dream finally falling into place?
“You are quiet this evening. Might I invade your thoughts?” Beneath the grape arbor, she lifted her finger to twist a vine. The same way she’d always been twisting him. “Or am I in them already?”
She was, of course, but he had no intention of admitting it. He plucked an unripe grape. “I am merely fatigued.”
“Too fatigued to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“About my secret.” She swayed closer with her familiar apricot scent, long lashes fluttering, cheeks pinking just enough to lend a sense of shyness they both knew was untrue. “Well, Mr. Northwood?”
“All right, what is it?”
“You hardly seem intrigued.”
“Don’t I?”
“Very well then.” She whisked to the other side of the grape arbor. “I shall not tell you at all since you have so many other things occupying your mind.”
Like his brother’s dead body on the bottom of the sea. Like the answers he couldn’t get and the fourteen-year-old truth he couldn’t uncover. Like the men trying to kill Eliza. Like his dying mother in her bedchamber upstairs.
“Felton, how could you tease me this way?” She turned to him again, eyes searching his but never seeing. She touched the lapels of his coat. “Of late you seem as if you do not care for me at all.”
“Should that not be a question for your university friend?”
“He was nothing to me.”
