Page 53 of To Heist and to Hold

Miss Marlow here to see you. Again.”

Heloise pursed her lips to keep from smiling at the disgust in Strachan’s voice. Putting aside the blade she’d been polishing, she took up a rag and wiped her hands. “Thank you, Strachan. I’ll be in momentarily.”

The other woman scoffed. “As if I’m your messenger, Mrs. High-and-Mighty,” she grumbled as she turned to leave the smithy.

“I can hear you,” Heloise called after her, not bothering to subdue her smile.

“You were meant to,” Strachan snapped back, storming off.

Heloise chuckled as she removed her leather apron and tidied up. But her humor was short lived. As it had been these past two days, ever since she’d said goodbye for the last time to Ethan.

She had a flash of memory then, quick and sharp, but it was enough to grab tight to her lungs and prevent her from drawing breath: Ethan’s face when her blade had struck Mr. Copper, the stark relief in his eyes as he’d rushed to her.

And then his arms about her, so tight she’d thought he would never let her go.

No matter how busy she kept herself, how much she poured into her work, how focused she was on her duties, that memory would insist on surfacing, tormenting her, making her want to run back to him and beg for a chance to remain by his side.

Shaking her head to dispel the idea that their story had a happily-ever-after—especially as, following the events at Dionysus, she had not seen or heard from him once—she finished cleaning up and headed out of the forge and to the main house.

She found Julia in the drawing room, but she was not alone. No, it seemed the whole of the Wimpole Street house had come out to see her.

“I do hope you don’t mind,” Sylvia said with a smile, passing Julia a cup of tea, “but we have all decided to join you this afternoon. We’re anxious to learn what the outcome was of the return of the jewels.”

Not long ago Heloise would have minded, very much.

She felt the echo of sadness for her former self when she thought of how clearly she had drawn the line between personal and business with the Widows.

Now she saw these women for who they truly were: a group of dear friends who genuinely cared about her. She would not close them out again.

“Of course not,” she replied, taking a seat beside Julia. “In fact, if you had not come, I would have called you here. It is all our triumph, after all.”

“Indeed,” Sylvia murmured, eyes shining with emotion.

She turned to Laney at her side then, taking up her hand and pulling it onto her lap, wrapping her fingers about it as if she would never let her go.

“And it gives my darling Laney a chance to be about people instead of locked up in our room with only me for company.”

“I will never complain about being locked up with you,” Laney said, smiling at Sylvia before wincing, hand coming up to gingerly touch her lip.

A split lip, however, was the least of her injuries, the fight from the other night having been a brutal affair.

There was not a place on her face that did not have some sort of cut or bruise.

And her injuries did not end with her face, as was proven as she shifted in her seat and tensed, the hand that had been at her lip dropping to cradle her ribs.

The smile she gave Sylvia, however, belied her physical discomfort.

Julia leaned forward, eyes wide in her face. “But Mrs. Finch, you were incredible. I have never seen two women fighting before.”

“You didn’t see Laney’s fight, either,” Heloise drawled with a grin. “What little time we spent in the boxing venue, I rather think you watched the floor much more than you watched Laney.”

“Yes, well,” Julia said, giving her a sheepish look. Her eyes, Heloise noticed, were clear, and dancing with wry mirth. “That, however, does not negate my admiration.”

“Nor mine,” Iris piped up, leaning forward, eyes wide with excitement.

“It was quite fascinating. I wonder,” she mused, largely to herself, as she fiddled with a small triangle of sandwich on her plate, dismantling it in her inattentiveness, “what prompts the human species to pummel each other in such a manner for mere enjoyment.”

“I do wish I had been able to witness it myself,” Euphemia grumbled. “I missed everything.”

Sylvia held the platter of biscuits out to her, as if offering her a consolation prize. “I am sorry, my dear. But know you had the most important job of the evening, and we could not have caught Mr. Copper and recovered the jewels without you.”

“Well,” Euphemia said with a pout and yet a pleased blush, taking a biscuit from the platter, “I suppose that does help some.”

“But we are getting off track,” Sylvia said, turning to Julia. “I’m dying to hear how things went with your employer. Or,” she continued with a hopeful cock of her head, “judging by your relaxed expression, shall we call her your former employer?”

“You may,” Julia replied. She gave a happy sigh as she placed her teacup down. “Lady Ayersley received her jewelry back with little grace. But then, I did not expect anything more from her. She showed more emotion when I told her immediately after that I would be leaving her service.”

“I’m proud of you, Julia,” Heloise said around the sudden tightness in her throat. Here was this girl she had helped to raise, now a woman, coming out the other side of a horrendous situation with a smile on her face. “Gregory would be proud of you.”

Julia turned bright eyes on her. “Do you think so?”

“I know so.” Reaching out, she took her hand. “And now we shall help you get back on your feet. Don’t worry a bit; we shall find something new for you.”

“Oh, but you needn’t do that,” Julia said. “I have already secured a position.”

Heloise blinked. “You have? But how?”

“I have told you of Miss Newberg, Lady Ayersley’s cousin who has been staying with us for some months?

