"From Blissbury?"
Eloise took the letter with a small frown of surprise.
In the yard, Lancelot — who had recently become a father and was patrolling the grounds with intense new purpose — spotted the messenger boy and advanced on him with grave suspicion. Eloise quickly pressed a handful of cookies into the boy's hand. He cast one last wary glance at Lancelot, snatched the cookies, and fled.
"What's happened?"
Mrs. Severton appeared in the doorway, drawn by the commotion, embroidery frame in hand. Half a yellow rose — the Albion symbol of recovery, begun for Mr. Severton — was stitched across the hoop. He had been away a month now.
His godmother's health remained fragile. But her mind, strangely, had sharpened in her final weeks, and she was said to be enjoying long afternoons of reminiscing with Mr. Severton about old times. So his return continued to be delayed.
"I don't know yet."
Eloise studied the envelope. Sergeant Thornton's name. She clicked her tongue inwardly.
The stream of girls who had been running to Blissbury with baskets had dried up some time ago.
The man who had received more food than a king had never once told any of them it was delicious. Instead, in return for each offering, he had sent back the most expensive silk scarf available in Cambon — far finer than the one Julia had been boasting about for weeks.
It had brought no one much joy. An expensive thing loses its shine when every woman in the village has one.
So the Blissbury campaign had ended with all of Feltham's young ladies in possession of identical scarves and no closer to their objective. The mothers were quietly relieved that their rivals' daughters had fared no better than their own. And when a rumour surfaced that Sergeant Thornton already had a fiancée in the capital, the remaining interest cooled quickly. Word soon spread of a new eligible gentleman who had arrived in Cambon, and the same carts that had once headed toward Blissbury now turned in a different direction entirely.
Since then, Eloise had heard almost nothing of Sergeant Thornton's doings.
*So why is he writing now?*
He must think her father had returned and was addressing the letter to the household accordingly. She turned the envelope over to confirm — and stopped.
Her name was written on it. Not her father's. Hers.
"Eloise?"
Mrs. Severton called out at her sudden stillness.
"I received a letter."
"From Sergeant Thornton? For *you?*"
Mrs. Severton was genuinely surprised. The evening Eloise had come back from Blissbury with books and a half-eaten apple pie, she had set the basket on the table, announced that in future it would be better to send the village children on errands to Blissbury, and gone straight to her room.
Mrs. Severton's heart had sunk.
*But they seem to suit each other rather well.*
She had, for the most part, made her peace with the idea that Eloise might not marry. A daughter who had been ill so often as a child, who still weakened with the changing seasons, who was well past the age when such things were arranged without remark — it was too late to make a fuss without inviting pity. And recently the newspapers had been saying that in New York there were more and more women who lived comfortably on their own terms. Perhaps it would be the same for Eloise, in time. Perhaps she would find friends among them.
She had decided this sensibly. It was still difficult to feel it.
The difficulty was that she wasn't sure there existed a man who could genuinely keep up with her daughter, who had grown up half-wild and twice as opinionated. The gentlemen of Cambon tended to leave conversations with Eloise wearing a slightly pained expression.
*"Miss Eloise is very erudite."*
Mrs. Severton knew exactly what that meant. It meant their pride had not survived the encounter intact. And in a village like this, unlike the city, a woman who knew when to be quiet was still considered the greater prize.
And then Sergeant Thornton had arrived. They had argued immediately. But his expression afterward — returning to Blissbury after Eloise had all but lectured him on the Battle of Ingon and the necessity of understanding Lieutenant Colonel Wilgrave — had not been the expression of a man who felt he had been made to look small. He had looked, if anything, slightly amused.
*He seemed to be rather enjoying himself.*
So there was that.
"What does he say? Are you corresponding with him now?" Mrs. Severton's voice had taken on that particular impatient edge that preceded many things Eloise did not wish to discuss.
"That's not possible, Mother. And I don't like him."
"Because he doesn't speak well of Lieutenant Colonel Wilgrave? Well, they served in the same unit — he might simply not have. Great commanders aren't always kind to those beneath them."
Eloise did not want to continue this conversation. She opened the letter without further discussion and held it out for her mother to read before any further theories could form.
"He has questions about the summer ball. Father is still away, so he wrote to me instead."
"Ah... answer him promptly, then. And give my regards to Mrs. Parker."
Mrs. Severton returned to her room, visibly disappointed by the mundane explanation.
---
Upstairs, Eloise sat at her writing table and considered the letter.
Under ordinary circumstances, one would go in person to sort out this kind of thing. She was not going to do that.
Besides, the documents she and her father had left between them were thorough. There should be no serious difficulties. He had probably written out of politeness more than genuine need.
She drafted a polite reply.
*I apologize for being unable to call in person due to ill health. I am happy to answer any questions by correspondence. Please do not hesitate to write if anything is unclear.*
She called the messenger boys, distributed cookies with her usual generosity, and sent it off.
She expected a reply in a few days.
A few hours later, one of her father's regular errand boys ran into the house and thrust an envelope into her hands.
"Urgent, they said. Told me to run."
"Very well."
Eloise took it without particular interest. Whatever had come up was Sergeant Thornton's problem to manage. She would answer in her own time.
She broke the seal.
*Please come to Blissbury immediately upon receipt.*
*Not your Ryan. Another Ryan entirely.*
"—*Ah!*"
The sound escaped her before she could stop it.
*How does he know those words?*
---
An hour later, Eloise arrived at Blissbury entirely out of breath.
She had moved so quickly that her hair had come half-loose and her clothes were in considerable disarray, but there was no time to care about that now. Before Mr. Palmer had fully emerged from the front door to receive her, she was already asking:
"Where is Sergeant Thornton?"
"I'm here."
His voice came from behind Mr. Palmer. She looked up.
Sergeant Thornton stood in the doorway, arms crossed, wearing an expression she could only describe as insufferably smug.
"You — my letter — you read—"
"Before we discuss the letter." Ryan raised a hand and gestured past her toward the two men standing at the entrance to the drive, rigidly ignoring each other with the focused hostility of people actively choosing not to start something. "Miss Severton. I'm going to need you to deal with these two first."