Their home was now a crypt, and her heart was dying by degrees. The front door shifted with a soft creak, then drifted open beneath a gust of wind; Nora stared at it blankly, realizing the latch must not have caught when she came in. She ought torise and close it. She ought to care that the house stood open to the street. But the thought passed through her without finding purchase.
A practical little voice in her head began arranging her future with an eerie calm. Mr. Lyndon’s engagement ring and the sapphire bracelet had fetched a reasonable price. But her wardrobe wouldn’t. Ladies who could afford silk and velvet wanted bespoke garments, not castoffs from a disgraced woman. Clothing and fabric were becoming so readily available that their value wasn’t what it once was, though every farthing mattered at this juncture.
All the possibilities she’d considered in the dark of night now presented themselves in orderly procession, each one bleak but unsurprising; Nora had thought through all of this so many times that their sharp edges had dulled. Her body remained on the stairs, her hands cold in her lap, her gaze fixed upon the pale rectangle of wall where the painting had hung and the empty place on the side table where the lacquered box sat in which Mama kept calling cards.
A figure appeared in the gaping doorway, and Nora knew she ought to feel something. Having another spy her in that moment ought to spark mortification. Perhaps even anger. Yet her heart remained numb as the gentleman stepped inside.
“Miss Eden?”
Nora knew that voice. And her heart stirred. Not gently nor with a sweet, foolish flutter, but with a sharp, painful contraction that made the whole of her constrict. Nora’s fingers curled against her skirts, and for one dreadful instant the emptiness inside her cracked, proving that all those feelings still existed, waiting to spring upon her.
No. She could not afford to feel this. Not him. Not now. The pain had no place to go, no mercy to offer, and Nora tried toforce it back behind the wall and return to the hollow quiet that had held her upright.
But Mr. Hatcher stepped fully into the entryway, and the sight of him there—face drawn with concern, eyes fixed only upon her—made the effort impossible. Glancing at the open door, Mr. Hatcher closed it firmly behind him, and though the sound of the latch catching was quiet, it rang through the silence.
Nora did not rise. She couldn’t trust her body to obey if she tried. All she could do was watch as Mr. Hatcher crossed to her, his steps slow as though afraid a sudden motion might shatter whatever remained of her.
“Miss Eden?” he repeated before his gaze took in the entryway as a whole. Pictures. Vases. Clocks. Even the brass lamp from the corner had gone, leaving a pale ring in the floor where the sun had stained the boards around it. “What has happened?”
Chapter 49
Mr. Hatcher’s voice, low and careful, reached the place nothing else had managed to touch, and her lips trembled. Nora looked down at the folded note resting upon the stair beside her, and she held it out to him with unsteady fingers. Mr. Hatcher took it gently, and her eyes burned as tears blurred the empty room, the pale patches on the walls, and his solemn features.
“Suspecting how the verdict would go today, Mama has taken the others and left.” Though Nora did not need to explain what was written in clear letters, she needed to say the words aloud. “She took what she could with her—including the children who still matter to her—and left. No doubt she has hidden away some money on the Continent and will be comfortable enough if she is prudent.”
A small, broken sound escaped before she could bury it, and Mr. Hatcher’s eyes lifted from the note. Nora pressed one hand to her mouth, but it did little good. Curling inward, she hid her face, but she couldn’t stop the sobs that emerged—and strengthened when strong arms wrapped around her. Mr. Hatcher crouched on the stair beside her, and Nora couldn’t fight the impulse that had her turning into him.
Surely there could be nothing left for her to feel after the trial, Papa’s sentence, and returning to a house stripped bare and a dismissive note from Mama, yet the grief surged, tearing through that hollow place with such force that she could scarcely draw breath between sobs. Her fingers clutched blindly at Mr. Hatcher’s coat, not with dignity, not with restraint, but with the desperation of someone who had been left behind too many times and could not bear to be abandoned again.
For several long moments, nothing existed beyond the terrible sound breaking from her and the warmth of Mr. Hatcher’s arms around her.
The gentleman made no sound. Gave no assurances or gentle platitudes. Mr. Hatcher merely held her there on the stairs in the stripped entryway, one arm firm about her shoulders while his other hand rested lightly at the back of her head, steadying without confining. The quiet certainty of him only made her cry harder, because it asked nothing of her.
“She didn’t even say farewell,” Nora choked out, the words broken and jagged. “Did I not matter to her in the slightest?”
Pressing her face against his shoulder, she let the whole of her composure come apart. Every severed thread of her life knotted together until Nora could no longer tell which hurt belonged to which loss. It was all one wound now, too large to cover, too deep to touch without bleeding afresh.
And through it all, Mr. Hatcher held her.
Time lost all shape. The afternoon light shifted slowly across the stripped entryway, retreating from one bare patch on the wall to another, whilst Nora wept until her body forgot how to do anything else. At times the sobs came harshly, tearing through her with enough force that she could do nothing but cling to him until the worst of it passed. At others, the tears slipped out quietly, drawing out the last of her strength as they dampened the shoulder of his coat.
And only after every last tear was spilled and Nora released her hold on him, did Mr. Hatcher move.
“Come,” he said, rising to his feet.
“Pardon?” Nora brushed at her cheeks and rubbed her eyes before staring at the hand he extended to her.
“We are going to pack your things, assuming the vultures haven’t taken everything.” The gentleman paused before adding in a dismissive tone. “If they have, we will simply buy you new things.”
And as if that settled matters, Mr. Hatcher offered his hand again, looking at her with raised brows as though she ought to have accepted it already.
“You are speaking nonsense, sir.”
But Mr. Hatcher shook his head. “You are going to stay with my parents. For as long as you need.”
Shooting to her feet, Nora gaped at him. “No, I will not. Icannot.”
“If you do not want to marry me, that is your choice, but I will not walk out that door and abandon you to this,” he said in a tone that brooked no refusal. “Youwilltake my family’s assistance for as long as you require it.”
