He was already moving toward the door when she spoke again, her voice carrying softly after him.
“The woods call to her, my lord. They always have.”
He did not stop to reply. A sense of urgency had overcome him. By the time he reached the terrace, the sun had begun its slow descent, and the forest beyond Ravenswood stood dark and waiting.
Chapter
Seventeen
The evening had grown soft and still, the kind of twilight that blurred the edges of things until it was difficult to tell where the light ended and the shadows began. The air had cooled to a significant chill as she crossed the manicured park. But the scent of damp earth and the faint sweetness of the last of the late-blooming roses which clung stubbornly to life along the garden walls soothed her jangled nerves. Eliza walked at an unhurried pace near the edge of the woods, careful not to stray too far. The dark boughs loomed along one side of her, the open lawns of Ravenswood stretching out on the other, and she felt herself caught somewhere between both worlds—between the wild and the civilized, the known and the unknown.
She told herself she only needed a few moments alone. The hours within the house had been suffocating, filled with too much stillness and too many unspoken things. Helena had spent the morning closeted with her herbs, humming to herself in that faintly secretive way that always made Eliza uneasy, and the servants, though polite, were ill at ease around them. She could not breathe beneath their curious stares or the quiet hush that followed her through the corridors. She needed the open air,the solace of the grounds, the simple, steady rhythm of her own footsteps to quiet the confusion that had taken root inside her.
But as she wandered along the narrow path that skirted the wood, Eliza knew that was not the entire truth. What she truly sought was escape from her own thoughts—or perhaps from one thought in particular. Gabriel Hawthorne. The Earl of Blackburn. The man whose presence seemed to echo through every chamber of Ravenswood as surely as her own heartbeat pulsed within her.
She had avoided him since breakfast. But the dinner hour was approaching and she would have to see him sooner rather than later. That thought filled her with equal parts dread and thrill. The memory of his touch haunted her still—the rough warmth of his palm against her cheek, the faint rasp of his breath as he had bent his head toward hers—and worse still was the familiarity of it, the unmistakable sense that it had all happened before. It had been a dream, of course, that much she understood. But how could two people dream the same dream? How could something imagined feel so real that it left her trembling whenever she thought of it? Everything her grandmother had spoken of swirled in her mind like a churning sea. And she felt as though she were about to slip beneath the surface.
She shook her head, forcing the thought away as she looked into the shadowy recesses of the woods. The forest stretched before her in muted shades of gray and green, the last of the sunlight fading through the trees. The house was still visible across the park, its windows glowing faintly with lamplight, promising safety and civility. She told herself that she would walk only as far as the boundary where the forest met the gardens and then turn back. She wasn’t so foolish as to think she could go traipsing into those woods alone. Not after what had occurred. But surely so long as she remained within sight of thehouse it would be safe enough. And yet she felt a strange chill, a frisson of fear snaking along her spine like an icy touch.
It was quiet—so quiet that even her own breathing seemed too loud. The only sound was the faint whisper of leaves stirring in the breeze. She had almost convinced herself that the feeling of dread was only the product of an overactive imagination. Then she heard it.
The sharp, distinct rustle had not been caused by the wind. It was too loud, too heavy, too ominous. She paused, her body going rigid, and turned her head slightly toward the sound. It came again, the brittle snap of a twig, close enough that her breath rushed out on a startled gasp. It was too measured to be an animal, too surreptitious. Whomever, and she was certain that it was a who and not a what, was in those woods was doing their utmost not to be heard. But she was far more attuned to the natural sounds of the forrest than most were. She listened for another sound, but heard nothing else. Only the sigh of the branches above her and the sudden silence as the steps in the woods halted.
Eliza’s heart began to pound. Every instinct told her she was not alone. The weight of unseen eyes pressed against her back, and though she told herself not to be fanciful, not to let her imagination run wild in the gathering dark, the feeling persisted, cold and certain. She had lived her entire life near the woods and never once had she felt afraid among them. Yet now every shadow seemed a threat, every sound a warning of danger.
She began to walk again, forcing herself to keep a calm, even pace. Panic would only make her clumsy. If someone was there, she would not let them know she had noticed. She let her steps remain deliberate, pausing once to glance upward as though merely admiring the sky, then turned casually toward the gardens. The lamps near the house glowed faintly through the haze, a promise of safety that seemed very far away.
For a brief moment, she thought perhaps she had imagined it. That it had been a deer or the settling of branches after all. She even allowed herself to exhale in relief—until the sound came again, heavier now, unmistakably human. Footsteps. Quickening.
The illusion of calm shattered. Eliza gathered her skirts in both hands and ran.
The air rushed cold against her face, stealing her breath as she fled across the grass. The hem of her gown tangled around her ankles, the damp earth clutching at her shoes, but she did not slow. Behind her came the soft thud of pursuit, a rhythm just faint enough to drive her forward in terror. The lights of Ravenswood blurred through her tears as she sprinted toward the formal gardens, her lungs burning, her heart hammering in her chest.
A voice rang out across the dark. “Miss Ashcombe!”
She stopped so suddenly that her breath caught in her throat. The sound of her name, spoken in that deep, familiar timbre, broke through the panic that had gripped her. She turned, half afraid it was some cruel trick of her imagination, and saw him emerging from the garden path—bareheaded, his coat undone, the lamplight from the house catching the pale edge of his shirt collar.
“Gabriel?” she managed, her voice trembling with a mix of relief and disbelief.
He reached her in a few long strides, his expression a storm of emotion—anger, fear, and unmistakable concern. “What in God’s name are you doing out here alone?” he demanded, his tone low but edged with feeling.
“I only wished for a walk,” she said, breathless, clutching at the folds of her skirt. “The air within the house felt close, and I?—”
“Air?” His mouth tightened. “The woods are no place to seek it at this hour.”
“I did not go into them,” she said quickly. “Only along the edge of the park. But then I heard something—someone, I think. Footsteps behind me.”
At that, he turned sharply toward the trees, his body going still. “What sort of footsteps?”
“Deliberate ones,” she said after a moment. “Not the wind. Not an animal. And when I turned back toward the house, they followed. No. No. Theypursued.”
Gabriel’s hand came to rest briefly at her elbow, steadying her. He scanned the tree line with the sharp awareness of a man who had learned long ago how to read danger. “Stay here,” he said quietly, his voice taut.
She caught at his sleeve before he could move away. “Please, no. Do not go into the woods… Please?”
He looked down at her hand where it clutched his arm, then back to her face. The lamplight fell across his features, illuminating the concern in his eyes. His concern for her, she could see, clearly warred with his natural instinct to protect. At last, he relented.
“Very well,” he said gently. “Not tonight.”
