Elizabeth seized Florence's hand and dragged her swiftly through the corridors, her heels striking the floor in frantic cadence as the woman's voice pursued them, swelling and ricocheting off the stone walls.
"You were always so adept at running, Elizabeth," the voice called, heavy with a sigh both weary and cruel. "I warned you, no matter what you did, Gillian was never going to marry you."
The words struck like a blade drawn across old flesh. Elizabeth halted and turned, her heart jerking painfully in her chest. The woman who now stood before her—poised, venomous—was the very specter she had fled from all those years ago. Gillian Loxley had been married then, a man restless and indulgent, seeking warmth in brothels because he found none in his own wife's bed.
Elizabeth stepped closer, her footsteps sharp and deliberate.
"And I told you," she said coldly, "that you were incapable of giving him a child, Sylvia."
Sylvia's expression twisted. The truth had always stalked her like a curse. Whispers had followed her through ballrooms and corridors alike, mockery for her barrenness, pity laced with scorn. Gillian had abandoned her in spirit long before he abandoned her in flesh, just as he had done to Elizabeth.
To him, women were nothing but fetters; ornate prisons he escaped whenever he pleased.
Yet Sylvia would not remain silent. Elizabeth, after all, carried sins of her own.
"You were naïve, Elizabeth. Then and now," Sylvia spat.
"You parade his bastard through his properties as though you were nobility, but you are nothing more than a verminous thing. You crept beneath my roof and stole what was mine!" Her voice rose, sharp and boisterous, drawing the attention of startled onlookers.
Elizabeth laughed, low and cruel. "And you were blind, Sylvia. How could you not see me beneath your very nose? Perhaps if you had satisfied your husband, he would not have strayed."
Florence stood frozen, bearing witness to a history she had never known. The revelations sickened her, the depth of her father's cruelty, the ruin he had left these women felt suffocating to her. Her father was a hoax giver of affection.
Sylvia's hand flew upward. The slap rang through the corridor, heavy with years of unhealed wounds and festering resentment. Elizabeth turned her face slowly, eyes burning with contempt. Without another word, she gathered her bags and fled toward the safety of her chamber.
Sylvia remained where she stood, tears spilling freely down her cheeks. They had torn at each other's scars, wounds never allowed to close, still raw, still bleeding.
The breeze that crept in from the hotel suite's balcony was sharp and wintry, yet it did nothing to dispel the oppressive weight that clung to the room. The air felt close, stifling, as though the walls themselves were listening. For the first time, Elizabeth appeared truly strained, her composure frayed, her movements rigid with unrest. Florence said nothing. She stood at the balustrade, gazing down upon the streets of London, the very city where, in her previous life, her breath had finally deserted her body.
Her eyes drifted aimlessly until they caught upon a familiar crest emblazoned upon the door of a carriage below. A man stepped away from it. His hat obscured much of his face, but strands of raven-black hair slipped free beneath the brim, glinting darkly in the fading light. Florence's heart faltered. The way he walked—the measured stride, the quiet arrogance carried in his posture—was unmistakable. No corner of the world had ever been far enough to escape him.
Then, as though stirred by some unseen tether, the man lifted his gaze. Their eyes met across the distance. Florence's breath caught. Her intuition had not betrayed her.
Eulothorne.
He had truly returned to London.
A tremor of panic rose within her, but she smothered it before it could show. If Elizabeth sensed it, she would hasten the wedding without mercy, binding Florence far sooner than promised. Yet another thought intruded: the dowry Eulothorne had forfeited so readily. The memory curdled uneasily in her chest. It reeked of design, of something arranged beyond her knowing.
She turned her attention inward. Elizabeth appeared calmer now than she had been after her encounter with Sylvia. She sat near the bed, a lamp burning low beside her, pen gliding smoothly across parchment. A smile rested on her lips—soft, sincere, and unmistakable. Florence knew that smile well. It only ever bloomed in the presence of money.
Florence drew in a steadying breath. Her mother had always been prepared to barter her away, coin by coin. It was the quiet truth beneath all her suffering.
With careful steps, Florence approached. Elizabeth sensed her immediately and drew the letter closer, shielding it as though it were a living thing.
"If you have something to say," Elizabeth murmured without looking up, "then speak."
