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

dead, bleeding from a shot to the eye. Riders had been thrown from their saddles, their feathered hats rolling in the dust. Horses stomped and shrieked, mouths flecked with foam. Carriages tangled together, lying on their side with dark shapes underneath the wheels. Eleanor was not the only one to have been thrown from a carriage. A young woman in green lay sprawled, her head at an unnatural angle. She wasn’t moving.

Eleanor could not see the little boy.

Someone on horseback was yelling orders. The horses were led away, snapping at coachmen and straining at their bridles. A handful of guardsmen climbed over the railings to help. A horse kicked out at one of them and he fell back, blood twisting through the air.

Something warm trickled down her face. A nursemaid in the crowd saw it and gasped.

‘She’s bleeding! Miss, miss, you’re bleeding!’

A man with dust in his whiskers took Eleanor by the shoulders. ‘Miss? Can you hear me?’

‘Where’s the little boy?’

He frowned. ‘A boy? Miss, please, you’ve hit your head—’

Eleanor shook him off. ‘The child! The one that startled the horse! Where is he?’

The man’s face paled. ‘A child?’

A lump swelled in her throat. ‘I … I saw him go under the carriage.’

The stranger ran towards the wreckage. The crowd poured after him. Flower-sellers let their trays swing around their necks as they went to the wounded. Soldiers and sailors strained to lift the shattered coach. Eleanor slumped against the barrier, retching at the smell of blood.

Gravel sprayed across her legs as someone skidded to a halt beside her.

‘Eleanor? Eleanor, are you hurt? Did you – dear God …’

Charles was standing beside her. He was pale, his hair was mussed, and fear was scrawled across his face.

He scrabbled in his pocket for a handkerchief. ‘Here. Does it hurt? Is it deep?’

She shook her head. He pressed the handkerchief against her cheek. She closed her eyes and leant into the warm weight of his hand.

‘I’m sending you home,’ he said. ‘I want your word that you’ll go straight to Mrs Banbury; she’ll care for you. Tell Mrs Fielding I want Dr Macready sent for if … well. It won’t come to that. But she’s to send for him if it does. Do you understand?’

‘What about Felicity?’

‘Hang Felicity!’ he snapped. ‘Come along. Can you stand?’

There was a scream from the wreck of the carriage. It was thin and high, and she knew it belonged to a child. She lurched forward but Charles held her steady.

‘What the Devil are you thinking? You’re in no condition to—’

‘The little boy! He’s alive – oh God, Charles, he’s still alive! I have to—’

He blocked her path. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are bleeding from the head, Eleanor, and I insist you go home and get that cut seen to. I’ll find the child. Go home. Please.’

Fear flickered in his eyes. Some part of her wanted to keep on arguing, if only to keep him with her, but she said nothing. Charles rolled up his sleeves like a workman and joined those trying to lift the wreckage. Eleanor waited until her head stopped spinning and followed him.

A woman staggered across her path, eyes unfocused. Eleanor put an arm around her shoulders and led her over to the railings, helping her to lean against them before she went back. An apprentice who’d been trying to calm a horse lurched backwards; it had kicked him in the arm and something had snapped. As his friends caught hold of the bridle and held it steady, Eleanor ripped the sleeve off his jacket and bound his arm in place. A girl of eight years old was wandering around, chewing on a finger as she looked tearfully for her mother. Eleanor found her and had her hand wrung by every member of the little girl’s grateful, terrified family.

When they finally let her fingers go she turned back to look for Felicity’s carriage. It was gone.

Eleanor hunched over the kitchen table at Granborough House, holding a damp cloth to her head. One side of her body throbbed and there were scrapes across the backs of her hands. Each twinge was a bright and bitter reminder: she was alive, and others were not.

Water dripped down her cuff. Dust coated her legs. Her dress crackled when she shifted, and shed red-brown flakes of blood. It wasn’t hers. That was what she had to remember. Forget the screaming, forget the bodies, forget the smell of blood and sweat and God knew what else. Focus on the water in her sleeve, the rough wood under her elbows, and remember walking away.

The drawing-room bell rang, again. Eleanor got to her feet as Aoife put a cup of tea in front of her.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Daisy. ‘Does she ever pack it in?’

Mrs Fielding gave her a stern look. ‘You are speaking about the future mistress of this household, Daisy.’

‘More’s the pity,’ Daisy muttered. Mrs Fielding opened her mouth to deliver a lecture on propriety and Eleanor left before she could get started.

Felicity was waiting in the drawing room. It was dark outside, but all the curtains were still wide open.

‘Where’ve you been?’ she snapped. ‘I’ve been ringing for five minutes! Where’s Charles? Have you had word?’

‘No, miss.’

Felicity turned back to the window and watched the rain run down the glass. The dim outline of a lamplighter moved through a yellow haze. The streetlights flickered into life in his wake, fluttering in the cold like moths.

‘Well?’ said Felicity. ‘Don’t loiter; go and do something useful. And make yourself presentable. You’re filthy.’

‘I can’t change, miss. All my things are at the Langham.’

Felicity snorted. ‘Haven’t you a uniform? Put it on. I can’t stand the stench of you. Horses, dirt, and—’

‘And blood,’ Eleanor finished, temper flaring. ‘Of course, miss. I should have considered your comfort. It’s quite clear that you didn’t care for the smell, because you did not come down from your carriage and help anyone.’

‘How dare—’

‘I doubt Master Charles cared for the smell either,’ Eleanor went on, ‘but he went to