Page 119 of A Shadow Amongst the Roses

Then she stepped forward.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Thomas stood near the window with his back to the room. The candle on the table beside him lit the angle of his shoulder and the side of his jaw. He had stripped off his coat. His shirt showed a small tear at the cuff. The hand that had struck Ashwood rested on the sill. The knuckles were reddened and beginning to swell.

He did not look at the glass. His gaze was on the darkness beyond it.

Eliza knocked, a light touch with her fingers against the wood.

He turned at once.

“Eliza.”

Her name. Nothing more. It eased something inside her that she had not known was still braced.

“I thought you might be here,” she said.

He glanced back at the garden.

“I could not leave it yet,” he said. “It had done enough work for one night. It seemed wrong to turn my back on it so soon.”

She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. The latch clicked into place with a small, final sound.

“The house holds Ashwood,” she said. “The men swear no one will move in or out of east wing basement without Nathaniel’s leave. Eleanor never liked the draft there. This will give her another reason to keep that wing closed.”

Thomas’s mouth shifted, not quite a smile. Weariness lay over his features like a fine dust.

“And you,” he asked. “Has anyone tried to close you in a room you cannot leave.”

“Not yet,” she said. “I left before they had the chance.”

She came nearer. The candlelight reached the edge of her cloak and painted her hands. She stopped a few paces from him. Close enough to read the strain around his eyes. Far enough that she could have turned away again if she chose.

He watched her as if he did not trust this to be real.

“I did not know if you would come,” he said.

“Nor did I,” she answered.

The truth of that settled between them.

He looked at her cloak.

“You are still cold,” he said. “I should have insisted you change.”

“I did not want to put the garden on and take it off again,” she said. “It seemed unfair. I have dragged enough through it for one day.”

He huffed a breath that might have been a laugh if the night had been lighter.

“Eliza.”

The way he said her name held apology, relief, and something deeper he had not yet named.

Her gaze dropped to his hand.

“Does it hurt,” she asked.

He glanced down as if he had forgotten it belonged to him.