Lydia rolled her eyes. “I turned the final card in your spread. Don’t you want to know what it was?”
“Oh. I’d forgotten all about our reading. It didn’t go badly, I hope?”
Lydia pulled the worn tarot card from her pocket and handed it to Eliza. She turned it over and her belly lurched. Against all rational explanation, despite her earlier subversion, the Tower card lay in her hand—the falling bodies, the flames, and the forked tongue of lightning flashing through an ink-dark sky, promising peril and ruin.
CHAPTER 11
Eliza tried to concentrate on the words in her hymnal, but it proved impossible to keep up with the portly choirmaster, who seemed unable to sustain a beat. She finally gave up and closed the little book in her hands, observing instead the townsfolk gathered in the white cocoon of the country chapel.
A few of the ladies from Lady Gregory’s ball were sprinkled among the congregants, their youthful muslin standing out in a sea of dark clothing. Many of them met her eyes with furtive glances, but only Sarah Nelson smiled at her from the forward pew to her right, raising her hand in a polite wave.
“Sarah’s quite comely, isn’t she? Like a soft-eyed little deer,” Eliza whispered to Lydia as they sat for the sermon. “I think we could become fast friends, don’t you?”
“I think so, too.”
After the service, the congregants spilled out into the courtyard, greeting one another and giving invitations to tea. Sarah met Eliza and Lydia with a press of her hand. “I’m hosting a game of croquet this afternoon if you’d like to come. Dickie’s away on one of his fishing trips and my house has gone much too quiet. It would be wonderful to have you there.”
“We’d be delighted, Sarah,” Eliza answered.
“I’m certainly glad!” Sarah leaned forward to kiss Eliza’s cheek. “We’ll have fresh lemonade and you can tell me all about how things are going with your beaus. Would you like to ride in my carriage?”
“Thank you, but we’ll enjoy the stroll.”
They left Sarah and walked toward the churchyard. It was a fine day—fair and bright, with puffy clouds scuttling along the horizon. Half-wild forest ponies grazed between the sun-bleached gravestones, their shaggy heads searching through the overgrowth. At the end of the path, a stately mausoleum stood well away from the rest of the monuments, flanked by urn-topped pillars and adorned with the Havenwood crest. Surrounded by juniper hedges and myrtle, the tomb seemed out of place and monolithic—as if it had been set down by some Stygian deity. It was a somber irony that the beguiling man whose company Eliza had been enjoying would someday take rest inside its walls. She looked at the crypt’s metal door and wondered how many Havenwood wives lay beyond it.
“I was hoping I’d see Lord Havenwood at church today,” she said.
Lydia made a sharp little sound. “Perhaps he’s a dirty papist like us. Or an atheist.”
“Atheism wouldn’t put me off. I must admit, I have grown tired of religion. With all its depressing talk of damnation and hellfire, it’s no wonder people go off it. Perhaps I’ll become a naturalist. Darwin’s hypotheses make far more sense than half the blathering I’ve heard from the pulpit.”
“I find my faith gives me a great deal of comfort. You’re a bit snippy this morning. Do you want to talk about your reading last night? The final card seemed to have rattled you.”
Lydia was right. Ithadrattled her, mostly because of the calamity it implied. She’d only drawn the Tower from Mimi Lisette’s deck once before, and Albert had died not even a week later. The worst part was not knowing how the card had gotten back into the spread. She had noway of explaining it, unless Lydia had done it on purpose. But deceit wasn’t in her sister’s nature. “Do you think it’s a bad portent?”
Lydia shrugged. “Well. It wasn’t the best kind of draw, but the future is never set solid by a tarot card. You know that. Be that as it may, I still have reservations about Lord Havenwood. I’m not sure he’s the right one for you. I’ve been making offerings to Erzulie for our love matches. She leaves the milk in my dish as sweet as the honey I’ve flavored it with, but for you, she curdles it sour as vinegar. It’s a warning, Liza.”
“You know I don’t believe in voodoo anymore, Lyddie.”
“You should. Mimi taught us never to ignore the spiritual wisdom of the loa. Especially Erzulie.”
They made their way past the final tidy rows of grave markers, each topped with a lamb in repose—the graves of children. Albert’s grave had been marked just the same. Eliza averted her eyes and quickened her pace until they came to the wagon-rutted lane. Soon they were crossing over the broad expanse of Sarah’s lawn, where her Georgian mansion rose three stories, built of trimmed limestone and flanked with hedges of yew.
Lydia trotted off to join the croquet match, where the other ladies greeted her and quickly pulled her into the game. Instead of joining them, Eliza meandered through Sarah’s gardens, admiring their orderly French parterres and pergolas, each section planned with as much care as if it were an outdoor room. She sat at the edge of a trilling fountain, its chubby satyrs cavorting beneath a canopy of water, and watched the game from a distance.
“Ah, there you are!” Sarah’s voice chimed from behind, and Eliza turned to see her friend balancing a tray of sweets upon a pitcher of lemonade as she tried to spread a cloth over a cast-iron table. “Come help me with this before I ruin everything, will you? I’m not very domestic, I’m afraid.”
Eliza laughed and went to help, taking the cloth and spreading it out over the table. Sarah set the tray of refreshments upon the linen and took a seat in one of the caned chairs facing Eliza. “I take it things are going well with Lord Havenwood?”
“Yes. We went to the theatre last night and saw Sarah Bernhardt. She was superb.”
“I heard. So has the rest of Cheltenbridge. Una Moseley saw you there.”
Eliza blanched, her smile fading. “Una doesn’t like me. You were right to warn me about her. I discovered she’s been spying on me—even paying Nigel to bring her my business. I’m not sure why.”
“Oh? Malcolm hasn’t told you, then?”
A nervous tickle ran through Eliza’s stomach. “What is it, Sarah?”
