She drew her gloves on one finger at a time, then descended the short stone steps of Greyline’s office. Her breath came steady, though her thoughts did not.
She drew her gloves on one finger at a time, her breath steady, though her thoughts were not.
A gentleman stood just beyond the gate.
He leaned with casual ease against the iron post, his hat tipped slightly forward, his gloved hands resting lightly on a walking stick he didn’t seem to need. His coat was impeccable. His expression was serene.
The breeze shifted. It carried something unfamiliar, clove, maybe. Or cedar oil. Not unpleasant. But out of place.
As she passed, he stepped away from the post and bent slightly, not blocking her, but close enough to be noticed.
“You dropped this,” he said, holding out a handkerchief.
It was finely embroidered. Pale cream linen. Her initials, GR, stitched in soft gold.
Her fingers hesitated, too long, perhaps, and the air between them tightened. Then, because to refuse would be to reveal the tremor in her pulse, she reached for it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The park behindthe bookshop was nearly empty at that hour, the sort of place one chose for quiet company rather than solitude. It was the kind of morning that was too quiet, too expectant, as if the world itself waited for someone who never came. The leaves had fallen in drifts along the garden paths, too damp to stir. A row of hedges stood trimmed in polite attention, and the wrought-iron bench beneath the sycamore still bore the imprint of an early frost.
Eliza stood beside it, her arms folded. Her boot tapped once, then not again. A small, quiet rhythm she refused to let become anxious.
Georgina was late.
Not dreadfully so. Only ten minutes. Eleven, at most.
She pulled the note from her reticule, smoothing the fold with the back of her glove.
Half past eleven. The park behind the bookshop.
Would you mind delaying our walk slightly…
It had come that morning, written in Georgina’s steady hand, precise as ever, the letters looped but never frivolous. Eliza had smiled when it arrived. Of course, she didn’t mind. Who could refuse a request from a friend so fastidious?
She checked the square again. There was no sign of her.
There were others in the park, a governess with two children trailing hoops through the gravel, a pair of older gentlemen discussing something in serious tones, one of them gesturing with a pipe, butnone of them were Georgina.
Eliza began a slow walk along the hedgerow, her steps deliberate, unhurried. It wasn’t like Georgina to forget. But perhaps she’d become delayed at home. Or gone to the market on a whim. Or found something in Rowland’s papers that needed sorting.
Or—
No. There was no or. Georgina was the sort who arrived five minutes early and stood pretending not to notice the time until one struck the half.
She looped back to the bench.
It was nearly noon.
Eliza stared up at the bare branches above her, the brittle sky beyond. The kind of day that held no promise of change, just cold truth in clean air. She disliked it intensely.
She waited seven more minutes. Then she walked away, not in haste, but in rising silence.
The sound of her own footsteps followed her crisp and even, but too loud for comfort through the narrow side street leading back into town. Eliza hated walking alone when she was meant to be walking with someone else. It wasn’t fear that quickened her pace. It was the memory of Georgina’s steadiness, the way her friend’s presence always balanced the air around her. Without it, the world tilted. It always made her feel like she’d missed something. A message. A signal. An entire conversation that never had the chance to begin.
Georgina wouldn’t have forgotten. That wasn’t her way. If something had come up, she would have sent a note, likely with a brief apology and a promise to reschedule. But she hadn’t.
Still, there were reasons. There were always reasons.
