Page 102 of A Shadow Amongst the Roses

Thomas refolded the letter with care. “I will make the arrangements,” he said. “Two horses only. No large entourage. A groom to ride ahead and wait at the halfway point. If we are followed, we will know.”

“You have done this before,” Eleanor observed.

He met her eyes with polite gravity. “I have seen it done, Your Grace.”

Eliza thought of his past then. The parts he never spoke of in full. The skills that did not belong solely to a gardener or estate man.

“Go and prepare,” Eleanor said. “Leave within the hour. The less time Ashwood has to sense movement, the better.”

Thomas inclined his head. “Yes, Your Grace.”

He turned to Eliza. For a moment, formal words seemed to war with something more personal on his tongue.

“We will ride together,” was what he chose. Simple. Practical. Laden with a hundred unspoken things.

She nodded. “I will be ready.”

He left with the letter in hand, the door closing quietly behind him.

For a moment, Eliza stood in the little sitting room, feeling the echo of his presence, the sense of the day already reshaping itself.

“You trust him,” Eleanor said.

Eliza turned back to her. “Yes.”

Eleanor studied her face. “And you know that trust is not a small thing to offer. Not after everything.”

“I know,” Eliza said quietly.

“Then take care,” Eleanor replied. “With Ashwood. With this journey. With your own heart.”

Eliza drew in a breath. “I will.”

The house gave a low, patient creak above them, as if to say it would be watching.

She went to dress for the ride, feeling for the first time that she was not merely reacting to the danger pressing in on Hartleigh, but moving toward the heart of it with Thomas at her side.

Not as a shield. Not as a servant.

But as something far more dangerous. And far more necessary.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Eliza crossed the east corridor with quick, quiet steps, one hand gathering her skirts as she moved. She had changed for the ride to Thornhaven, but Thomas would need a little time with the horses, and she could not leave Hartleigh without seeing Margaret and Edmund once more.

Too much had changed since Margaret had come to her in the blue antechamber. Sammy had been found. Thomas’s cottage had been entered.

And what had seemed, at first, like a frightened child’s encounter outside his mother’s door had become one piece of something far more deliberate.

The house seemed to understand her urgency. No door resisted her. No inexplicable draft turned her aside. Morning light lay across the floorboards in pale bands, and somewhere belowstairs a bell sounded once, ordinary and reassuring.

Margaret opened the door of the green chamber suite before Eliza could knock.

“My lady.”

Relief passed over her face so quickly that Eliza nearly missed the fear beneath it.

“May I come in?”