Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Excuse me.” Eliza rose as Alexander Nightingale retreated back to his chair after having scraped open the deep wound inside her. A wound she’d patched as best she could. “I will be back shortly.”
They didn’t stop her, just followed her with their eyes, pitying looks on their faces.
Once she was outside the room, she hurried to the stairs and climbed, desperate to reach solitude and give way to what welled inside her. Everything she hadn’t wanted to let out in that room with everyone watching her.
Thankfully, Eliza ran into no one and soon reached her door. After closing it behind her, she moved on stiff legs to the bed and collapsed onto the edge. She tore off her gloves, then clutched Mungo’s handkerchief once more.
“Henry.” The name came out a moan. Tears ran down Eliza’s face as she fell apart. Something she’d not allowed herself to do for many years.
Alexander Nightingale had said her family were together, and that thought gave her peace as nothing else ever had.
Losing her parents, and in such a horrific way, had been devastating. But they had lived some of their life. They’d found love and experienced many wonderful things, but not Henry. His life had been cruelly cut short through no fault of his own.
“I want to visit the pyramids, Lizzie, but especially the smallest one. The Pyramid of Mycerinus.”
She remembered how he’d said that during one of the last conversations they’d had. They’d often talked of their dreams and how he wanted her to go with him to Egypt. Eliza had vowed she would.
Lizzie had been the name he’d called her from the day he was old enough to talk.
She pressed her hands to her face and sobbed for what she’d lost and the life she’d had to live without the people she loved most in the world.
The tap on her door came a short while later. Eliza was still weeping. She hadn’t allowed herself to do that for a long time. Couldn’t allow it. She’d had to continue living, even as she’d wondered if not doing so was the better option for her.
Her parents had not raised her to give up when facing adversity, but there were times during those first years when grief had wanted her to do just that.
The tap sounded again.
“I will be down shortly,” Eliza called.
She heard the footsteps recede and then was alone again as she’d been for many years. Looking around the room she loved, it suddenly felt too enclosed. Eliza needed air.
Regaining her feet, she reached for the gloves she’d tugged off and saw the book. The one her father used to read her. It was on her nightstand.
Mungo, Eliza thought. No one else had seen her reading it in Nicholson’s Book Store.
But why had he purchased it for her?
Forcing down yet more emotion, she left the room, making her way back downstairs. She grabbed her outer clothing, quickly pulled it on, and then let herself silently out the door, leaving the hum of voices, still discussing how to find those poor missing girls, behind her.
The cold air was welcome on her damp, hot cheeks. Stuffing her gloved hands into her pockets, she struck out for the grass, and once there, she headed for the rotunda.
Climbing the stairs, Eliza found two people inside.
“I’m sorry—”
“There is room for more than two people in here, Miss Downing,” Mr. Greedy said.
To her astonishment, Mavis Johns and Mr. Greedy were seated on the floor with their legs crossed—no easy feat when they were both wrapped in layers of wool and petticoats, their hands joined solemnly together as if preparing for a séance.
“I will leave you to your prayer,” Eliza said.
“Meditation, Miss Downing.” Mr. Greedy gestured calmly, entirely unbothered by the frigid conditions London was experiencing. “Come, sit. You look as if you, too, could use some relief from your thoughts.”
How was he down there at his age, folded like laundry on a scullery table?
“What is meditation?” Eliza asked instead of confessing that he had judged her state of mind accurately.
“In the old teachings, meditation was described as the quieting of a restless mind. Scholars spoke of it not as instruction but as an ancient understanding that when one gentles the turmoil of thoughts and emotion, clarity rises, and a rare, enduring peace follows.”
Enduring peace sounded lovely—and as distant as the summer months to Eliza right then.
“Sit,” Mavis barked, sounding like a drill sergeant.
Mr. Greedy patted the space beside him on the blanket.
Eliza contemplated running, and she had plenty of reasons to do so after the day she’d had. A gentle tug on her sleeve urged her downward. She yielded.
“Gloves,” Mavis barked.
She loathed taking off her gloves and anyone seeing her hand, but Mavis and Mr. Greedy weren’t looking directly at her, and it was dark and dismal out here. She tugged them off and stuffed them into her pocket.
“Breathing is important, Miss Downing,” Mavis instructed. “Big breath in through your nose and out through your mouth.”
