Work Text:
Silhouetted in the flickering light of the gas lanterns outside her office, Eliza says: “William, there is something I want to say.”
She pauses, wets her lips. It is as though there is a live wire, running from her ribs to his; she fancies she can feel his heartbeat, synchronised with hers. She swallows. He leans towards her, like a plant chasing the sunlight. She sees the flicker of hope in his eyes, hears his breath catch. It emboldens her. She is not alone on this precipice.
She has never been alone.
She tips her chin to meet his gaze, and plunges.
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Every year, Eliza’s cousin, Charlotte, invites her to Cornwall. Every year, Eliza declines. She has a dozen polite excuses at hand, all half-true: I’m simply too busy with work, or Papa is ill and I couldn’t bear to leave him, or if only you’d written sooner, but I couldn’t possibly get away from London this month.
This year, she accepts.
“I’m simply taking your advice,” she tells Ivy, haphazardly folding a petticoat into her valise that Ivy will no doubt reorder later. “You and William are always saying I work too much. And I do feel so guilty sending my regrets to Charlotte each year. The children will be half grown by now, and I’ve not seen them once. In fact, she has just had another baby. I am sure she will appreciate help with the others.”
Ivy’s silence is thick with disbelief.
Her decision has nothing to do with the strange intensity in William’s eyes in the shadow of her office door. We Scarlets always stand firm in the face of fear, her father used to say. She is not running from the strange fluttering sensation in her chest whenever she provokes one of William’s rare smiles.
(Eliza’s talents for deception are prolific, indeed.)
Charlotte is overjoyed to receive her. She presents her husband and three children as if Eliza is a long-lost sister, and they greet her with surprising warmth, despite the fact that she has refused their invitation these last nine years.
“It isn’t much,” Charlotte laments as she shows Eliza to her garret room. “Certainly not the standards you’ll be accustomed to in London, but Philip is a mere country solicitor and with three children, we’ve little space for guests.”
“It’s lovely,” Eliza replies, and means it: the room is cozy despite its size, and the round window above the writing desk boasts a magnificent view of the sea. Her home in London feels cavernous since her father’s death; more than once, she has thought it too much space for one person.
(It does not feel so empty when William is in her parlour, or taking dinner in the kitchen with her and Ivy.)
Charlotte flushes, pleased, and leaves Eliza to unpack. It takes little time, and she occupies the rest of her afternoon with correspondence: first, to Ivy describing her journey (uneventful) and Charlotte’s home (charming and warm, with magnificent sea views); then to Moses, reminding him to visit the office in her absence (I shall be gone a fortnight, no longer, and can easily return to London if the case is urgent); and, finally, to William.
Eliza has never found it difficult to put pen to paper, but it takes her three quarters of an hour and six fruitless attempts to come up with something passably pleasant:
Dear William,
You will be pleased to note I have finally taken a holiday to visit my cousin Charlotte in Cornwall. No, your constant badgering had nothing to do with it. I intend to stay a fortnight, although I may return to London sooner if business requires. Ivy is still at the house, should you need anything — although I expect you shall welcome the reprieve from my constant teasing!
Yours, etc.
—ES.
She folds it briskly and descends to dinner. The food is wonderful, the company even more so, yet Eliza often finds her mind wandering to the desk drawer and the envelope addressed to one Inspector W. Wellington, Scotland Yard, London.
(She nearly snatches it back when Mrs Clancy, the housekeeper, collects the post at breakfast.)
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“What does it matter?” she asks, pulling herself from the edge of the precipice with the playful aloofness she affects around him to disguise the frantic pounding of her heart. “You are staying in London.”
“It matters to me,” he says.
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William returns to his London life with ease. Eliza was right to call him settled: it takes him ten minutes to unpack the boxes whose contents he agonised over for three hours. Detective Fitzroy’s recovery is progressing apace, Superintendent Monro no longer seems infuriated by his very presence, and the volume of cases poring into the station house seems nearly manageable. All is as it should be.
Except—
Eliza’s letter from Cornwall is pleasant—too pleasant, which, of course, means she is hiding something. He did not imagine the moment that passed between them outside her office; he has lain awake many nights since, wondering what might have happened had they not been interrupted.
William, there is something I want to say. Something I should have said much sooner.
