Eliza turned, caught. “You are imagining things.”
“Am I?” Helena asked mildly. “My dear, I’ve lived long enough to recognize the look of a woman caught between her heart and her good sense.”
Eliza’s breath left her in a soft sigh that did nothing to hide her exasperation. She sank onto a nearby bench, the damp air clinging to her skin. “Grandmama, please.”
Helena came to stand before her, folding her hands atop her cane. “Please what, child? Please do not ask what has already been written upon your face? You are flushed, restless, and distracted. I could hardly miss it. Something has passed between you and the Earl.”
Eliza’s gaze dropped to her hands. “I do not know what to say.”
“Try the truth,” Helena said gently.
There was no accusation in her tone, no censure — only a quiet patience that made pretense impossible.
Eliza hesitated, then said softly, “He kissed me.”
Helena’s expression did not change. If anything, there was the faintest glimmer of satisfaction behind her calm exterior. “Ah. And now you are troubled by it.”
“I am terrified by it,” Eliza confessed. “My thoughts are at war with one another. My mind tells me it was madness, a mistake. But my heart—” She broke off, shaking her head. “My heart will not listen. I do not understand what is happening to me.”
Her grandmother sat beside her, her hand finding Eliza’s and holding it with quiet strength. “That confusion, my dear, is the oldest of human afflictions. When fate stirs, it rarely does so gently. It is no wonder you feel torn.”
“Fate,” Eliza said bitterly. “Do not speak to me of fate. I have begun to despise it.”
Helena’s lips curved faintly. “You would not be the first Ashcombe woman to say so. But railing against it changes nothing. You can no more escape what is meant for you than you can command the tide to retreat.”
Eliza’s throat tightened. Suspicion seized her. “Andif it is not fate? Grandmama, have you done something to set this in motion?”
Helena blinked. “Have I done Something?”
“You’ve meddled before,” Eliza said, her voice trembling. “Small enchantments, whispered incantations, love charms for those who asked it of you. What if you have done the same for me — or for him—without either of us asking?”
Helena’s gaze softened, touched with sadness. “I swear to you, child, whatever stands between you and the Earl is not of my making. I have done no such thing. What binds you is olderand far more powerful than any spell I could cast. I only pray it reaches a happier conclusion for you than for those past.”
Eliza frowned. “Those past? You speak as though?—”
“As though it has happened before?” Helena finished for her. “It has. Too many times.”
Eliza’s pulse quickened. “You are speaking of the curse.”
Helena nodded once. “Yes. The curse that shadows every woman born of our blood. I have avoided speaking of it in detail for as long as I could. But it is time you know its origin — and the price it demands.”
For all her life, whenever she’d asked to know more about the often whispered curse, her grandmother had offered some appeasement or placation rather than answers. This was perhaps the first time she had ever been the one to introduce the topic into the conversation. Eliza sank back against the bench, her hands clasped in her lap. “Then tell me.”
Helena drew a slow, deliberate breath, her gaze distant, her voice softening into the rhythm of an old story. “Nearly two centuries ago, there were two sisters of the Ashcombe line — Lenore and Lettice. They were as close as sisters could be, until they both fell in love with the same man: Edward Hawthorne, the first Earl of Blackburn.”
Eliza listened in silence, her heart beating faster.
“Edward chose Lenore,” Helena continued. “He adored her. Their betrothal was a happy one. Lettice, however, could not bear it. In her jealousy and despair, she spoke words that no one should ever speak. She cursed her sister — said that if she could not have Edward Hawthorne, then no woman of Ashcombe blood would ever be a countess, nor would any marriage they desired be allowed to stand. Every love would be doomed to tragedy. Every child born of it would be a child of sorrow.”
Eliza’s hand rose to her throat. “Dear God.”
“She was young, foolish,” Helena said. “She believed such words to be empty. But the Ashcombe women were always gifted, and words, when spoken in anger, have power. The curse took root. Then, one night soon after, the witch hunters came. Some say Lettice herself betrayed her sister to them — others that it was chance. But Lenore was taken. She was accused, tortured, and hanged on the eve of her wedding.”
Eliza’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper. “And Lettice?”
“Her punishment was to live,” Helena said quietly. “Edward, not knowing of her betrayal, saw to her future as his duty to Lenore’s memory. He granted her the cottage and the land that remains ours still. But grief consumed him. He took his own life within a fortnight and the title went to his brother. Then his nephew. Then a cousin. And on down the line until the current Earl is, I believe, the very last of them. If the curse is not broken now, then it will stand forever.”
The conservatory fell utterly silent. The leaves seemed to droop, the air itself heavy with the echo of loss.
