Chapter Thirty-Four
The house would not let her sit still.
Eliza had tried. She had moved from drawing room to hallway and back again, set her tea aside untouched, turned pages she did not absorb, listened to the steady patter of rain against the windows. Yet each room felt wrong, crowded, unsettled, and faintly charged with something she could not name.
She stepped to the window and rested her hand on the sill. Outside, the air pressed thick and low against the glass, the storm hovering as though uncertain where to land.
A shift sounded in the corridor behind her, an old floorboard settling, a draft sliding along the runner. Eliza turned.
Nothing moved. No servants passed. No door opened.
Still, the sensation lingered. Not of being seen. Of being directed.
She drew a slow breath and tightened her shawl before stepping into the corridor. The silence there felt heavy. Lamps trembled faintly, though no breeze should have reached them.
“I only need air,” she murmured to no one, her voice barely above a whisper. “A few minutes outside.”
Margaret Lane stood a few doors down the corridor, Edmund pressed close at her side. She looked as though she had not long risen, her hair loosely pinned, her expression guarded but composed.
“Mrs. Lane,” Eliza said gently. “I was about to walk in the garden. You are welcome to join me, if you wish.”
Margaret hesitated, then shook her head. “Thank you, Lady Eliza. Mrs. Greaves brought some toys from the nursery for Edmund. I think we’ll play with them today.”
“Have a good day.” Eliza descended the main steps and crossed the courtyard stones. The sky had lightened to a thin gray, the rain turned into a mist. She expected the calm to ease her, but the moment she stepped off the final stair, a sharp gust pushed at her skirts, stealing her breath.
She staggered, caught herself, and looked up.
A gust caught at her skirts, sharp enough to steal her breath and turn her steps left instead of forward.
She slowed.
The slope of the ground took over from there, damp earth drawing her downward whether she resisted or not.
Toward the path that led down the slope toward the cluster of old trees. Toward the place she avoided.
Thomas’s cottage.
Her steps slowed. She had never crossed its threshold. She had seen its winter smoke, its late lantern glow, but it had always felt private. His. Not hers.
Another gust struck harder, caught the edge of her shawl and pulled it in that same direction.
Eliza turned back toward Hartleigh.
The great house stood silent, its windows reflecting the clouded sky. The moment stretched, strange and still, until she felt, absurdly yet undeniably, that the house was urging her on.
“Very well,” she whispered. “I’m going.”
The wind eased the moment she stepped onto the path, as though its work were finished. Even the trees seemed quieter there, the branches no longer thrashing but bowing softly overhead as she passed.
The slope felt familiar beneath her feet despite how seldom she walked it. The earth was damp, the greenery heavy with last night’s storm. The cottage emerged through the trees—small, stone, unassuming, its shutters weathered, its chimney cold.
No smoke rose. No lamp glowed.
Something tightened inside her chest.
She reached the step and touched the latch.
The door stood slightly open.
“Thomas?” she called knowing he was miles away at Thornhaven but unable to stop herself.
Silence.
She pushed the door wider and stepped in.
The scent met her first: old woodsmoke, soap, pine, and something faintly domestic. A narrow bed. A small table. A peg for a coat. A shelf of books. The simple order of a quiet life.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement.
A small body shifted beneath the blanket. A sound escaped, half-cry, half-whimper.
She crossed the room in three strides and carefully pulled the blanket back.
“Sammy?” Her voice broke despite her care. “Samuel Briggs?”
The boy’s eyes flew open. Recognition spread across his bruised face.
“My lady,” he whispered. “Lady Thornhaven?”
Relief hit him all at once. He reached for her with a trembling hand.
Eliza sat on the edge of the bed and gathered him carefully into her arms, holding him upright without jostling the bruises along his temple.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered. “You should be home, or at least on the road near your village. How did you come to Hartleigh?”
Sammy swallowed. “I… I was taking the message, like Da told me. Just to Hacket’s Mill. Not the whole way. I know I’m not to go far.”
Hacket’s Mill was close to Thornhaven and not even close to the long road to Hartleigh.
Eliza brushed dirt from his cheek. “Did someone bring you here?”
Sammy nodded, “A man. I didn’t know him. He grabbed me and said I was in the way.”
“What did he look like?” Her voice stayed gentle, but her pulse thudded sharply.