Eliza wrestled herself into a cross-legged position, her muscles protesting furiously. She placed her hands as they had.
“Focus on your breath, Miss Downing—”
“Please call me Eliza,” she murmured. It seemed the right thing to say, considering the situation.
“Breath and movement, Eliza,” Mavis said. “Observe your thoughts without judgment, as if they are clouds floating by. Calm your mind. Breathe in… and out.”
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, listening to the faint rustling of leaves and Mr. Greedy’s steady, calming voice. But slowly her shoulders loosened. The tightness in Eliza’s chest eased. The cold seemed less sharp now and her body warmer.
Of all the things she’d ever done, this had to be the oddest. And yet… this was Crabbett Close. Eccentricity appeared normal rather than isolated.
“We shall work on you finding that inner peace, Eliza,” Mavis declared at last, rising with surprising grace and no signs of discomfort or creaky bones.
“Thank you,” she said, also rising.
“Should you ever need someone to speak to, I am but a short walk away,” Mr. Greedy said, patting her cheek after he rose too. He then bent to scoop up his blanket and followed Mavis down the stairs.
Eliza stayed where she was, standing in the middle of the rotunda. She couldn’t say she was completely at peace, but she did feel calmer.
“What the hell are you doing out here in this weather, lass?”
And just like that, her calm fled.
“Taking the air,” Eliza said, watching the large Scotsman climb the stairs to join her. “Go back to the house. I shall return shortly.”
“There’s no air inside the house that’s warmer than this?”
He was wrapped in a thick, long coat and had his scarf wound around his neck. Eliza had left hers again in her haste to depart.
“I did meditation with Mavis and Mr. Greedy.”
He snorted. “Not sure why you would, but then, I know this street and what its residents are capable of,” he muttered, leaning in close to study her.
“They are wonderful people.” Eliza felt the need to defend the entire population of Crabbett Close from the Scotsman’s mockery.
“I didnae say they weren’t good folk.” Now he sounded testy. “You’ve been crying.”
Eliza fought the need to retreat as she inhaled his scent—woodsmoke and whisky. The modicum of peace she’d achieved fled, and suddenly she lost her composure. Why it happened now, with this unemotional beast, Eliza had no idea, but she felt the flow of heat in her body and embraced it.
“Do you not think maybe I have a reason to weep? That hearing my little brother’s name, when no one but me has spoken it in the years he’s been gone, might have upset me?” She was determined not to let him see her fall apart, but she could give him a piece of her mind.
His eyes bored into hers but no words came out of his mouth.
“Go away. I want to be alone,” she muttered. “And if I did want company, it would not be with someone who has not a scrap of empathy in his body.”
Eliza felt his eyes on the top of her head now as she looked at the toes of his huge leather boots.
“I’m sorry,” he said after a long, angry silence.
“I accept. Now go away.”
He was close—so close, she could see nothing beyond his huge shoulders as he towered over her, making her feel small. Eliza wasn’t small. She was above average in height, or so she’d always told herself.
“Go back to your brother, Mr. Mungo.” She had no need of politeness toward him. The others, yes, but not him. This man was the rudest person she’d ever met even if he’d purchased that book for her.
“No, and my name is Mungo, not Mr. Mungo, and—”
“Look, the day has been a trying one for us both. I think it best you leave,” Eliza said once more, cutting him off rudely by placing her palm in front of his face. It was then she realized it was gloveless.
He grabbed it before she could push it into her pocket. “Did that happen in the fire that killed your family?”
“Give me my hand back.”
“I mean you no harm, lass.”
His grip didn’t hurt, but she couldn’t pull free. He studied the puckered, scarred skin on the back of her left hand and then turned it over to study the damaged skin on her palm. One large finger traced a line down her middle finger, and Eliza shivered from his touch.
“Do they hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
“Mr. Greedy may be able to help you with that. We’ll ask him.”
“No one can help with that.” This time when she tugged, he released her wrist.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you, Eliza.”
“And I’m sorry your niece is missing.”
“How is it you escaped the fire?”
“Go back to the house, Mr. Mungo, and tell them I am well and will return shortly.” She was sure that was the reason for him being in the rotunda. He’d been sent to look for her. The thought sent a tiny kernel of warmth into her chest. No one had looked out for Eliza for many years.
“I’m not returning without you. Now tell me how you escaped the fire.”
“I have no wish to speak of that day,” Eliza said. Ever again.