“Not a lick of it.”
“And Eva?” Isabel dreaded the answer. “Is she . . . is she well?”
Isabel sensed hesitation before the answer came. Nell tended to give Eva a wide berth, and Isabel could hardly blame her. “Aye.”
Isabel forced herself to ask the next question. “And the babe? Is he—”
The next answer came on a happy rush. “He’s right as rain, he is. Sweetest little mite you ever laid eyes on.”
They reached the top landing, Nell’s room to the right, Isabel and Eva’s rooms to the left. “Nell, I need you to pack a bag.”
Instant tears welled in the girl’s eyes. “You givin’ me the sack? What I done?”
“We’re leaving London for a few days. Unless you have somewhere else you can stay until we return?”
“I ain’t got nowhere, miss.”
Isabel wouldn’t consider the added burden those words placed on her shoulders. “Then you’re coming with us. Pack your things and meet us downstairs in three minutes.”
Nell nodded and snapped to without protest or a lick of shock. Such midnight developments must not have been unusual in her past. It was a harsh world out there for a lone girl, as Isabel had learned in recent years.
No time to spare, she opened the door to her left and dashed across the bare floorboards of the small front room that served as both sitting room and makeshift kitchen. With no small amount of relief, she saw that it had been kept tidy and neat, which she surely owed to Nell. When she’d last seen Eva, well, Eva wasn’t quite up to the task. Speaking of Eva . . .
Her eye stole toward the bedroom at the far side of the room. A thin strip of light peeked between the floor and the closed door. Isabel turned toward the closer room, hers. Without bothering to light a candle, Isabel worked in the light of a late-rising moon. Quickly, she shed her whore’s weeds and threw open the wardrobe door. Several dresses hung before her. She couldn’t think why, but she chose the two finest. She donned one and shoved the other into a worn duck travel bag along with a few other sundries.
Next, she fell to her hands and knees and slid a small box from beneath her bed. She flipped open the lid and grabbed the only items of value, besides the shop, she had in the world. The money, she stuffed into the bag. Mama’s necklace, she latched around her neck, its delicate hamsa pendant hanging low between her breasts, out of view.
Then she was on her feet and back in the sitting room, her eye locked onto the other bedroom’s door. She could avoid it no longer. She must face what lay on the other side with tonight’s failure. Her closed fist hesitated just before it delivered two light taps.
No answer came. Isabel pushed the door open anyway. Eva had stopped answering months ago. She’d expected to find Eva in bed, curled onto her side, facing away from both the door and the bassinet at the side of the bed. The bed, however, was empty.
Isabel’s panicked eye swept the room and found Eva in her night-rail, seated beside the window, her hand on the babe’s bassinet, rocking it gently. Emotion, equal parts grief and hope, if that was possible on this night, surged inside Isabel. It was the first time she’d seen Eva tend or even acknowledge the babe. Could it be that her sister was recovering? That she’d returned to her old self?
At last, Eva’s dark brown eyes lifted to meet Isabel’s.No.All she saw was the same bleak emptiness that had stared out at her the last time she was in this room a fortnight ago. None of the vivacity that had defined Eva as Eva all their lives, only blankness. Eva had sacrificed so much for the family; she’d sacrificed everything. And, still, it hadn’t been enough.
Isabel’s fists clenched. She would ensure Eva’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain.
She would fix her mistake.
“Have you saved England yet?” Eva asked. There was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice.
Isabel’s fingernails dug into her palms. “The night didn’t go to plan.”
A shadow passed in Eva’s eye. She parted the curtain a sliver. “Is that hackney waiting for you?”
“Yes.”
Eva’s cheeks went paler than usual, and she stiffened. “Isheinside?”
“It’s not Montfort. But, Eva,” Isabel continued, gaze darting about the room, feet itching to be on their way, “where is your travel bag?”
“I’m not exactly dressed for travel.” Eva tugged at the soft material of her night-rail to illustrate her point.
No time to explain, Isabel rushed to the room’s one wardrobe, opening and closing drawers and doors, grabbing clothes and sundries, stuffing them unceremoniously into the bag. “Where are the babe’s clean nappies?”
Wary, Eva pointed to a small chest beside the bassinet. “Why are you packing us up?”
Isabel stopped and looked her sister dead in the eye. The truth could be avoided no longer. “I failed”—oh, that her voice didn’t crack on that word—“and wemust. . .go. . .now.”