He tosses the letter on his desk; it lands atop a stack of files awaiting his signature, slanted penmanship taunting him. It irks him that Eliza should decide to accept Charlotte’s invitation now. It cannot be a coincidence. She knew he would not forget her promise (I’ll tell you tomorrow— No, you won’t), and she does not want to be held to account, so she is avoiding him. As she has always done.
It is childish. And infuriating.
And you have no fault in this? he can imagine her saying, eyebrows raised in mocking disbelief. As I recall, it was you who insisted we ought to remain as we are.
That night in her drawing room cut them both deeply, and the polite gulf between them has been growing steadily since.
“I would not have had to insist had you not been so intent on meddling in my affairs,” he mutters to the offending letter.
Even the folded page before him seems to know it is a lie.
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“I don’t know how to thank you,” she murmurs. Her fingers flutter against the sleeve of his jacket, uncharacteristically hesitant. There is a softness about her, and earnestness, that feels like the first glimpse of land after their weeks of constant arguing.
The words tumble out of his mouth without thought: “Have dinner with me.” The desk’s edge presses uncomfortably against his thigh, but he hardly feels it; there is only the warmth of Eliza’s hand, small and soft between his fingers. She has a callous from holding her pen; he rubs it absently with his thumb. “Tonight.”
He feels the flush blossoming across her cheeks in his chest. “All right.”
They do not argue once that night.
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Cornwall is delightful. Eliza’s days are filled with trips to the seaside, childhood games in the garden, and walks to town. Charlotte is an excellent hostess, her children delightful chaos. They dine together en famille, though their eldest, Lily, is only five; every night, the table rings with laughter. Eliza is surprised to find that the restlessness which normally itches in her fingertips is quieted in the salty air. She will pleased to return to her life in London, of course, but for the moment she is content to make daisy chains and arbitrate childhood squabbles and take Lily and James to town on sunny afternoons while baby Emily naps.
“Aunt Eliza,” Lily says one such afternoon, when a sudden downpour drives them indoors, “tell us a story.”
“A detective story!” her younger brother, James, adds.
The children are both enraptured by the idea of a lady detective, and have peppered Eliza with questions all week, but her cases hardly make good children’s stories. Entirely too many unsavoury characters, and grisly murders.
William would be infuriatingly smug, were he here. She can picture him, seated in the armchair opposite her, with James on his knee, or, more likely, on the rug with her eager audience. His expression would be innocent as a lamb, but his eyes would sparkle with laughter.
Perhaps you should ask Uncle William, she would reply sweetly. He has many exciting stories from Scotland Yard.
She would take great satisfaction in watching the smirk slide off his face, as Lily and James turn their adoring faces to him with a chorus of please, Uncle William, but, after a moment, she would take pity on him and they would tell the story together. It would be a disjointed affair, filled with interruptions and arguments over how events transpired, but their eyes would reflect the other’s delight.
It feels almost too real to be fantasy.
A desperate glance at the staircase reveals that Charlotte is still in the nursery with Emily, and Eliza grimly resigned herself to her task.
“A detective story?” she repeats, in the vain hope of reprieve.
They nod, eagerly. It is likely for the best—Eliza is not certain she knows any children’s stories.
“Very well. Once there was a young lady who owned a detective agency—”
“Was it you, Auntie?” asks James.
“Hush!” hisses Lily.
“It was not me,” Eliza says, “I do run my own agency, but I work alone. This detective had a partner, a young man—”
“Was he also a detective?” asks James.
“Hush!” snaps Lily.
Eliza smiles. “Indeed he was, James—although, remember, it is rude to interrupt. I will say when you may ask your questions.”
James nods eagerly, and she continues.
The tale is a loose collection of truths from cases over the years, stitched into a new adventure. Lily and James frequently interrupt her with choruses of they cannot let the thief get away! and but he is guilty! and he’s behind the door! Charlotte returns as the nefarious Inspector Jenkins locks the detective and her partner in an abandoned prison to keep them from exposing his corruption, and takes up her knitting with a smile. There are several more twists and turns—including hairpin lock picks, the return of the detective’s associate, presumed dead, and a high-speed carriage chase through Chelsea—but Inspector Jenkins is eventually arrested and the detective and her partner celebrate their victory over undercooked scrambled eggs in her kitchen.
This, Eliza realises, as Lily and James clamour for another story, is what she meant when she cast William a desperate offer of employment in her drawing room. It was not, as he assumed, to be her assistant, but her partner. To solve cases together, as they have always done. To be, for once, equals in their shared profession.
