“Eliza?”
I turned at the sound of my name to see Miriam a few steps behind me, her eyes wide, and her features caught somewhere between surprise and concern. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be in London for another week.”
“I—” My voice failed immediately, so I tried again, swallowing hard. “I just—” Finally, I settled for simply shaking my head, realizing that not a single coherent sentence was going to make it past my lips right now.
Miriam’s surprise melted into a gentle, understanding smile. “Oh,” she said quietly. “Come here, darling.”
That was all it took for the relief I’d felt walking in to crack straight down the middle. I’d thought that I’d escaped and made it to someplace safe, but even here, the pain was still there.
My vision blurred and my chest tightened as I moved straight into her open arms. I didn’t even attempt to hold it together, just burying my face against her shoulder as a sob broke free.
“Oh, darling,” Miriam murmured, her arms instantly folding around me in a steady, warm hug. “What happened?”
“I can’t…” I tried again, my voice shaking. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“It’s alright,” she said softly. “It’s alright, Eliza.”
I shook my head, the tears spilling out faster now as everything I’d been holding in finally came crashing through the guards I’d tried so hard to hold in place. “It’s all wrong, Miriam. Everything is just wrong.”
“Shh,” she soothed, holding me tighter. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” I whispered, gripping her like she was a life raft. “It’s really not.”
Her hand moved gently through my hair. “Perhaps not now, but it will be.”
Miriam held me for a few more moments before guiding me upstairs without asking any more questions. As we walked into my bedroom, I realized that my suitcases had appeared, but she led me straight past them to the bed.
“Sit,” she said gently. “I’ll be right back.”
I nodded and sat down on the edge of my bed, just trying to catch my breath while all the emotions rolling around inside refused to settle. Miriam stroked a hand through my hair again, then spun on her heels and hurried out of the room.
When she was gone, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I should be productive. Get up, go over to my suitcases, and unpack what I needed to shower and freshen up. It had been a long flight and a long day before that.
My clothes were wrinkled, and my skin was covered in a layer of travel grime that only a hot shower and soap could fix, but I didn’t do any of that. I just kept sitting there, wondering how I was going to explain my sudden presence here to my father.
A few minutes later, Miriam returned with a tray of tea and biscuits. The normalcy of it threatened to make me start sobbing all over again. I barely managed to keep it together as she set the tray down and fixed my tea, handing it over when she was done.
“Here,” she said. “Drink. I’ve made it sweet. It looked like you could use the sugar.”
“Thank you.” I wrapped my hands around the delicate cup, and immediately, it felt like my anchor to the real world had been reattached.
The cups at Will’s house were fine. They just weren’t… these.Sort of a metaphor for everything in my life at the moment, isn’t it?
Miriam poured herself a cup and then sat down beside me, the familiar presence of her so calming that I felt it wash over mein waves of blissful comfort. I’d missed this so sorely. At first, we simply sat in silence, me sipping my tea while she nibbled at a cookie and kept trying to sneak another into my hand.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” she asked softly once I’d felt some of the tension ease from my body.
I stared into my tea, watching the faint ripple of the surface as I tried to organize my thoughts into a semi-coherent order. “It’s rather complicated.”
“I gathered as much,” she replied, a hint of her dry humor slipping through. “Try me. I’m sure I’ll keep up.”
“It wasn’t Jesse,” I said finally, realizing that the only way to start was to actually start, so I started at the grand reveal.
Miriam frowned. “What do you mean? Jesse isn’t the one who caused you to come home early?”
“No.” I let out a shaky breath. “The man I’ve been with in Chicago. The one who was here, at the castle with us. It wasn’t him.”
Her frown deepened. “That’s impossible. I remember him from?—”