Sammy’s brows drew tight as he searched for words. “Tall. Loud. His coat had shiny buttons. Big ones. They clinked when he walked.”
Eliza went still.
Ashwood.
The cold settled fast and deep.
He always wore that coat. Always drew attention with those gaudy brass buttons that caught every bit of lamplight. She had dismissed them as ostentatious vanity.
“Did he say anything to you, Sammy? Anything at all?”
“He said…” Sammy swallowed hard. “He said people would come here. That I was to stay put. And if they asked… I was to say Mr. Grey brought me.”
The breath left her in a single, sharp exhale. Of course Ashwood would choose Thomas’s cottage. Of course he would force the boy to memorize Thomas’s name.
Her hands shook. She curled them into fists to steady herself.
“Sammy,” she murmured, “listen to me very carefully. You’re safe now. We both know it wasn’t Mr. Grey who brought you here.”
His lip quivered. “Is he gonna come back? The man with the buttons?”
“Yes,” she said honestly. “He might. That’s why we have to leave before he does.”
Sammy clutched her arm with both hands, trembling. “Where do we go?”
Eliza scanned the room. This cottage—Thomas’s childhood home—felt exposed now. A trap laid with precision. Ashwood would return with witnesses, with outrage, with false shock.
She could not allow him to find Sammy here. She could not allow him to destroy Thomas with this lie.
Her gaze shifted toward the distant rise of land where the chapel sat, quiet and self-contained. And below it, the crypt.
Not a place anyone would willingly search. Not a place Ashwood would set foot inside.
“It will be a strange place,” she admitted softly. “But safe. Safer than here.”
Sammy shivered. “Dark?”
“Yes,” she said. “But only for a moment. I’ll bring candles. And I will stay with you as long as I can.”
Eliza stood and gathered the extra blanket from the foot of the bed. She wrapped it tightly around Sammy’s shoulders, then helped him stand. His legs wobbled, but he held on.
“All right,” she murmured. “We must be quiet. And we must hurry.”
She opened the cottage door and stepped out first, scanning the path. Nothing moved except the trees bowing in the wind.
“Stay close,” she whispered.
Sammy pressed against her side. She drew her shawl wide, covering him as best she could, making him look like nothing more than bulky fabric at her hip.
Every step back toward Hartleigh felt like walking into rising danger. But the wind stayed at her back, never against her, nudging her along, urging her onward.
She had the irrational certainty the house would not betray them. She did not know where the thought came from, only that it felt true.
She kept to the narrow side paths, avoiding the main drive where anyone might see them. They reached the chapel terrace within minutes. The crypt door stood just below, heavy, iron-bound, and still.
Eliza descended the stone steps with care, guiding Sammy down beside her.
“Close your eyes if it helps,” she murmured.
He did.
She gripped the iron ring and pulled. The hinges groaned softly but opened without resistance. The air inside was cool, dry, and still. Not welcoming, but protective somehow.
She led him to the far alcove, where an old mourner’s bench sat beneath an arch of carved stone. She settled him onto it gently, layering both blankets around him until he was a cocoon of wool and trembling breath.
From the chapel niche, she retrieved a candle stub and struck a spark. The flame flickered, then steadied.
Sammy’s eyes opened.
“It’s not so dark now,” he whispered.
Eliza settled beside him on the stone bench, her back against the wall, her shawl wrapped around them both.
Whatever the night brought, she would not leave him to it alone.
“No,” she said. “Not now.”
She met his gaze directly. “Sammy, I need you to stay here. I need you to stay quiet. And I need you to trust me.”
“I do,” he said without hesitation.
Her throat tightened. She brushed his hair back from his forehead with a tenderness she didn’t question.
“I will return soon,” she said. “And Mr. Grey… Thomas… he will know what to do.”
Sammy nodded, small but brave.
Eliza rose, stepping back into the dim light. The candle sent their shadows stretching across the carved names on the far wall.
Her eyes lifted toward one name in particular. Adrian.
She drew a breath, steady and soft.
“Let your name shield him,” she whispered into the quiet. “Let it shield this child. Let it shield Thomas.”
The crypt answered only with silence that held.
Eliza turned toward the door, heart hammering, skirts brushing the cold stone.
“Come home, Thomas,” she breathed. “Before he tries to take everything from you.”
And the candle flame trembled, as if it heard her.