(It is my profession, Eliza, William said once, and his words have sat like a stone in her stomach ever since.)
As always, she was too afraid to ask for what she wanted, and so was left with the door slamming in William’s wake.
Her stomach lurches unpleasantly.
Eliza does not stand firm in the face of fear; she has been running from it all her life.
“Perhaps another day,” Charlotte interjects gently. “It is nearly time for dinner, and I’m sure Aunt Eliza is tired.”
The children’s protests are mollified by the promise of another story at bedtime, and they scurry off to help Mrs Clancy lay the table. Charlotte follows in their wake.
It is several minutes before Eliza musters herself up to her room.
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William’s hooded gaze hooks a loose thread somewhere below Eliza’s navel and tugs.
Slowly, her carefully constructed tapestry of denial begins to unravel.
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This is the fear that lives deep in William’s belly: he is not good enough for her.
Eliza may not care about such things, but they all have their role to play in society’s great game, and William has known since boyhood that men like him do not marry women like Eliza. Henry was the son of a politician, his wife, a lord’s daughter; he would certainly have expected her to find a worthy match.
Nature will take its course, he snapped through the door of a prison cell, but what he really meant was this: he, William Wellington, a son of the workhouse with nothing to his name save that which he has earned through his own hard work, will never be good enough for the likes of Eliza Scarlet. To marry her would be a scandal, and though Eliza happily courts scandal whenever she sets foot out of her door, he could never forgive himself for causing it.
“Sir?”
Detective Fitzroy hovers tentatively in the doorway; the furrow in his brow suggests he has been standing there some time. Irritation prickles under William’s skin, first at the Fitzroy’s interruption, and then at himself for allowing such distraction. How many times has he lectured his men on the importance of vigilance—and yet, here he is, wallowing at three o’clock in the afternoon.
He swallows his self-pity, pours himself two fingers of whiskey (it is, after all, three o’clock), and says, “Can I help you, Detective Fitzroy?”
“I know that you do not like the theatre, sir, but—”
Fitzroy pauses, worrying his hat between his fingers.
“But?” William prompts, less irritably than he ought.
“I have two tickets to see Lady Windermere’s Fan tonight— I was meant to attend with Miss Carmichael but she has unfortunately taken ill, and I thought— It is said to be a most excellent comedy, and— Well, it would be a shame to let the tickets go to waste, sir.” He takes a fortifying breath and then adds, “It is the least I can do to repay you, sir.”
William can think of several ways Fitzroy might repay him that would be considerably less painful than an evening in the theatre, but the young man looks painfully earnest, and it’s hardly as though he has a busy social calendar these days.
He pinches the bridge of his nose, resigned.
Eliza shall never let me forget this.
“What time, Fitzroy?”
The detective has clearly been expecting a refusal; he starts and nearly drops his hat. “I beg your pardon, sir?”
“What time—” The words are ground between his teeth. “—is the performance?”
Fitzroy’s grin is so bright it nearly splits his face in half. “Oh! Seven o’clock sir. At the St James Theatre. We could have a drink before, or dinner, perhaps— but that would be too much— perhaps just the drink— ”
“I will meet you at the theatre, Fitzroy,” William says, trying, and failing, to keep his amusement from tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Oh. Yes. Of course, sir.” Fitzroy bobs his head eagerly. “I’ll leave you to it, sir.”
He grins cheekily and flees, leaving William to down his amused incredulity with his whisky.
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It is a good thing, Eliza thinks as she watches the moonlight dance on the garret ceiling, that they were interrupted. She hardly dares to think what she might have confessed had William’s fingers lingered any longer on her skin. It was foolish not to have worn gloves, as a lady ought.
And yet—
The ghost of his touch lingers long after they have parted.
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In the early mornings Eliza walks the moors. Theirs is a grand, wild beauty, so unlike the neatly curated parks of London; she finds herself curiously small in the face of it.
She thinks of William on these walks, carries on long conversations with him about the beauty of the sunrise and the freshness of the sea air and the marvellous power of rigorous exercise to sharpen the mind. His spectre is with her often of late: drinking brandy with Philip after dinner and lamenting the lack of whisky; chasing James and Lily in the garden; smiling in that soft, fond way he reserves for her as she holds baby Emily; stealing kisses in hallways and pantries and empty street corners.
