For the first time since waking, she released a full breath.
The knife poked against her ribs, an uncomfortable hope. As she turned back to the view outside, she relaxed the tiniest bit.
Chapter Forty-Three
By dusk the following day,Eliza was fairly certain Bella’s bite would claim Draycott’s life. Perhaps even that very night. She felt no remorse for the man, only pity for herself, having spent hours bathed in his stench.
His wound was putrid, oozing a thick puss. The flesh was no longer red but an odd purple with a dark mossy shade concentrated around the bite.
The smell had driven both other men to the driver’s box. They were so assured of her compliance that they were willing to risk leaving her in the company of the half-dead Draycott.
Tempted though she was to jump from the carriage to escape the corrupt lord, they were correct. She’d long ago determined that she wouldn’t make it far alone. The shift from sloping chalk roads to the rutted path snaking through dense woods and granite hills had done nothing to improve her conclusion.
Though no one had told her, she suspected they were nearing their destination. They had turned off the turnpike some miles ago onto a thin, winding trail. Crumbling stone walls lined their path, interrupted by ragged, scraggly brush or rotting oak trees.
The light from the lanterns up front swayed threateningly with each downed twig or small tree limb they traversed. Fog and the inky black of night swallowed its warmth. The wind carried through the darkness, whistling its haunted song across the moors.
Eliza had never been to the moors. She couldn’t help but wonder if they left everyone so uneasy or if it was her present circumstances adding to their foreboding presence. A gardener by passion, she was used to seeing life in the earth where others saw only dirt. But this place was something else entirely—a ravenous, consuming spectre.
Despite all this, a strange calm had settled over her once she’d gained possession of Bella’s pin, and it hadn’t abated. Her composure was probably brought on by the certainty that Draycott would rape no one today—nor ever again.
A vindictive pride welled up whenever Bella crossed her thoughts. Eliza was almost certain she’d pieced together reality from her drugged hallucination. Draycott had recognized Bella that night. And he’d known she would have her hairpin, that she would reach for it instinctively. Though those brief, half-drugged flashes served as the totality of her evidence, Eliza knew the slash across Draycott’s right cheek had come from Lady Arabella Sinclair. And now at last, Bella had finished him.
Eliza hoped the lady was recovering after her injury almost as desperately as she hoped she would live long enough to tell Bella of Draycott’s fate.
Thoughts of Bella slipped easily to dreams of Benedict. Though she’d rested little after she woke the first day, any time she drifted off, he was there waiting for her, reassuring her, encouraging her. She hadn’t forgiven him in her head, wasn’t certain she ever could. But her heart had sought solace in his imagined comfort. And Eliza was not in a position to reject comfort wherever it came.
Though she had been anticipating it for miles, Eliza was still surprised when the grand house appeared from between a copse of dying oaks and a small, too-still pond. The looming, imposing manor stood silhouetted against the fog-dimmed crescent moon. Balanced and symmetrical, two wings stretched in each direction from a center tower. The roof pitched sharply from the spire, and flickering light spilled from a few of the tall, narrow windows, before the darkness swallowed it up.
At last, and all too soon, the carriage shuddered to a stop before the house.
Eliza reached for the handle, startling when Enys’s lined face appeared in the cracked window, lantern swaying threateningly in his raised hand.
“Come,” he insisted. When the door opened, he caught her wrist in surprisingly strong, spindly fingers. He tugged, sending her tumbling down the steps.
Eliza landed on her knees, one palm in the damp cold grit. Her hidden pin poked at her upper belly but didn’t pierce flesh. Shaken, she stumbled to her feet to be dragged into the house.
The entrance was lit by only a few candles, a greasy, acrid scent marking them for tallow. Cobwebs lined the decorative mahogany inlets on the arched hall. Eliza stumbled after Enys, their steps a syncopated beat against the worn marble floor.
The man seemed to know precisely which direction he was headed, turning right at a fork without hesitation.
He paused in front of a painted door. The hall was too dim for her to determine the precise color, but it was dark and peeling.
Only when Enys’s knock sounded through the house did Eliza’s heart catch up to her mind, racing ahead, recognizing present danger.
Her breath caught as the handle turned a moment later. The door swung open, revealing an unfamiliar face. A stranger to her yet responsible for so many of her life’s heartaches.
Lord Blackwood.
Eliza’s first impression was disappointment. For a man responsible for so much devastation, he was utterly ordinary.
Benedict’s father was a tall man—his son had taken after him in that respect. Eliza suspected he had once been handsome too. Age and hatred hardened the furrows between his brows and the lines bracketing his mouth. His hair had thinned at the temples and lost whatever color it once had. Those ice-blue eyes, cold and unfeeling, narrowed on her. But there was nothing distinct in his appearance that marked him as malevolent. If she had passed him on the street, she might have labeled him as stodgy or antiquated, but not villainous.
“Miss Wayland. I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.” He gestured for her to enter—or, more precisely, for Enys to shove her into the room.
The study was sparse and smelled of mildew and the fatty tallow candles. The singular window was large, with several cracked panes framed by faded curtains. There was a—formerly fine—desk that sat against one wall, but it was worn from friction, scarred by pen or letter opener, and stained by ink. A tarnished bronze candelabra dripped sooty wax to dry in thick pools across the wood.
On the other side of the room, stacks of ledgers lined the wall behind a gleaming rosewood tilt-top table. The top was open, splayed between four worn mahogany chairs—in desperate need of reupholstery.
