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returned to take her tray, she was staring at the wall. Squares of brighter blue and gold alternated with faded strips. Traces of the pictures that had been removed.
    “Are you finished, miss?” asked the maid, dubiously. Ella had managed only two biscuits. The ham lay untouched.
    Ella nodded. Then she said, “Yes, thank you.”
    Emboldened, the maid rose onto her toes. “And are you quite all right, miss?”
    “Quite all right,” echoed Ella, an answer she could see afforded little satisfaction. The maid, taking up the tray and preparing to bounce off again, nearly crashed into the woman entering the room.
    “I’m sorry, Mrs. Trombly,” she gasped, bobbing her head, and more precariously, the tray, before launching herself through the doorway.
    “Not at all,” murmured Mrs. Trombly, smiling at Ella. She was a short woman, with graying chestnut hair swept away from a narrow face rendered lovely by large, wide-spaced hazel eyes. She came forward and sat lightly on the blue damask chair. Ella smiled too. She resisted the urge to play with the edges of the coverlet and met Mrs. Trombly’s eyes.
    “How do you feel?” asked Mrs. Trombly. She had a pleasant, cultured voice with a timbre that struck Ella as somehow familiar. She didn’t wait for Ella to answer. This haste, and a certain breathlessness, betrayed her embarrassment. “I am Mrs. Louisa Trombly,” she said. “I want to welcome you into my house. I understand this introduction is most irregular. I took an unpardonable liberty bringing you here, but I hope you can pardon it. Your collapse was shocking. No one knew what to do. No one but Miss Seymour.”
    Ella dropped her gaze. The dizziness had returned. Her gorge was rising. Miss Seymour. The flickering lights, the cloying scent of the smoke, the shrill voices. Ella swallowed hard. The gulf into which her last hours, last days, had disappeared was filling in with sights and sounds. She rather wished it wouldn’t.
    She had convulsed in front of dozens of people. An audience had watched her writhe on the ground. Her blood ran cold as her thoughts took an even more dire turn. Surely Mrs. Trombly wasn’t the sort of woman who would want to inquire into her identity? She was clearly a gently bred lady, a lady of the
ton
. She might very well move in the same circles as her cousin. But few people in London even knew of her existence, and Alfred would hardly have advertised the disappearance of a blight he wouldn’t otherwise have had to mention: the one wormy apple shaken down from the Arlington tree. He probably counted her flight as a blessing. Unless he suspected she would resurface on her own, flaunting herself to damage his reputation. God knows it had occurred to her.
    No, even if he were looking for her, he would be doing it discreetly. But perhaps Mrs. Trombly was a philanthropist, a woman who relieved herself of excess conscience and income by adopting causes. Had she been waiting for just such an opportunity, a madwoman delivered into her charge that she could use to furnish some brand new hospital for degraded females? Was it for that she’d been brought here?
    Delusions. Wild, unfounded fears. Ella was too ready to see locks and keys at every turn. She should speak. She pried her eyes away from her fingers—they were plucking, she realized disgustedly, at the coverlet—and looked again at Mrs. Trombly. The woman’s lips were parted. High spots of color flamed on her cheeks. There was something she was burning to say, Ella was certain. And she was also certain that she didn’t want to hear it.
    “I thank you, Mrs. Trombly,” she said. “You shouldn’t have put yourself through any trouble on my account. I feel much better.”
    “I didn’t call for the doctor.” Mrs. Trombly studied her with concern. “Miss Seymour said sleep was what you needed. There are some salves on the bedside table. For your lips, and whatever bruising … I can call a doctor now, if you wish.”
    “No!” Ella