Page 106 of A Shadow Amongst the Roses

But first, Eleanor needed to know what Edmund had said, and that whatever Ashwood had begun with Margaret Lane, fear was no longer going to keep her silent.

Eliza closed the door behind her and went to find the duchess.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Eliza left the blue antechamber with Margaret’s words still lodged along her spine, cold and persistent.

Not safe.

The corridor outside lay in its usual pale hush. Light from the tall windows fell in long bands across the floor, dust motes drifting there like slow, idle thoughts. No raised voices. No hurried footsteps. Nothing to prove that a man had tried a latch in the night and whispered a warning through a crack in the door.

Edmund’s whisper returned with each step she took.

She drew a long breath and set her course toward Eleanor’s private sitting room. The house did not resist. The air shifted once, a faint stirring along the skirting boards, as if it noted the choice.

She reached Eleanor’s suite and knocked. The door opened at once, not by a guard, but by Marlowe, the duchess’s long-serving maid. The woman’s expression softened the moment she saw Eliza.

“Her Grace is in the sitting room,” she said.

Eliza thanked her and entered.

Eleanor sat near the hearth, a writing board across her knees. The small table beside her held a pot of tea gone lukewarm. She wore no jewels, only a dark gown and the simple ribbon she preferred when the day called for sense rather than ceremony.

Eliza closed the door behind her.

“You have news,” Eleanor said.

Eliza did not sit. “Margaret Lane asked for me at dawn. She was shaken. Edmund was awake as well.”

Eleanor set her pen aside. “Something frightened him.”

“Yes.” Eliza kept her voice even. “He says someone tried their door. A hand at the latch. A whisper he could not understand. Then… a coat sleeve. Brass buttons, just visible before Margaret shut the door.”

Eleanor’s gaze sharpened. “And Margaret?”

“She tried to tell him it was a dream,” Eliza said. “She no longer does.”

The duchess rose, smoothing her gown with a steady hand. “Ashwood.”

Eliza nodded. There was nothing else it could be.

Eleanor walked to the window, looked out briefly toward the distant trees, then turned back. “He is testing the boundaries. He wishes to know who will hold firm and who will bend.”

“She is afraid,” Eliza said. “For herself. For Edmund. For what Ashwood might do if she speaks to the wrong person.”

Eleanor’s gaze sharpened. “She asked for you.”

“Yes.”

“Not Nathaniel. Not Clara.”

“No.”

Some of the tension eased from Eleanor’s shoulders.

“Good,” she said. “That tells me she has at least one sound instinct. Sit a moment.”

“There is more,” Eliza said quietly. “Sammy was not lost. He was taken. Left in Thomas’s cottage. The door showed marks where someone forced it.”