He takes her into his arms now as the sky glows with hues of pink and orange and gold. You are more myself than I am, Eliza, he murmurs against her cheek. Whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same.
The fantasy is shattered by the errant hem of her petticoat, caught in the edge of a farmer’s fence. Eliza wrenches it free with rather more force than necessary; a rather large swath remains stubbornly clinging to the wire.
Enough of this nonsense, Scarlet, she admonishes herself as she clambers over the stile. All this rambling through the moors is making her fanciful; she is not Cathy, and William is certainly no Heathcliff. They are not star-crossed lovers, torn apart by passion and circumstance—they are merely old friends, as William has made abundantly clear.
And yet—
It matters to me, he murmured in flickering lamplight, so close she felt his breath upon her cheek.
“It is impossible,” she says aloud, as if hearing the words will make her see the sense in them. She resolved long ago never to marry: a husband would insist she give up her business to keep his house, and she will not sacrifice her independence for anyone, not even William. Her father would not wish it.
(William is a fine young man, Eliza, her father said one long-ago night, as she descended the stairs in a scarlet ballgown.)
Her father encouraged her ambition. He nurtured her talents. He, of all people, would understand: the job must come above all else.
William cannot understand. It is as he said: one day, she will marry and nature will take its bloody course.
That is the knife that twists so sharply between her ribs, that wakes her, gasping, in the dead of night: he does not take her ambition seriously. Perhaps he never will.
And yet—
William has never truly refused her help, nor has he attempted to dissuade her from taking cases. His objections are a comforting battleground; they both know he will relent. He has never hinted that she ought to find a husband, even when they dined together weekly and the ladies of London society murmured of courtship.
William treats her ambition like a brick wall: an immutable, unyielding obstacle. He despairs of it, rages against it, but never diminishes it.
The man is a study in maddening contradictions, and Eliza cannot make sense of them.
Cornwall does not provide her any clarity. Eliza intends to return to London with a newfound resolve against matrimony, but the Clarke household is Mrs Clancy’s kingdom, not Charlotte’s. Philip is not a distant husband, occupied by his work: he is often in the garden, shirtsleeves rolled, tending to his vegetables; pouring milk and buttering breakfast toast and chasing errant socks for his children; building elaborate forts out of bedsheets and embroidered cushions and bed posts; helping herd the neighbour’s livestock from the fields. Charlotte spends her mornings researching his cases; their debates on the finer points of a legal argument often begin at dinner and last late into the evening.
“I was quite content to marry a man of my parents’ choosing, until I met Philip,” Charlotte confesses over tea one afternoon. Eliza does not mean to be nosy; the question slips out as she helps herself to one of Mrs Clancy’s famed ginger biscuits. “They had their hearts set on my marrying a doctor, and Philip was a poor law student with no connections in society, but I could not give him up. He did not wish for me to change who I was; he loves me as I am, not in spite of it. Besides—” She laughs. “—he speaks very well, but he is a terrible writer. I do not think he would win any cases without my pen!”
“Do you not—?” Eliza plucks the biscuit from her plate, but her appetite has vanished; it hovers morosely between her fingers. “Are you not angry that he is credited for your work?”
Eliza is always angry. The well inside her grows deeper with each case attributed to William’s great detective prowess. It sticks in her throat like a piece of cake she cannot dislodge; every day it chokes her a little more. Her teeth ache with the force of keeping it at bay. She wants to let it loose, to scream and spit and swear at the world for keeping her back, at William for failing to understand it, but she is perilously dependent on his resources, his influence, to keep her business afloat, so she buries it deep inside.
(Use what you have to your advantage, just like everyone else, William said. Man or woman, it is no more complex than that, so do not make it so.
Of course, that is easy for him to say. He has the luxury of seeing the world in such simple terms—there are few doors closed to him that his badge and a solid kick cannot open.)
William blames her ambition for driving this wedge between them, but Eliza thinks it is more apt to blame her anger. They will never be anything more than friends until he can understand it.
Charlotte’s brow creases in sympathy. “I was when we were first married. It is terribly unjust that our sex should limit us so, and the sting of it was ever so sharp then. Philip, of course, agreed with me, which only made me angrier. But he has never once taken credit for my words, and he is the first to praise my talents to anyone who will listen, so I have made my peace with it.” Eliza does not realise she has been tearing her biscuit to pieces until Charlotte covers her hand and squeezes it gently. “Philip and I know we are partners, equals. What the law or society may say matters little in the face of that.”