” At Heloise’s nod she continued. “She overheard my last… conversation with Lady Ayersley and approached me as I was about to depart. It appears she is in need of a companion for her travels. She has asked me to accompany her.” She grinned, squeezing Heloise’s hand. “I shall travel the world, Heloise.”

Something lifted from Heloise’s shoulders at that, a burden she had been carrying for too long. She felt it then, the release from that promise she had made Gregory, for Julia, it seemed, was well and truly grown now.

“I am happy for you, dearest,” she managed through a throat tight with unshed tears.

The rest of Julia’s visit passed swiftly, the time cheerfully spent talking of her bright future. Too soon, however, it was time for her to go.

“Miss Newberg has secured rooms for us to stay in until we depart,” Julia said as they all stood. She grinned. “It seems she liked her cousin even less than I did, which truly is saying something, and could not wait to escape her house. But I shall be certain to visit before I leave. I promise.”

“I shall make certain you keep that promise,” Heloise replied.

Most of the Widows said their goodbyes then and returned to their rooms. Sylvia, however, gracious hostess that she was, accompanied Heloise down to the ground floor with Julia.

“I shall see you soon,” Heloise managed, pulling Julia in for a hug.

Julia hugged her back, slender arms tight about her. And then tearful words sounded in her ear: “Thank you so much, Heloise. For everything.”

In the next moment she descended the front steps, was handed up into Sylvia’s carriage—which Sylvia had insisted she use—and waved cheerfully from the window.

And then she was off, the carriage clattering down the street.

Heloise watched until it was out of sight, painfully aware of the mix of sadness and happiness swirling in her breast. She had loved Julia like a sister, yet at the same time had been painfully aware of the burden of having to watch over her.

She saw now, however, what a blessing that “burden” had been. And she would miss it, would miss her .

Suddenly Sylvia was at her side, arm going about her waist. “Well, it looks like Julia has finally found her place in the world,” she said. She turned to Heloise. “Now that the chick has left the nest, perhaps it is time for the mother bird to find her own wings.”

Why, she wondered, did that make her yearn so desperately for Ethan? She forcefully ignored the ache in her chest and smiled. “I have found my own wings, here with all of you. There is no other place I would rather be.”

Sylvia, however, must have heard the lie in the words. “Isn’t there, though?” she murmured. Then, giving Heloise a wink, she disappeared inside the house, leaving her alone on the front steps with only her futile dreams for comfort.

Dreams that did not disappear as the day wore on. No, they only grew, swelling like the tide until, finally, in the lonely quiet of her bed, they could not be ignored any longer.

“Ethan,” she whispered into the darkness, as if giving voice to her longing could ease it.

But it only made it more acute, the soft echo of his name making her realize how desperately she missed him.

She bit her lip, squeezing her eyes tight against the wave of grief that crashed over her.

But her efforts were no help. The warmth of tears tracked down her temples and into her hair, a sob escaping her lips.

In the next moment she was on her side, her body curled in on itself, her face pressed into her pillow in an attempt to quiet the cries that were being expelled from her heaving chest with a force that stunned her.

God, she missed him so much, loved him so much.

How could she live the rest of her life without him?

As if determined to torment her even further, her mind conjured again that last embrace with him.

She had fought against the memory of it with every inch of her being, knowing it would destroy her.

Now, however, she was too weak to fight it any longer, too weak to push it away.

She could still feel his arms wrapped about her, his hands cradling her as if she were something infinitely precious.

But other details of that embrace came back to her now, simultaneously filling her up and beating her down: his chest heaving, the way he’d pulled back as if to verify she was well before pulling her back in again, how it had felt as if they were in their own world as chaos erupted about them…

His words, low and desperate in her ear, “Oh, thank God, love. I would have died if anything had happened to you.”

The sobs that had been falling from her lips suddenly stopped, the breath hitching painfully in her chest. Did she remember that right? But no, it was just said in the heat of the moment, when emotions had been running high. He hadn’t meant it.

But then a question whispered in her mind: What if he did?

Hope, that damned hope she had been fighting against, was resurrected in her heart, growing stronger with each steady beat.

Copper’s words came back to her then, a comment that had struck her like a fist to the stomach at the time but that she had forgotten until now: “With Mrs. Marlow’s life on the line, you’re more likely to behave. We all know you’re in love with her.”

In the moment, she had fully expected Ethan to refute it. She knew he didn’t love her, and so declaring that fact, the right thing to do in that volatile situation, should have been easy and quick. Copper had been holding her hostage to control Ethan, after all.

Yet Ethan had not denied it. Oh, she had watched him, bracing herself for the pain when he did.

But the words had never come. Instead he’d looked as if he were fighting some great battle within himself, a battle he lost. Had he been unable to refute the claim that he loved her, then, because it would have been a lie?

She was out of bed and on her feet before she knew what she was about. Was there every chance that she was reading into things? Yes. But that small chance he did love her, that sliver of light at the end of the dark tunnel she’d believed her future to be, could not, would not be ignored.

She lit a lamp and went to the wardrobe, pulling out the first thing she could get her hands on.

She would go to Dionysus and find out, once and for all, if they had a chance together, even if she was destroyed in the process.

Which, she thought as she pulled her gown over her head with shaking hands, she very well could be.