The Shadow in the Glass by JJA Harwood (any book recommendations txt) 📕

enough work. Eleanor wiped down the windows with vinegar and water, swept the carpets with damp tea leaves, black-leaded every grate and shook the shape back into Charles’s old mattress, punching the feather bed until her arms ached and her eyes began to water. The vinegar stung the cuts on her hands, she kept flicking the tea leaves onto her dress and the black-leading was still lodged under her fingernails, no matter how hard she scrubbed.

Now, she and Aoife were in Mr Pembroke’s study. Eleanor hated being there. The memory of the night she’d drugged Mr Pembroke seemed seared into her, and she could not stop glancing at the decanters. Aoife did not notice, shaking damp tea leaves across the carpet and humming as she swept them up again, grey with dust and ash.

Aoife finished sweeping and straightened up. ‘I’ll go and tip this lot out,’ she yawned, ‘I’ll not be long.’

Eleanor finished dusting one portrait and moved on to the next. It showed a man in the wig and embroidered coat of the last century, and as she climbed onto a chair to reach the top of the frame Eleanor recognized Mr Pembroke’s dark, wet eyes in the painted face. She shuddered.

There were voices coming from the corridor.

‘Come now, you needn’t be frightened. It’s such a little question.’

Eleanor heard Aoife’s voice. Her stomach lurched.

‘Fifteen, sir.’

‘Fifteen! I ought to have known. You’re such a fresh little thing. You’re quite a child …’

Disgust, anger and fear churned under Eleanor’s skin. She jumped down from the chair and burst through the study door. Mr Pembroke was standing a little way down the corridor, leaning over Aoife as she clutched the pan of dusty tea leaves like a shield.

Eleanor faltered. It had been more than a week since that night in the study, and she had not seen Mr Pembroke since. She had picked up his laundry, tidied the papers scattered across his desk and made his bed, and still she had not seen him. Once or twice, she could have sworn she heard footsteps suddenly stop when she passed along a corridor, but when she turned to look behind her there was never anyone there.

Nerves roiled in the pit of her stomach. Forcing him to drink the brandy had seemed like an excellent idea at the time but now, with his bulk blocking the way to the servants’ staircase, she was not so certain. How much did he remember? How much would he punish her for?

He started back when he saw Eleanor.

‘Ella,’ he said, his eyes flickering to her empty hands.

Eleanor forced herself to curtsey, teeth gritted. ‘You’ll have to excuse us, sir. We’ll only be a moment, and then you may have the use of your study again. Aoife, come and give me a hand with the carpet.’

She held the door open and Aoife scurried inside. Mr Pembroke turned his gaze to Eleanor, his mouth set. He looked at her for a long time, his large hands clenching and unclenching like twitching spiders.

After a while Eleanor said, in her most careful voice, ‘May I be excused, sir?’

‘Ella,’ he muttered, ‘I … I seem to remember we had some kind of disagreement.’

Doubt was scrawled across his face and his eyes were pleading; it was a question, not a statement. Eleanor felt a thrill of triumph and kept her face blank. ‘Sir?’

‘You … you were …’

‘Are you quite well, sir? Should I send for a doctor?’

His hands twitched again. ‘A doctor? I don’t need a—’ He broke off, squinting at her face. ‘Have your eyes always been blue?’

Eleanor fought to stay calm but inside, she was reeling. The black-eyed woman’s face flashed across her memory, empty but for the grin. Had he seen her, that night in the study?

She kept her voice slow and measured, as though talking to a distressed child. ‘Of course my eyes are blue, sir,’ she said, watching her words pick away at his confidence, ‘and they’ve never been anything else.’

Mr Pembroke nodded, his face very pale. He strode towards the main staircase and disappeared up it, and it sounded a little like running.

Eleanor had been dreading the arrival of Sunday morning. A distant clock chimed two and her eyes snapped open. The awful knowledge that the day had arrived coiled around her like a snake.

She knew what the woman was, now.

She was a demon. Beelzebub himself had sent her to whisper in Eleanor’s ear and she’d fallen into his trap. She ought to have known better. Hadn’t she sat through enough sermons? She’d made Eve’s mistake and listened to temptation, when the woman’s flat, black eyes should have told Eleanor all she needed to know. Her silken promises had turned to iron around Eleanor’s wrists, and she’d bartered away her soul. And today, she was going to have to go to church and face what she had done.

They walked to church two by two. Eleanor kept her eyes downcast and saw only mud and rats until the shadow of the church loomed over her. The rest of the congregation filed in while Eleanor hesitated at the lychgate. The gravestones jutted out of the ground like jagged teeth, ready to tear her into pieces.

The sweat inside her gloves felt like blood dripping from her fingers. She’d sold her soul, her soul, and now Lizzie was dead.

‘Ella!’ Mrs Fielding hissed. ‘Come along!’

Eleanor was to blame, even though the butcher’s boy had been the one to drown Lizzie. Guilt wrapped itself around her like a corset laced too tight. And, she thought, churches were holy ground – what would happen when she went through the lychgate? She’d been to church twice and nothing had happened, even though she’d already struck her bargain. But things were different, now she knew what she had done.

‘Ella!’

Would the reverend be able to tell? Of course he would, she thought; he was a holy man, he would know these things. Dear Lord, what if he denounced her from the pulpit? What if he started yelling like