Florence's expression was grave, sharpened by dawning certainty.
"That letter," she said evenly, "is for Eulothorne, is it not?"
Elizabeth did not meet her gaze, her pen continuing its measured path. The silence stretched until it grew heavy. At last, she answered coolly, "If the nobility hears you cast dishonor upon their names, I doubt you would live long enough to regret it."
Florence felt nothing but contempt.
Eulothorne was a name she would never revere.
"Then why did he forfeit the dowry?" she pressed. "Is there a reason?"
"I do not possess the mind of a noble," Elizabeth replied sharply, her attention fixed upon the page. "Such things are beyond me."
Florence's voice lowered. "Then the wedding, is it called off?"
Elizabeth finally looked at her, eyes glinting with something unreadable. "Lord Eulothorne will meet you tomorrow night. You may say whatever you wish to him then."
She rose, sealing the letter with wax and tucking it neatly into its envelope. Without another word, Elizabeth left the suite, the parchment in her grasp, leaving Florence alone with the encroaching shadows and the certainty that fate was once again closing in.
Florence was left utterly bewildered. Sleep eluded her through the long, hollow hours of the night; Elizabeth did not return until dawn had already thinned the darkness. When she did, she carried a small pouch heavy with sovereigns, and upon her lips lingered a smile far too eager for such an early hour, an expression Florence scarcely recognized on her mother's face.
"Wake up, Florence. Dress yourself," Elizabeth commanded, her voice brisk, as though the day had already begun without them.
Florence obeyed without protest, careful not to provoke her, watching instead, listening for any sign of what her mother intended.
She stood before the mirror while Elizabeth positioned herself behind her, fingers working with ruthless precision as she drew the corset strings tighter and tighter. Florence's reflection grew unnaturally narrow, her waist cinched to an impossible line. The boning bit into her flesh, and she felt her ribs protest beneath the crushing embrace, breath thinning as though her body itself were being shaped into a silent submission.
Elizabeth moved through the streets of London as though she were already the wife of a nobleman, her gait measured, her back held rigidly straight, every gesture practiced to mirror the manners of the aristocracy. There was a studied grace in her bearing, an imitation worn so long it had nearly become her own.
Elizabeth brought Florence before a vast mansion whose looming silhouette stirred an ache of recognition. It was not new to her eyes. This was the very manor she had once wandered alone in her former life, lost and desperate, begging to be acknowledged as her father's child.
Her breath hitched sharply as memory clawed its way back. Cruel words echoed in her mind, as vivid as if they were being spoken anew, each insult striking with the same brutality as a lash against flesh. She could almost feel the weight of their voices pressing her down, the cold amusement in their stares.
Elizabeth smoothed her dress, fingers lingering as though she had dressed not merely for the visit, but for judgment. Florence knew this ritual well. Her mother had always longed for the Loxleys to see her as something more, something worthy. Yet the family had never been kind, nor forgiving. Had Gillian Loxley not been the foundation of their fortune, they would have cast him aside just as easily.
Florence drew a slow breath. She had long since accepted what she truly was to them, no Loxley at all, only a mistake that bore the name. She remembered being scrutinized like a forgery, asked if she were sired by some other man, as though her very existence were an insult. She remembered the way their ridicule cut into her, sharp and merciless, and how she had fled in tears the moment her father appeared.
Once, she had believed all of it—every wound, every humiliation had been because of him.
The gates creaked open once more, and this time Florence entered beside her mother. As they passed through the long corridor, she forced herself to silence the imagined murmurs; the familiar, venomous whispers that clung to her like cobwebs. She knew what she was. She had always known. There was no need for the truth to be spoken again, no need for it to be sharpened into another blade. Yet tears still burned at the corners of her eyes, treacherous and unbidden.
Elizabeth and Florence were guided to a chamber door bronze-plated, heavy, and cold to the sight, declaring its importance without a single word. It was unmistakably the master's quarters. When the door opened, it revealed a man seated upon the bed, frail and diminished, as though time itself had hollowed him out.
He was old, pallid, and painfully thin, so much so that Florence felt she was staring at a future reflection of herself. Yet when his eyes lifted to her, the sickness in his body did not reach them. A gentle gaze, softened by warmth and something dangerously close to regret, met her own.
"Greetings, Florence."