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Marlowe had not even attempted a dramatic farewell.

His letter—brief, precise, folded into quarters—had arrived just before she did.

The posting was official. Abroad, indefinite.

“I release you with goodwill,” he wrote, as if she were a charge to be discharged, a debt cleared by time and tide. He made it sound noble.

She made a sound then—half-laugh, half-exhale—and looked out again.

Mrs. Gardiner sat opposite, hands clasped loosely, eyes patient but observant. She had not spoken much since they passed the last tollgate. Perhaps she sensed that words would not hold just now.

It was past noon when the carriage creaked to a halt at the edge of a small, tree-lined lane.

The cottage came into view slowly: modest, ivy-wrapped, its stone chimney tracing a fine line of smoke into the grey sky.

Mrs. Gardiner’s sister stood in the doorway, her apron dusted in flour and her smile wary but warm.

Elizabeth descended slowly, her legs stiff from the journey.

The cold struck immediately, a dry chill that swept across her collarbones and down her sleeves.

She followed the crunch of her aunt’s boots along the stone path, boots she had once borrowed herself, years ago, in this very place. Derbyshire.

She had been here before.

The inside of the cottage was just as she remembered—low-beamed ceilings, tapestries faded from age, the scent of woodsmoke and lavender. Elizabeth accepted tea with a nod and moved toward the fire, blinking back a sudden sting in her eyes.

She had made it. Away. She should feel safe.

Instead, her hands drifted to her pocket. Letters from her parents, penned before they knew she was leaving London, and pressed into her hand two days ago when they had left Jane at Longbourn, because it “would spare them the expense of the post.”

She withdrew the note from her mother first.

It was short—brisk, dismissive, and written in the same over-firm strokes her mother used when ordering lace by post. There was no “dear,” no inquiry after health, no sense that her daughter had lately stood at the center of a scandal reported from Kent to Cumberland.

Just a reference to “your unfortunate choices” , followed by an assurance that “no one is speaking of it anymore, so there is no reason to dwell,” and a closing line that read: “Perhaps this will finally teach you the value of holding your tongue.”

Elizabeth read it twice. She should not have.

There was no cruelty in the words. Her mother never wrote with cruelty.

But neither did she write with the faintest awareness of what it meant to be wounded by someone who insisted she meant well.

That was always the trick of it—Mrs. Bennet’s ability to injure without malice, to crush something delicate beneath her heel and then tut about the mud.

Elizabeth folded the letter with fingers too steady and tucked it aside.

Her father’s note was next.

Droll, as expected. Disappointed, as feared. But no warmer.

“I suppose the next pamphlet will declare you a pirate or a prophetess,” he wrote, “In either case, please spare us the expense of rescuing you.”

No instructions. No comfort. Only the same weary amusement he used for garden floods and poor harvests.

Elizabeth smiled grimly. At least she was still good for a joke.

She returned both letters to her pocket. The fire snapped softly in the hearth.

Neither had asked how she fared.

But then again—what answer could she give?

There had been a time—not so long ago—when she would have laughed. Now she only wondered which sounded more forgivable: piracy or prophecy. At least pirates took what they wanted openly. She had claimed virtue and played martyr, and still managed to scandalize half of London.

She folded both and tucked them back. The fire cracked softly.

Upstairs, her trunk had already been placed in the smaller guest room. Outside, the hills stretched wide and endless. It would snow before nightfall. She could smell it in the air.

Elizabeth pressed her palms to the windowsill and watched the wind pull across the grasses.

She had run, yes. But to what?

She would not call it healing. That implied something was worth mending. No—this was more like cauterization. No one stitched up a mess like hers. They burned the edges and prayed it would scar cleanly.

Not to peace. Not yet.

But perhaps to a pause.

And for now, a pause would have to do.

27 January

T he sun had not yet cleared the ridge, but the halls of the Hartley house were already warm with the scent of baking bread and wood smoke.

Elizabeth sat at the long kitchen table with her hands curled around a teacup that had once belonged to Mrs. Gardiner’s mother—a delicate thing with a hairline crack that made it leak if held too high.

She sipped cautiously, watching the steam rise in curls toward the beams above.

It was quiet in the way only respectable homes could be—furnished with discipline, softened by comfort. Mr. Gardiner had not yet appeared from his room, likely still absorbed in whatever dry newspaper had accompanied him from London.

Mrs. Gardiner sat opposite her, leisurely buttering a slice of toast and remarking on the welcome strength of Derbyshire tea.

Across the hall, the faint clatter of crockery and a cheery whistle drifted from the kitchen.

Mrs. Hartley entered from the corridor with a handkerchief in hand and the unhurried composure of a woman whose household rarely demanded her haste.

A housemaid entered a moment later with the morning post gathered neatly in a small tray. “Letters from Matlock, ma’am,” she said, offering it to Mrs. Hartley first.

Mrs. Hartley accepted the stack and flipped briskly through the envelopes. “One for you, Madeline,” she said, plucking a thick cream-colored square from the pile. “Lady Chiswell’s hand, unless I mistake it.”

Mrs. Gardiner glanced at it with a faint wince. “That woman never writes without an agenda.”

Elizabeth raised her teacup. “All the best women do.”

“True.” Mrs. Hartley opened the letter with no ceremony, smoothing it flat against the table.

Her eyes scanned the page once—twice—then gave a quiet huff of amusement.

“It appears Lady Chiswell means to hold a Twelfth Night gathering after all. She delayed it due to her nephew’s illness over the holiday, but it seems that now that he is on the mend, she has decided to host the thing anyway—though she is calling it something else entirely to avoid the appearance of superstition. ”

She passed the letter toward her sister. “Is she still threatening those nonsense games? I thought last year’s pudding fiasco would have cured her of that.”

Mrs. Gardiner took the page with a bemused sound. “Apparently not. She promises singing, parlor tricks, and ‘a surprise event sure to amuse even the gravest among us.’” She glanced sidelong at Elizabeth. “Her words. Not mine.”

Mrs. Hartley gave a quiet snort. “If she tries that again, I am still owed an apology for the year she made us add up our own ages in public. I had three proposals and not one survived the evening.”

Mrs. Gardiner laughed. “Oh, I remember that. Was that the same winter you slipped on the terrace and insisted it was the fault of the syllabub?”

“Only because I saw the syllabub again when I hit the stones,” Mrs. Hartley replied cheerfully.

The laughter softened, settling into something warmer.

“Well,” Mrs. Hartley continued, straightening the letter, “if we mean to accept, we had better stay more than one night. No sense dragging everyone across the hills again, especially if there is to be music or a midnight supper.”

“I was thinking the same,” Mrs. Gardiner said, accepting the letter once more. “Lady Chiswell offers guest rooms for all of us. And I do not see the harm in a little nonsense. It may do us good.”

“We should speak to our husbands,” Mrs. Hartley added, already half-rising. “If they object, they may stay behind and mind the hearth.”

Elizabeth did not argue. But she did not smile either.

She had once thought the same—new faces, fresh air, a change of perspective. But her perspective had sharpened, not softened, and each new face only reminded her of one she would not see again.

Still. She could play the agreeable guest.

Even if it killed her.