The lump in Eliza’s throat turns hot and wet; she hastily swallows it. She feels seen, perhaps for the first time in her life, as a whole, complex person, and not simply one of the many fragments of herself she presents to the world.
(William looks at her like that sometimes, like he could know her very soul if only he would let himself, if only she would let him.)
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William’s fingers brush her wrist in the lamplight, trailing a thousand sparks in their wake.
It should not affect her. He has touched her arm a hundred times, as she has his, as they will a hundred more. It is ordinary. Unremarkable.
Except—
His hands wander in dreams over those secret places she longs for him to touch; she wakes, thighs slick from wanting. The thought of his calloused fingertips quickens her breath as she pours her tea, and walks to town, and brushes her hair before bed. The dry heat of his skin lurks beneath her shirtsleeves, teasing her with every brush of fabric against her skin.
It means nothing, she tells herself. It cannot.
(It does.)
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Eliza keeps Charlotte’s insight tucked away like a talisman, only taking it out inspect when she is alone.
Philip and I know we are partners, equals. What the law or society may say matters little in the face of that.
By the week’s end, she has turned it over so often in her mind its edges are worn smooth.
It seems so simple. Eliza spends hours searching for a snag, a hidden complexity she can wield as a shield, but she cannot find one. Charlotte has not cast her anger aside; she has sharpened it into a weapon she uses to chip away at the binds holding her back. She has carved a space for herself in this world of men, and other women will see that space, even if most men do not. Philip sees that space; he is there with her, digging shoulder-to-shoulder in the dirt.
It is not enough. It is not fair, and it certainly is not just, but Rome was not build in a day, as her father was so fond of saying, and Eliza supposes it naive to think justice would be any more quickly won.
You are not alone, William said, clutching her hand at her father’s graveside. She may like to pretend otherwise, but he has always stood by her when it matters. He is there in the dirt, his spade swinging in time with hers.
And yet, she thinks to herself irritably as she tramples a path through the cliff grasses, it was he that pulled away.
She knows why, of course. It is the same reason he asked her opinion on the promotions in Nottingham and Glasgow. Eliza may plunge headlong into danger, but William never leaps without looking once, twice, three times. He is a creature of his habits; change makes him irritable—why, he is horribly cross when his files are out of place. He agonises over any decision of consequence, only to remain exactly as he is. To pin her hopes on some grand declaration of romance is foolish; he will not act until he is certain of her feelings.
No, she will have to leap—and pray that he will catch her when she does.
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Dear William,
This is what I meant to say, the night of Miss Parker’s engagement party:
My dearest William,
I know you have said that our involvement would interfere with your position at work, but I think that—
William,
I love you.
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Eliza teases William mercilessly for his aversion to cultural enlightenment, but the truth behind his reluctance is that he sticks out like a sore thumb in the gilded halls of the theatre. His starched cravat and tailored dinner jacket are naught but an expensive disguise; they cannot make him belong.
Yet, the crowd jostling to their seats in the gallery of the St James’ Theatre are not the esteemed peers of London society, but middle class folk in their Sunday best.
“I hope you do not mind it, sir,” Fitzroy is saying breathlessly, as they take their seats, “but Miss Carmichael and I prefer the anonymity of the gallery, and the view of the stage is more spectacular, besides—”
“I do not mind, Fitzroy,” he replies, amused. In fact, the crush of strangers is quite pleasant. There are precious few places in London where he is not Inspector Wellington of Scotland Yard, and he finds he understands Fitzroy and Miss Carmichael’s desire for anonymity. No one would think anything of it if Eliza were beside him, eyes sparkling in the light of the chandelier, cheeks flushed from heat and laughter. She would tease him for martyring himself so, and he would roll his eyes and admit that perhaps the theatre is not so bad, after all.
The ache of her absence is fierce between his ribs.
He puts it from his mind as the lights dim. It is a comedy, Fitzroy said, by an Irish playwright of note—Wilde, or some such. The laughter will banish Eliza from his thoughts.
Only it does cannot. The audience takes great amusement in the misunderstandings of the Windermeres, but William thinks only of the weight of untold secrets. Were she not so certain of her husband’s guilt, Lady Windermere would not fall into Lord Darlington’s arms; had Lord Windermere confessed Mrs Erlynne’s identity, she would never have suspected him in the first place.
