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

turn off Piccadilly in her fine shawl, she’d be lucky if she was only robbed. Still, she had to try. If she was careful, she might see Charles or Aoife, or find out if Leah had tried to visit again.

From the square opposite, Granborough House looked shabby and damp. It hunkered over the street like an enormous toadstool, water stains weeping from every window. Fog curled around the railings like a cloud of spores.

If Eleanor hadn’t known better it might have been shut up for the winter. All the windows were dark and the front steps were grimy. The coach house brooded next to it, a squat, dark shape in the fog. Now and then a hansom would pass by, and the light from its lamps would glitter over the smashed windows like broken teeth.

It should have looked like a castle in a fairy tale. That would make her feel better about all the years she had spent cooped up in her garret. But there was no romance in the flaking shutters, no hint of Gothic mystery in the warped and swollen window frames. It was a sponge of a house, soaking up rainwater and grime, and seeing it clearly was disappointing.

Eleanor watched the coach house.

It was easy to tell when it was occupied. Everything inside had been sold or stolen long ago – start a fire inside and the flames would cast orange light through every broken window. But Eleanor saw nothing; Leah was not there. Disappointment washed over her. Despite the shelter the coach house provided against the clammy February fogs – and the friends who might help Leah if she stayed near to Granborough House – it was too much of a risk. Still, she waited, half-hidden behind a damp plane tree. Leah might not be there, but she might catch a glimpse of Aoife, or Charles.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a quick flurry of curtains in the window of Granborough House. Was it Charles? Aoife? She went back to her spot in the square and waited, staring up at the dirty glass.

That Sunday, Eleanor saw Mrs Cleary’s coach and four as she went to church, rolling through crowds of churchgoers heading in the opposite direction. Mrs Cleary was not inside. Standing in the cold and surrounded by her whispering neighbours, Eleanor was riddled with envy. Bessie had been gossiping with the neighbours, and Eleanor brought silence and a flurry of whispering in her wake whenever she set foot in church, even though she’d been in Peckham for nearly two months. But not only did Mrs Cleary not have to put up with Eleanor’s fellow worshippers – Mrs Cleary’s coach was trundling in the direction of the Catholic church – she didn’t even have to leave her home. Sending the coach on her behalf was enough of a gesture to keep people satisfied, whereas Eleanor had to sit up straight and look devoutly attentive while everyone whispered behind her back.

The moment she got home, Eleanor wrote another letter to Mrs Cleary, asking for advice she did not need. When she finally secured an invitation to dinner, it took everything Eleanor had not to dance around her drawing room. This was her chance.

Mr Pembroke’s money was going to run out, and soon. Eleanor was not a lady in the real sense yet: she didn’t have to work and she had the right manners, but without the money that meant nothing. She couldn’t afford to dress the part, to buy first-class train tickets, to be seen at the right places in the right company. She couldn’t afford to search for Leah properly, or to search for Aoife one day. She needed a wealthy benefactor. That would be Mrs Cleary.

Of course, Eleanor could always marry. She had not heard from Charles, after all, and his father would be pushing him at the nearest heiress the moment the Season started. Why should she wait for him, when he would not be allowed to wait for her? But the thought left smeary fingerprints over all her daydreams. Standing by the altar with a faceless stranger would be a betrayal. Still, it might not be so bad. Her neighbours were all avoiding her, apart from Mrs Cleary, and if Eleanor married at least she’d have someone to talk to.

But she did have someone to talk to – albeit someone she neither trusted nor understood. It was Bessie’s afternoon off and the house was quiet, but still, Eleanor shut the drawing-room door before she spoke.

‘Can you come out? I’d like to talk with you, if I may.’

Sparks spat out of the grate as a piece of coal shifted. Eleanor stared around, looking for the black-eyed woman. She faded into view, the pattern of the sofa slowly bleeding into her printed calico dress, all the colours blurring together. She smiled at Eleanor.

‘Hello, dear,’ she said. She looked around the drawing room. ‘You are moving up in the world, it seems.’

Eleanor blushed. ‘All thanks to you, of course.’

The black-eyed woman inclined her head.

‘Although I must admit,’ Eleanor probed, ‘I’m not quite sure why you’d go to all this trouble on my account.’

‘We struck a bargain. I am bound to keep it, by laws greater than us both.’

‘But … why did you appear to me? I cannot have been the only one in Granborough House to have read from that book.’

The black-eyed woman smiled and took Eleanor’s hand. ‘It is not enough to read from the book. I require something a little stronger.’ She traced a line across one of Eleanor’s gloved fingertips. ‘This was where the mark was made. Don’t you remember?’

Eleanor shook her head. The woman’s smile widened.

‘Of course. There are so many things that you do not remember.’

Her tone was like fingers on Eleanor’s neck. Unbidden, Eleanor remembered Lizzie, screaming at her that she’d bitten Mrs Fielding. Lizzie had been lying, of course. She smoothed out her skirts as an excuse to take her hand away.

‘I wonder if I might