Page 17 of A Question of Worth

Eliza nodded, sensing tears beginning to prickle in the corners of her eyes but refusing to let them fall. Her father's gambling brought shame with it, but she was not about to allow it to take hold of her also. "So there was every reason for Lady Warrington to know of his debts."

"Yes. However," Lady Newark continued, as Eliza listened on, "there was a time when things seemed a little more settled. It must have been at the time of your meeting with LadyWarrington. Your mother had passed from this life to the next by that time, however. I remember thinking to myself that mayhap, in his grief, your father had chosen to throw gambling aside for good."

"If he did, then it did not last," Eliza murmured, turning her head so she could gaze out of the window as memories began to slowly piece themselves back together inside her mind. Therehadbeen a time of financial stability, if she recalled correctly. The mourning period for her mother had passed, and after a year of strain and sorrow, she had emerged, expecting to return to the same tension and uncertainty that had plagued their household ever since she could remember. But it had not done so. There had been a freedom there which she had not expected, which had given rise to her hopes of making a good match and enjoying a happy London season when the time came for her debut.

"Yes, I remember that too," she confirmed, her voice very soft indeed. "Father was no longer as displeased as he had once been. He remained in the house more than he had ever done before, and the servants did not whisper about their lack of pay."

Lady Newark closed her eyes. "No child should have to remember such things, Eliza. I am sorry you had so much to endure."

Eliza said nothing as the carriage rolled along the cobbled streets towards her aunt's townhouse. The more she thought about Lady Warrington's interest in her, the more she questioned why she had been aware of her standing and her father's debts, the more unsettled Eliza became. How ever was she to find the answers to such questions? Her thoughts grew restless, her mind unable to settle. Her father had never spoken openly about his financial dealings, had hidden as much from her as he could, which meant that, certainly, he would neverhave shared with her about Lady Warrington's interest, had there been any.

"Butwhywould she be interested?" she murmured aloud, as the carriage continued on its way towards home, towards safety. "Why have any interest whatsoever in my father's dealings and my own future?"

It was not a question that either she or her aunt could answer. With that realization came the thought of Lord Ashcombe, a picture of his kind eyes searching hers returning to her heart with such a strength that it made her catch her breath.

"Lord Ashcombe will need to be informed of what you have learned, yes?"

"Yes, Aunt. I shall write to him this evening, I think. We have no other occasion to step out, so I shall have time to write all that I have learned from Lady Hargreaves." Eliza's cheeks flushed, and she felt it creep up her neck as her aunt nodded, her gaze assessing. Strangely, the very thought of Lord Ashcombe brought about an unsettling warmth in her frame which she did not understand. Yes, he had been eager to assist her, but that was for his own reasons as much as it was for her own benefit. He was no threat to her, but neither was he to become a source of fascination. He was to assist in her search, a support where she required it, nothing more.

And yet,she thought to herself, remembering how he had stood so very close to her as she had stayed, hidden away in the bookshop and safe from prying eyes,I did feel... something.

Her eyes closed, and she let out a sigh, not even thinking of what her aunt might be thinking of her expressions at the present moment. She had never been the sort for idle infatuation, had never allowed herself to be foolish enough to be drawn to a gentleman without consideration — and yet there had beensomethingin his nearness that had begged her to move closer to him.

"We have arrived, Eliza."

She looked up, seeing her aunt gesturing to the open carriage door. Had her thoughts truly been so fixed upon Lord Ashcombe that she had not even noticed the carriage coming to a stop?

"Thank you, Aunt," she murmured, hoping that Lady Newark would think her distracted only by all that Lady Hargreaves had told her. "If you will excuse me, I think I will write to Lord Ashcombe at once. There is no time for delay."

Lady Newark smiled. "Of course, my dear. I hope, in doing so, it will settle your thoughts somewhat."

"I hope so too," Eliza agreed, knowing full well that whatever she wrote to Lord Ashcombe about his aunt and Lady Hargreaves, it would do nothing to the gnawing discomfort that settled in her core. A discomfort that came from not knowing what she felt nor why she felt it — but only that it was there and, she feared, certain to grow with every passing moment in his company.

The letterto Lord Ashcombe had taken longer than she had anticipated. Eliza had written three versions of it before she was satisfied, each draft beginning with too much feeling and ending with too little substance. The final version was measured, careful, detailing all that Lady Hargreaves had shared about the meeting at Lord Lyme's estate and Lady Warrington's apparent knowledge of her father's debts. It said nothing of the way her pulse quickened at the thought of him reading her words, nothing of the warmth that rose in her chest when she recalled how close he had stood to her in the bookshop.

She sealed the letter and set it aside for the morning post. The candle on her writing desk had burned low, its flameguttering in a draught that crept beneath the window. The house was quiet, her aunt long since retired, the servants gone to their quarters.

Sleep should have come easily. It did not.

Eliza lay in the darkness, her mind circling the same question that had plagued her since the carriage ride home.How had Lady Warrington known of her father's debts — and of the easing of them?Lady Hargreaves had spoken of it as common knowledge, but that was not what troubled Eliza. What troubled her was the second part — theeasing.

She had always known, in the wordless way of children, that something had shifted once when she was small. The tight-lipped dinners had eased. The servants had stopped looking at each other with the careful blankness that meant the butcher had come again for his money. Her mother's shoulders had come down from around her ears. There had been a stretch of months — she could not say how many — when the house had breathed differently, when laughter had returned to the breakfast table, and her father had stopped disappearing after supper. She had never asked why. She had only been grateful, the way children are grateful for sunshine without questioning what moved the clouds. She was asking now.

Her aunt had remembered it, yes, had spoken of hoping Lord Harding had reformed. But Eliza herself remembered something more specific, something she had not spoken of in the carriage because the memory had only half-formed at that time.

Her mother's letters.

She sat up, the bedcovers falling to her waist. Her heart began to beat with a quickening that had nothing to do with Lord Ashcombe and everything to do with the faint, persistent whisper of memory that would not leave her in peace. Her mother had written to Lady Newark regularly, faithfully, sometimes twice a week. Eliza knew this because her aunt hadmentioned it more than once since her arrival in London — had spoken of the comfort those letters had given her during her sister-in-law's illness and thereafter, of the grief that had settled when they ceased.

She kept them,Eliza thought, her fingers pressing together in her lap.Aunt Letitia would have kept every single one.

The thought pulled her from the bed before she could second-guess herself. She reached for her wrapper, drawing it tightly around her shoulders, and took the candle from the desk. Its light was thin but steady enough to see by. The hallway outside her room was dark and still, the floorboards cool beneath her bare feet.

Lady Newark's private study was at the far end of the corridor, a small, warm room that smelled of old paper and dried lavender. Eliza had been in the room only once before, on the afternoon of her arrival, when her aunt had shown her about the house. She remembered the bureau in the corner, the writing desk near the window, the shelves lined with leather-bound volumes and, on the lowest shelf, a collection of wooden boxes that her aunt had gestured to without explanation.

The door opened with the softest creak. Eliza set the candle on the writing desk and knelt before the lowest shelf, her hands trembling as she drew out the first box. It was heavy, the wood dark with age, and when she lifted the lid, the scent of rosewater and old ink rose to meet her — her mother's scent, preserved in the pages as if she had only just set down her pen.

Her throat ached.