The parallels to his relationship with Eliza are disconcerting.
Perhaps he would be more certain of her feelings if she did not conceal them behind deflections and dismissals and conversational pivots so deft they turned his head.
Perhaps she would not conceal her feelings if he did not couch his own in exasperated irritation.
Perhaps he would not be so short with her were she not so ambitious.
Perhaps she would not be so desperate to prove herself if he did not constantly remind her that she does not belong.
Had he not pushed her away, she might be sitting here now, hand resting gently on his arm, murmuring pointed commentary in his ear.
Lord Darlington’s impassioned confession lingers as he returns to his lodgings: But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely—or dragging on some false, shallow, degrading exercise that the world in its hypocrisy demands.
At the time, trapped beneath the weight of the lads’ whispers (Duchess was in this mornin’, and Duke and Duchess are workin’ a lot o’ cases together, and she’s one fine woman, that duchess) and Superintendent Munro’s disapproving stare and the social censure of London’s ladies, stepping away seemed the rational thing. Eliza was too ambitious; to court her would only end in scandal—and heartache.
He realises, in the haze of the streetlamp, how foolish he was to assume his affection greater than hers when the evidence suggests he misunderstands her as often as she him.
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“It’s pointless to deny the truth that if we were anything more than friends, my position would be untenable.”
Eliza’s face is shadowed in the firelight, but William does not miss how her joy plummets; his stomach tumbled over the same precipice as he spoke the words.
It is for the best, he tells himself, and yet he lingers in the corridor for three agonising minutes, praying she will open the sitting room door.
(Eliza presses her face against the door and counts William’s footsteps, creaking on the floor.)
It is for the best, he tells himself as he stalks into the mist, anger burning like a hot coal in his chest. If she wanted you, she would have opened the door.
It is for the best, he assures himself as they greet each other stiffly at Garrett’s Museum. She is too ambitious to be a policeman’s wife.
The truth he is forced to admit as he packs his life into boxes is that the untenability of his position had nothing to do with Eliza at all.
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The invitation arrives at Charlotte’s house two days before Eliza’s return to London. It is thick, with embossed gold letters; Lily holds it rapturously for several minutes before handing it to her.
“It is so fine, Mama,” she whispers, as Eliza reaches for the letter opener.
Her silence upon reading the contents stretches so long that Charlotte frowns.
“Eliza? Are you quite well?”
“Yes.” Eliza gathers herself and hands the invitation to Lily, who traces the letters reverently. “It is an invitation to the annual Metropolitan police ball in London next Friday evening.”
“Oh, how exciting!” Charlotte exclaims. “It is recognition for your assistance with their cases, surely.”
“Surely,” Eliza murmurs, yet she has never been invited before, despite three years assisting with their cases.
She went to the ball once, before her father left the force. She was not yet twenty. She remembers the grandeur of the ballroom, the heat of a thousand wax candles, the crush of silk and taffeta on the dance floor. She drank too much punch and laughed too loudly and danced with constables until her feet ached.
(William was a constable, then.)
This is one of William’s schemes, she is certain. He knows she despises society evenings as he does; no doubt he intends they will suffer together.
Or perhaps, the tiny voice of truth whispers, he intends something else altogether.
The thought makes her flush. Eliza presses a hand to her cheek to cool it. Across the room, Charlotte watches her closely.
“What will you wear?” Lily asks.
Life has thoroughly cured Eliza of her relentless girlhood optimism. Happiness and good fortune are fleeting; misery is always waiting in the wings to dash one’s hopes. The blue silk evening gown she wore to Hattie’s engagement party is hardly fit for a ball, and she barely has the funds to pay her bills, let alone commission a ballgown.
“Oh, I won’t be attending, Lily,” she says. Her smile is so brittle she fears it might snap in two. “I detest balls, as your mother well remembers. Besides, I am sure I shall be far too busy with work when I return to London.”
It is a lie—in fact, Eliza suspects there shall be no cases awaiting her return—but she suffered enough at the hands of Arabella and her ilk in school, and refuses to be made the laughingstock of polite society. It is one thing for them to look down on her from their sitting rooms; to do it to her face is quite another thing altogether.
