There is no way out of this.
She would simply have to keep her head down, stay close to Mrs. Dawson, and pray they didn’t encounter anyone from her former life. London was a large city, after all. The odds of running into someone she knew were…
“Miss Graham! We haven’t got all day!”
Eliza grabbed her plainest bonnet, one that shadowed her face, and hurried downstairs.
“Coming!”
The morning was crisp and bright, the kind of day that brought everyone out of doors. Bond Street was packed with elegant carriages, fashionable ladies examining shop windows, and gentlemen strolling with walking sticks tucked under their arms and puffing on pipes.
Eliza kept her head bowed, her bonnet low, staying as close to Mrs. Dawson as propriety allowed without actually treading on the woman’s bloody heels.
“First stop, the draper’s,” Mrs. Dawson announced, consulting her list. “His Grace needs new linens for the guest chambers. Lord knows why, he never has guests, but one must be prepared.”
They wove through the crowds, Eliza’s heart jumping at every familiar voice, every flash of fine clothing that might belong to someone from her past like a pistol shot. A woman laughed nearby, high and bright, and Eliza flinched before realizing it wasn’t her mother.
“Are you quite all right, Miss Graham?” Mrs. Dawson asked, glancing at her. “You seem rather jumpy.”
“I’m fine, Mrs. Dawson. Just… not used to such crowds.”
“Ah, yes. You’re from the country, aren’t you? Well, you’ll adjust. London’s quite safe during the day!”
Safe from cutpurses and thieves, perhaps. But not from the far more dangerous threat of recognition.
They made their way through the draper’s, Eliza keeping her face turned away from the other customers, and then to the grocer’s, where Mrs. Dawson spent an interminable amount of time discussing the quality of various preserves with the proprietor.
“Now,” Mrs. Dawson said, tucking her parcels under her arm, “the milliner’s is just around the corner on…”
She stopped mid-sentence.
Eliza, who had been studying the cobblestones with intense focus, nearly walked into her.
“Mrs. Dawson?”
“Oh my! Is that not Lord Ashford? And Lady Tayham?” The housekeeper’s voice had gone slightly breathless. “I haven’t seen her ladyship in ages. She was such a beauty in her youth, you know. Still is, I suppose, though age comes for us all eventually.”
Eliza’s blood ran cold. If Lady Tayham was here, then others from the ton might be as well. She needed to suggest they return to the house, immediately…
“Just a moment, Miss Graham. I simply must say hello!”
“Mrs. Dawson, perhaps we should…”
But the housekeeper was already moving away, drawn like a moth to the flame of aristocratic society, leaving Eliza standing alone on the crowded street.
She turned, intending to retreat into the nearest shop, when a voice stopped her in her tracks. A voice she knew as well as her own.
“Lord Whitfield, what a delightful surprise!”
Her mother.
Eliza’s vision blurred. She spun around, pressing herself against the brick wall of a nearby building, her heart hammering so hard she thought it might crack her ribs.
They were close. So terribly close. She risked a glance around the corner.
There, not twenty feet away, stood her parents. Her father looked older than she remembered, his face drawn and tired. Her mother was in a garish emerald silk dress, her posture perfect, her smile bright and entirely false.
And beside them, his silver hair gleaming in the sunlight, stood Lord Whitfield.
