Elizabeth folded the letter with fingers too steady and tucked it aside.
Her father’s note was next.
Droll, as expected. Disappointed, as feared. But no warmer.
“I suppose the next pamphlet will declare you a pirate or a prophetess,”he wrote,“In either case, please spare us the expense of rescuing you.”
No instructions. No comfort. Only the same weary amusement he used for garden floods and poor harvests.
Elizabeth smiled grimly. At least she was still good for a joke.
She returned both letters to her pocket. The fire snapped softly in the hearth.
Neither had asked how she fared.
But then again—what answer could she give?
There had been a time—not so long ago—when she would have laughed. Now she only wondered which sounded more forgivable: piracy or prophecy. At least pirates took what they wanted openly. She had claimed virtue and played martyr, and still managed to scandalize half of London.
She folded both and tucked them back. The fire cracked softly.
Upstairs, her trunk had already been placed in the smaller guest room. Outside, the hills stretched wide and endless. It would snow before nightfall. She could smell it in the air.
Elizabeth pressed her palms to the windowsill and watched the wind pull across the grasses.
She had run, yes. But to what?
She would not call it healing. That implied something was worth mending. No—this was more like cauterization. No onestitched up a mess like hers. They burned the edges and prayed it would scar cleanly.
Not to peace. Not yet.
But perhaps to a pause.
And for now, a pause would have to do.
27 January
The sun had notyet cleared the ridge, but the halls of the Hartley house were already warm with the scent of baking bread and wood smoke. Elizabeth sat at the long kitchen table with her hands curled around a teacup that had once belonged to Mrs. Gardiner’s mother—a delicate thing with a hairline crack that made it leak if held too high. She sipped cautiously, watching the steam rise in curls toward the beams above.
It was quiet in the way only respectable homes could be—furnished with discipline, softened by comfort. Mr. Gardiner had not yet appeared from his room, likely still absorbed in whatever dry newspaper had accompanied him from London.
Mrs. Gardiner sat opposite her, leisurely buttering a slice of toast and remarking on the welcome strength of Derbyshire tea. Across the hall, the faint clatter of crockery and a cheery whistle drifted from the kitchen. Mrs. Hartley entered from the corridor with a handkerchief in hand and the unhurried composure of a woman whose household rarely demanded her haste.
A housemaid entered a moment later with the morning post gathered neatly in a small tray. “Letters from Matlock, ma’am,” she said, offering it to Mrs. Hartley first.
Mrs. Hartley accepted the stack and flipped briskly through the envelopes. “One for you, Madeline,” she said, plucking a thick cream-colored square from the pile. “Lady Chiswell’s hand, unless I mistake it.”
Mrs. Gardiner glanced at it with a faint wince. “That woman never writes without an agenda.”
Elizabeth raised her teacup. “All the best women do.”
“True.” Mrs. Hartley opened the letter with no ceremony, smoothing it flat against the table. Her eyes scanned the page once—twice—then gave a quiet huff of amusement. “It appears Lady Chiswell means to hold a Twelfth Night gathering after all. She delayed it due to her nephew’s illness over the holiday, but it seems that now that he is on the mend, she has decided to host the thing anyway—though she is calling it something else entirely to avoid the appearance of superstition.”
She passed the letter toward her sister. “Is she still threatening those nonsense games? I thought last year’s pudding fiasco would have cured her of that.”
Mrs. Gardiner took the page with a bemused sound. “Apparently not. She promises singing, parlor tricks, and ‘a surprise event sure to amuse even the gravest among us.’” She glanced sidelong at Elizabeth. “Her words. Not mine.”
Mrs. Hartley gave a quiet snort. “If she tries that again, I am still owed an apology for the year she made us add up our own ages in public. I had three proposals and not one survived the evening.”
