Page 112

"It is considerably more comfortable than it appears."

Despite herself, she obeyed. Only once she was settled behind the desk did Arthur kneel before one of the lower drawers, unlocking it with a small brass key he withdrew from a bookshelf.

From within, he removed a neat bundle of letters tied carefully together with faded blue ribbon, several folded papers, and a small leather-bound journal worn from years of handling. He placed each item upon the desk before her with extraordinary care.

They were not estate accounts. Nor correspondence from London. They were clearly personal.

Arthur rested one hand lightly upon the stack of parchment, his fingertips lingering there for a moment as though uncertain where to begin.

"The night after our wedding..." he said quietly, his gaze settling somewhere beyond the desk as memory carried him elsewhere, "...Giles—Colonel Radnor—remarked that he believed he had seen your eyes before."

The faintest smile touched his lips before disappearing almost as quickly.

"I had noticed something familiar myself, though I could not determine what it was. There was something about you that seemed known, but I couldn't quite place you. It was Radnor who solved the mystery." Arthur's expression softened, though beneath it lingered the unmistakable sadness that had become ever-present whenever his old friend was mentioned.

"He remembered your mother."

Silence settled between them.

"We assumed, from everything you had told us, from your age, your circumstances, and..." his eyes met hers with extraordinary gentleness, "...your eyes, that your mother was Lady Alice Harper."

He paused.

"And if our conclusion is correct..."

His voice became almost reverent.

"...then she was one of the most beautiful women this country had ever seen."

Eliza closed her eyes. They knew. She had always clung to that name as though it alone might somehow preserve the woman herself beyond it. There had been almost nothing. Only fragments. The faintest memory of soft hands adjusting the ribbon in her hair. The scent of rosewater lingering upon a travelling cloak. A quiet voice telling stories she could no longer remember. And then, the large doors of the Didleys' cottage.

She could still picture that cold morning with painful clarity. She and her mother had arrived by carriage, heavily cloaked. A woman had knelt before Eliza, both hands trembling as she cupped her daughter's face with such desperate tenderness that, even as a child, Eliza had sensed something terrible was happening.

"You must never speak my name again." Her mother's voice had shaken.

"It would not be safe, my dear Eliza." Safe for whom? Eliza did not understand the words nor the strangled smile that lingered on her mother's face at the time.

"I shall come back for you when I can." Then Lady Alice had kissed Eliza's forehead and turned away, climbing back into the carriage and disappearing into the dusk, leaving her outside a worn front door in Windleham.

For years afterwards, whilst the other children had eagerly accepted invitations to apprenticeships and new homes, Eliza had remained. She had always found another reason to stay. Another excuse. Another year. Because somewhere deep within the hopeful heart of a little girl, she believed that if she remained exactly where her mother had left her, then one day her mother would walk back through the door to collect her.

She had never confessed that to anyone, not even James, Richard or Cecily. Only much later had she accepted the truth she had long resisted. Whatever her mother had been fleeing, it had reached her first, and she would not be returning.

Arthur watched the emotions flicker silently across her face as she recalled her most painful memory, before gently nudging the bundle of papers a little closer.

"Radnor and I began making enquiries." He smiled almost apologetically.

His fingertips brushed lightly over the bundle.

"This is everything we have been able to discover so far. There is a sketch of your mother printed in a society newspaper."

He lifted another page.

"One of her journals."

Then another.

"A handful of letters in your mother's hand, exchanged with ladies of the ton."