Charlotte must see through her façade, for when Eliza retires to her room the next evening there is a ballgown laid on her bed. It is finer than anything Eliza has ever worn: scarlet and gold silk brocade, elegantly draped and gathered with panels of delicate gold lace in the skirt, and a plunging neckline made modest by more lace.
There is a note attached:
There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.
The line is from Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte’s favourite novel. They often used coded passages to communicate when they were girls. Her cousin’s meaning is plain: this is not an offer to be refused.
Eliza smiles and folds the gown carefully into her trunk.
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William despises balls. As a lowly police inspector, he is spared the tedium of lurking on the edge of society ballrooms, but the Metropolitan Police Ball is an evening he cannot escape, no matter how much it may make him feel like dancing monkey.
He takes comfort in the knowledge that his colleagues are equally discomfited; the constables lucky enough to be deemed exemplary members of the force are eager to dance with the pretty young ladies, but Inspector Reed of H Division looks as miserable as William feels, and Superintendent Monro has, on several occasions this week, lamented the necessity of playing nice with the lords and ladies of London society. Detective Fitzroy is the only one amongst the officers in his element: from his post near a large potted fern, William watches as he charms young ladies with his genteel manners and earnest enthusiasm. When he takes to the floor with a red-haired lass, he does not stumble once, leading his partner with a confident ease William has never seen in the halls of the constabulary.
He feels her presence first, a static charge that builds inside him like the moment before a lightning strike. Around him, the evening continues, but William is unaware of it; his world has narrowed to a single point, a magnificent vision of scarlet and gold gliding across the room.
(She wore a red dress like this once before, years earlier, in this very ballroom. William’s heart leapt out of his chest when he saw her; she has never returned it.)
“I hope you are pleased with yourself, William,” Eliza says, rapping his elbow with her fan. “You do know I despise such evenings.”
You did not despise that evening, he nearly says. Nor did I.
“I have no idea what you mean, Eliza.”
She scoffs. “I know you sent the invitation, William. Do not deny it.”
“I did no such thing.” Hurt flickers in her eyes and she pulls away; instinctively, he touches her wrist. “But I am pleased to see you.”
“Oh.” Colour blooms across Eliza’s cheeks. It takes all of William’s (considerable) self-restraint not to press his hand to it. “Well.” She flicks her fan open, only to shut it again. “I hope you have saved at least one dance for me, William.”
He swallows, throat inexplicably dry. “You know I do not dance, Eliza.”
“I know you are a liar, William Wellington,” she replies. Her smug smile does not irritate his as it ought. “Why, we danced twice at this very ball—although, I will pardon your forgetfulness, as it was some eight years past.”
William has not forgotten. He returns to the memory often in the dead of night when he cannot sleep for wanting her. He’d have danced with her all night were it not certain to cause scandal.
He has not danced with another woman since, but he cannot find the courage to confess such things in a crowded ballroom, so he simply offers his hand with a muttered, “One dance, Eliza,” and leads her onto the floor.
The quartet strikes up a waltz, the first of the evening, and William wonders if God is determined to punish him for his obstinacy by making him share the most intimate dance with the woman he loves. His hand hovers too low on her back, but Eliza does not reproach his impropriety; in fact, for three and a half minutes, she says nothing at all. It is certainly scandalous, yet Willian finds he does not care. The noose of gossip has hung around his neck for too long; he will not let it strangle him. His men may call Eliza Duchess, but they will cease if he commands them to and will not think less of him for it.
He thinks he would like that.
(Neither of them notice Detective Fitzroy’s watchful gaze across the room. It will be some months before he confesses to sending the invitation, and some months more before William thanks him for it.)
.
.
.
William sees her home from the ball. Eliza protests that it is perfectly unnecessary, but he insists, and she is too pleased to refuse him. The words that failed her on the dance floor return the moment the hansom door closes, and she spends the drive to Camden Town interrogating William on his cases. He rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth curls fondly, and he does not withhold answers. The imprint of his hand on her back burns like a brand, the precipice on which they stood outside her office looming ever closer.
This time, she will not hesitate.
Only—
Her words vanish once again when the hansom alights outside her door. William helps her down, as a gentlemen ought, his fingers lingering against hers. He is waiting for her to speak, but she cannot find the courage to free this strange bird fluttering against her breast.
Resignation settles in the edges of William’s smile. “Good night, Eliza,” he murmurs.
I’ll tell you tomorrow.
No, you won’t.
“Would you like a drink?”
