“Or too distracted by himself,” June observed.
Eliza absorbed the information, tucking it into the mental ledger where she kept all the useful cruelties of the world.
“She invited me to tea yesterday,” Eliza said.
All three sisters groaned.
“She is a snake,” April warned. “Be careful.”
“She will flatter you and then try to ruin you,” May added.
“She will fail,” June declared, “but she will enjoy trying.”
“I will be on my guard,” Eliza promised.
“We are at your disposal if you wish to mount a counterattack,” April said. “We have the resources.”
“We are trained in sabotage,” May added.
“Some of us are,” June corrected. “April is trained in causing scenes, not in cleaning them up.”
April raised her glass. “I am very good at scenes.”
Eliza smiled for real this time. “If I am in need of assistance, you will be the first to know.”
They finished their tea, the conversation drifting to safer ground: books, the new exhibition at the Royal Academy, and whether or not the Prince Regent truly wore a corset under his waistcoats. (He did.)
By the end, Eliza found she was nearly sorry to leave.
As she stood to depart, April pressed a parcel of scones into her hand. “For emergencies,” she said.
May squeezed her arm. “Come again. Any time. We mean it.”
June did not smile, but she accompanied Eliza to the door and said, quietly, “He is lucky, you know. Don’t let him convince you otherwise.”
Eliza stepped out into the pale afternoon, the sound of laughter echoing behind her. She realized her shoulders had dropped an inch, her hands were not clenched, and her heart—while still bruised—felt unexpectedly light.
It was not home yet.
But it was not exile either.
August believed in the redemptive power of order, especially when the world was intent on being untidy. That afternoon, he set about reconciling the household accounts.
He drew a neat red line down the margin, double-checking the arithmetic, and nearly missed the anomaly on the second page. There, nestled among the shillings and pounds, was an expense several orders larger than the norm, paid out not to a familiar vendor but to a name he did not recognize: Mrs. M. Fulham, Chancery Lane.
He frowned, tapped his finger against the entry, and checked the notation. The sum was more than enough to buy a year’s worth of ink and paper, and it had been paid from the household account, not Eliza’s personal purse.
He flipped two pages back and forth, searching for a memo, but found only the same stolid script repeated in the margin: “By order of the Marchioness.”
A chill, familiar and unwelcome, ran through him. He called for Mrs. Finch, who materialized in the doorway with her hands folded and a worried furrow in her brow.
“Mrs. Finch,” he said, “do you know why the house paid a sum of this size to Mrs. Fulham on Chancery Lane? I do not recall the name.”
The housekeeper’s expression did not change, but her fingers began to worry at the folds of her apron. “Mrs. Fulham is a seamstress, My Lord. Very discreet and used by some of the better families. But this was not a normal transaction if you follow.”
“I do not,” August replied.
“She came to the house, sir,” Mrs. Finch said. “Twice in the past week. The first time, she brought several parcels, and the second, she took away a crate. I was instructed to see the accounts settled and to ask no further questions.”