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

help the wounded just the same. Does he know you waited in your carriage, while all those people were bleeding?’

Felicity had gone pale. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she whispered. ‘What good could I have done?’

‘I don’t know, miss. Nor does anyone, because you didn’t do it.’

‘Why, you little—’

Eleanor held up a hand. ‘Call me what names you choose, miss. It shan’t change what you did.’

Felicity’s mask fell away. For the first time Eleanor saw her for what she really was: a lone woman bobbing in the water, snatching at anything that might keep her from drowning. Eleanor tried to feel sorry for her, and felt nothing.

A carriage pulled up to the front door. Moments later, Charles came into the drawing room. Exhausted, filthy, and pale, he could have passed for a man ten years his senior. He collapsed into the nearest chair with a groan. Felicity sprang up, panic flashing across her face.

‘Charles, darling! Are you all right? Hartley, fetch him something to eat. And brandy. Be quick about it!’

He shook his head. ‘No need to trouble yourselves. I couldn’t eat a thing.’

He tried to smile. It came out more like a grimace. Felicity knelt beside him and took his hand.

‘Really, dearest, you must at least try to …’

‘No, I couldn’t. I’ve … I’ve come from the hospital. They were quite overwhelmed when we arrived. Typhus, along with everything else.’

Felicity took her hand away. Charles didn’t seem to notice.

‘We were too late for most of them.’

‘Sir,’ said Eleanor, ‘what happened to the little boy?’

Charles gave her a sad smile. ‘He survived, but they had to amputate his leg. It couldn’t be saved.’

Eleanor remembered the screaming – the hollow, awful screaming – and wanted to scrub it from her thoughts. The boy had been three years old. Three years old, and he’d lost his leg.

Charles turned to Felicity. ‘I’m afraid his parents weren’t so lucky. I’ve offered him a home with us, when he’s recovered. I’m not sure how long that may take.’

Felicity straightened up.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Both his parents were killed, and he has no relatives who could afford to take him in—’

‘You promised that urchin a home? Charles, you don’t know the boy!’

‘What other choice did I have?’

‘He has relatives of his own, does he not? He can stay with them!’

‘His relatives,’ said Charles, sitting up straight and glaring at Felicity, ‘are nine living in one room! They have seven children, all of them working, and they still cannot afford to pay their rent, let alone for the medical care the child will need—’

‘Oh, Charles, you’re being ridiculous. They’ll know how to make ends meet!’

‘The child will starve!’

‘Don’t be silly! There’s always the workhouse—’

‘The workhouse? How can you even suggest that?’

‘How can you make such an offer to a stranger? You know nothing about the boy! Who are his people? Has he been brought up in a decent Christian household? My God, Charles, he could be a savage for all you know!’

‘He is a child. He has no one, no means of income, nothing! Without someone to take him in he shall be reduced to begging! I can give him a better life, Felicity!’

Felicity spun around and glared at Eleanor.

‘Hartley, leave us!’

‘Yes, miss,’ Eleanor muttered, and ran from the room.

The front door slammed three times that night.

The first was not long after Eleanor had rushed back to the warmth of the kitchen. When Charles and Felicity took their argument into the hall, she could hear the shouting at the foot of the servants’ staircase. Daisy climbed it, so she could listen better.

The second was almost two hours later. Eleanor sat at the kitchen table, worrying at the cuffs of her dress. It was past ten o’clock, and Felicity had not sent for her. Daisy and Aoife were rolling out their straw pallets and Mrs Banbury had already changed into her nightgown. Even Mrs Fielding had unpinned her hair. Eleanor was shocked to see how much grey there was in it.

‘Do you think I ought to go back to the hotel?’ Eleanor asked, plucking at her sleeve. ‘Miss Darling might not manage without me.’

‘If she wanted you, she would have sent for you,’ Mrs Fielding said. ‘Best if you stay here. You ought not to be out at this hour.’

Mrs Banbury patted her hand. ‘She can unlace her own corsets tonight, Ella. You stop along with us.’

‘May I remind you, Mary, that any talk about the corsets of the future mistress of this house is most—’

‘Oh, give over, Bertha,’ said Mrs Banbury, yawning. ‘You can rap my knuckles in the morning.’

The door slammed. When they went up to look, Eleanor saw her suitcase dripping quietly on the marble floor. Mrs Fielding laid a hand on her shoulder.

‘It’s for the best, I’m sure,’ she murmured.

And that was that. No more lady’s maid. The only things Eleanor would miss would be the wages and the hotel dinners. At least now she could keep an eye on Aoife.

The third time the front door slammed was much later. Clean and dry, Eleanor lay in her bed and listened to the yelling coming from Mr Pembroke’s study. When the door slammed this time, she had no idea if it had been Charles or his father who’d stormed into the rain.

The moment the house was quiet, Eleanor went down to the library. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the blood splashed across the dirt. She had to have something to chase out the screaming in her head.

She crept along the corridor on silent feet. A fairy tale was what she needed, something Mrs Pembroke might have read to her. She ached all over and her legs wouldn’t stop shaking. Tonight, she would not sleep unless she believed that ugliness could be transformed into beauty with a magic word and that the good and kind would be rewarded. If her head was full of castles in the snow and under the sea, there would be no room for anything else.

Something cold knocked against her foot. Eleanor clapped a