He accepts, as she knows he will. They creep into the kitchen louder than they ought given that Ivy is asleep three floors above—William trips over the hall table and curses loud enough to wake the whole street, Eliza’s admonishment dampened by the laughter she cannot smother.
Ivy has left the kettle filled on the stovetop. William’s eyebrows rise when Eliza strikes a match.
“I may not have many womanly virtues, William,” she says archly, “but I can make tea.”
He raises his hands in surrender and leans back in his chair. A strange electricity crackles between them; its potential burns the tip of Eliza’s tongue, and she turns hastily to monitor the kettle. If William notices her flaming cheeks, he does not comment.
In fact, he says nothing at all.
.
.
.
This is the thing Eliza has always hated about the great, star-crossed romances: the lovers always abandon themselves to the whims of fate. Their greatest happiness is before them, and yet they do not seize it.
This, of course, is what makes them tragic.
Eliza does not want to be a tragic heroine. She does not want to let this joy slip between her fingers, does not want to live her life with only the weight of William’s longing stare pinned between her shoulder blades, does not want to sit in her drawing room pining over his obituary in the Sunday Times.
Eliza seizes the tattered edges of her courage, and leaps.
.
.
.
When Eliza turns, William is already there, hand closing around her wrist.
“William—”
“What did you wish to tell me that night, Eliza?”
There is a desperate intensity in his eyes, as though he cannot wait any longer.
“I—” Eliza begins. She lacks the courage of urgency; without it, the words tangle in her throat.
“Eliza.” He steps closer, voice softer, the lamplight casting his face in a beautiful glow. His eyes are warm, and it is impossible to deny the truth in them. Eliza wonders, suddenly, why she ever wanted to. She turns her hand to catch his fingers with hers.
“I did not want you to leave,” she murmurs. “I knew it was not your choice, but I wanted— I needed—”
“Eliza,” he rumbles. His face is inches from hers.
“I do not wish for us to remain as we are, William. I know that it makes your work difficult, and for that I am sorry—”
“Are you?” he murmurs. His mouth curls, that tiny, bemused smile she loves. His thumb traces maddening patterns against her skin. It is impossible to think straight.
“Yes.” She ought to step away, to clear her head before she says something foolish. “You are always telling me what a nuisance I am—”
“I like working with you, Eliza.”
This takes her by surprise; she rears back.
“You do?”
“Aye.” He chuckles, free hand rising to her waist. “You vex me incessantly, Eliza, and your lack of self-preservation will drive me into an early grave, and yet there is not a day I do not hope you will come barging through my office door.”
The kettle whistles shrilly. Eliza is grateful for the distraction, for all it scares her half to death, but William is determined: before she can so much as twitch, he has snuffed out the flame. His eyes are darker than she has ever seen them. The bird swoops from her breast to her belly.
“I should— The tea—” she begins helplessly.
“I didn’t come here for tea, Eliza.”
She is flustered by his steadiness. “Then why did you come?” she asks waspishly.
“To apologise,” he says softly, and her irritation melts into something softer, warmer, that pools beneath the hand splayed on her waist. “I was angry with the superintendent, and I took it out on you. It was wrongly done, and I regretted it the moment I said it.” He cups her cheek. “I do not possess your courage, Eliza. I shrink too often in the face of my own desires. It is cowardly, and it has caused you great pain, and I shall regret it as long I live.”
“My dearest William.” Eliza covers his hand with her own. The bird is rising now, gaining speed; at any moment, it will be free. “I find my courage most often deserts me when we are alone. That night, for example: I knew you waited beyond the parlour door, and yet I could not open it.”
William’s thumb traces the curve of her bottom lip; she shivers. “I prayed you would.”
Eliza swallows. “What would you have said had I done so?”
“’Tis not what I would have said, Eliza,” he murmurs, “but rather what I would have done.”
“And what, pray tell, is that?” she breathes, but they are both moving and the question is swallowed in the current that passes from his lips to hers.
.
.
.
(Six weeks later, Charlotte receives a letter from her cousin Eliza. She reads it smugly to Philip over their evening brandies.
My dearest Charlotte,
Thank you again for receiving me with such hospitality, and for the most generous loan of your ballgown. I did not dare send such a fine thing in the post, but William and I shall be in Cornwall for a seaside holiday at Michaelmas; I will happily return it to you then, if you will have us.
Yours, etc.
—E.S.)