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

so many letters for me, I daresay I’d post a few for you.’

As her strength returned, Eleanor tried to be cheerful. Mr Pembroke’s agreement was in Eleanor’s case and soon she would be leaving Granborough House behind. Aoife would be coming with her and, best of all, she had promised to help Eleanor communicate with Charles. And, of course, Eleanor’s latest wish had shown that there was a way to bring the wishes back under her control. The black-eyed woman would have to take a life, but Eleanor could hold her back from wholesale destruction.

She was not foolish enough to think that made her safe.

The black-eyed woman was in the shadows at the corner of the room. Eleanor had thought it was empty, but the crumpled dust sheets had become the shape of her skirts, the legs of the washstand became the folds of her dress. She saw Eleanor watching, and winked.

The door swung open.

‘So,’ Mr Pembroke slurred, ‘you did it, then.’

He slumped against the doorframe, his clothes half-undone and reeking of brandy. Eleanor glanced towards the black-eyed woman, still waiting in the shadows, but her smile only widened. Mr Pembroke stumbled into the room without seeing her.

‘As you see,’ Eleanor said.

Mr Pembroke fumbled in his jacket pocket and threw a wad of papers at her – the deeds to her house and the first instalment of her allowance. She felt a pang as she riffled through them. She’d gambled for such a little thing.

He plopped down on the foot of her bed. ‘You don’t regret it.’

‘Do you?’

He glanced at Charles, still slumped in his chair. Even in sleep, dark circles sprawled under his eyes. Eleanor shifted. It was only when she looked at Charles – drowning under the weight of guilt and sorrow – that she wished she hadn’t taken Mr Pembroke’s deal.

‘You set the terms of the agreement,’ she said. ‘I would have had the child.’

He shot her a sharp look. ‘And tied yourself to my son forever. I did what was best for him and, in time, he will thank me for it.’

The black-eyed woman still stood in the corner of the room, smiling. Mr Pembroke had walked right past her. Eleanor had realized months before that the black-eyed woman had taken a shape from her own imagination. Was that the only place that she existed? When Eleanor took the woman’s hand, did she feel the clasp of her cold fingers only because Eleanor imagined she ought to feel something? Was she even there at all?

Eleanor gathered up her papers and put them in order, forcing her wayward thoughts back into line. Of course the black-eyed woman was there. Eleanor’s wishes had come true, what else could be happening if the black-eyed woman was not granting them? She had chosen to appear only to Eleanor. It was another trick of hers, meant to put doubts in Eleanor’s head.

‘Are you going to tell him?’

Mr Pembroke fell silent. They both looked at Charles again, the lines on his face thrown into sharp relief by the guttering candle.

‘Don’t breathe a word of this to him,’ Mr Pembroke muttered. ‘It would destroy him, if he found out.’

‘I won’t,’ Eleanor agreed. ‘You’d break his heart.’

The black-eyed woman melted back into the shadows. The last thing to go was her grin.

When Eleanor opened her eyes, she realized she was not in Granborough House. There was a faded yellow quilt on the bed instead of crisp white sheets. Pale green curtains let in a wash of pond-like light. The floorboards were bare, there was a smell of new plaster, and Charles was gone.

Eleanor pushed herself upright and morphine swirled around her. The colours twisted, sharpened, melted under her gaze. She lurched over to the window and looked onto an unfamiliar street. She was surrounded by neat rows of houses, each one two storeys tall and barely stained by smoke. Carts rattled along the street, and from somewhere close by came the shriek of a train whistle.

Eleanor clung to the curtain. Where were the parks? Where were the spires of Westminster Abbey, slicing through the fog? Where were the music halls, bleary and quiet in the morning light? A church bell rang, tolling ten o’clock, and Eleanor flinched. It sounded so wrong.

She was not in Mayfair any more.

Her case was at the foot of her bed. On top of her neatly folded things was a letter. She recognized Charles’s rounded hand and a lump came into her throat.

She pulled on her shawl and went downstairs.

The house smelled of display: polish, plaster and paint. Upstairs were two bedrooms, hers and a smaller one. Downstairs was a tiled hall, a drawing room at the front and a dining room at the back, both cheaply papered. Further back was a kitchen, filled with clattering pans and the hiss of boiling water.

A short, dark-haired woman a few years older than Eleanor was standing by the stove. She grinned when she saw Eleanor.

‘Hallo, miss! Cuppa tea?’

Eleanor clung to the doorframe. ‘Where am I?’

The woman nodded. ‘They said you wasn’t well. It’s your new place, and I’m your new maid. Bessie Banbury.’

The room tilted. ‘I … what? Where’s Aoife?’

‘Who?’

Bessie took her arm and steered her into a drawing-room chair. Apart from a limp sofa and an empty bookcase the room was bare, like set-dressing in an unfamiliar play. Any minute now, a wall would roll back on its casters and Eleanor would be staring at the audience, listening to them laugh.

Bessie came in with a cup of tea and thrust it at Eleanor. It slopped over Eleanor’s lap.

‘Are we in London?’

Bessie pulled a face. ‘Peckham,’ she said. ‘Not too far from the station, though.’

‘How long have I been asleep?’

Bessie shrugged. ‘Not sure. You slept all the way here. Auntie Mary said you’d been told.’

Eleanor set down her cup with a rattle, seething. No one had told her anything. Mr Pembroke had drugged her, bundled her up like old rags and shut her out of sight.

‘He can’t do