Part 4
Eliza tried to scream, but the hand over her mouth prevented her from taking in a breath that would let that out. She stumbled backwards as the arm around her waist pulled her tightly and she felt a body behind her, which kept her up-right. She struggled to get out of their grip, but the person held her firmly against them, even as she tried a swift kick and to dig an elbow into them. The person holding her guided them carefully towards a wall, and well out of sight of the street she'd been watching.
She finally took a gasping breath, as the person released her and removed their hand from her face, while she spun quickly around to look at her would be attacker. She opened her mouth to speak, but Detective Phillips quickly covered her mouth with his hand again, and then put his finger against his own lips, and sternly motioned for her to stay silent.
Eliza nodded that she understood and he removed his hand from her face. She let out a shaky breath while as he quickly stepped back from her slightly, and looked around the wall to spot William, before turning his attention back to her. She took a moment to catch her breath, and slow her racing heartbeat, while he shook his head at her.
"What are you doing here Miss Scarlet?" His voice was barely above a whisper, with a gentle tone. He kept a gap between them, whilst he also kept looking past the wall to keep half an eye on William.
He'd spotted her long ago, but he couldn't do anything about it until William stopped. He'd had to keep both of them in his sights, which was no easy feat since he was still learning his way around London and the speed they were walking was remarkable.
"What is he doing?" Eliza asked quietly, ignoring the detective's question, as they both turned to watch William speaking with the men.
"You really shouldn't be here," he said honestly, but he had a fair idea why she was.
"Why not?" Eliza asked. She wasn't doing anything wrong, she wasn't interfering, just merely watching him, from a safe distance, where she could insert herself should the need arrive.
"He wouldn't want you to be here Miss, you know that." Phillips motioned his head towards William, however, they both knew who he was talking about.
Eliza rolled her eyes, she was certain that William probably wouldn't want her here, but since when did that ever stop her? If he had his way, she'd never leave her house, she was sure of that.
"You need to go home," he told her softly. She gave him a steely glance. She thought after this morning they had an understanding, that she wasn't just some delicate lady. That he'd assessed that she was a good detective, and that he was becoming a much-needed supporter to her.
"I'll go when you tell me what he's up to," she quietly but firmly told him.
"I can't do that Miss, this is police business." He seemed to be begging her to understand, but she shook her head at him, silently telling him not to give her that crap.
"Please Miss. I need to keep an eye on him. That's my job right now," he told her. His voice barely above a whisper and seemingly trying to plead with the side of her that he sensed clearly cared about his boss's safety.
"I can't keep an eye on what he's doing, and keep an eye on you …" he admitted "and we both know which he'd want me to choose."
Eliza sighed. Phillips was right in the assessment that William would sacrifice his own safety to keep her safe, that much she knew to be true no matter how she spun it.
She thought a moment, she wanted to know what William was doing, but not if it was going to mean she was putting him in danger. She agonized for a minute, split between what she knew she should do, and what she wanted to do.
"Fine, but you keep him safe!" Eliza warned him sternly.
"Thank you Miss," Phillips told her genuinely, as he nervously looked around the wall again checking where William was, making sure he didn't lose him.
Eliza took one last look at William, still deep in conversation with the four men. Whatever he was up to, she didn't like the look of it, and she'd tell him so the next time she saw him.
"Get home safe," Phillips told her, knowing William was very likely to go mad if she didn't. Eliza gave him a smile and a nod.
"I can look after myself, thank you very much." Phillips laughed. He didn't doubt for one second that she couldn't.
She turned around, and walked quickly back down the small alleyway towards a main road, to look for a carriage. It was almost dark, and she was not planning to walk all the way home from where ever it was that William had walked them to.
When Eliza finally arrived home late, she went straight to the kitchen to eat. Ivy had noticed straightaway that she seemed distracted over diner. She had half expected, and prepared herself, for Eliza to tease her about meeting Mr Potts as they ate, but instead Eliza said almost nothing on the subject and barely ate her food. Whilst Ivy put her preoccupied mind down to money worries, Eliza was focused on other concerns.
Namely, what William was doing with those men? Why did they seem so unsavory? But mostly, was what he was doing safe? If she was being honest, she knew William had probably put himself in dangerous situations before and was more then capable to getting himself out of trouble. However, she'd never previously known what he was doing, now she knew he was out there tonight, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She suddenly felt transported back to being a child again, after her mother had died, and the worry she had felt every time her father was late home. She remembered all the times she laid in bed fretting about him until she heard the lock on the front door. No matter how many times Henry had tried to reassure her, from the moment Ivy would tell her it was time for bed till the second she heard him return home, she was scared, and would question, was this the evening he wouldn't come home?
For once, Eliza was quite grateful when after dinner, her dear friend Mr Rupert Parker unexpectedly turned up at her house for a drink with her that evening. It was helping to keep her mind off of whatever trouble William had got himself into. It also seemed he knew how to play cards, so she could attempt to quiz him on appropriate etiquette for playing cards with the ladies she was due to meet.
They had pulled a table between the two armchairs in her drawing room, the fire warming the room nicely, and both of them were enjoying a glass of port. Eliza watched intently as Rupert expertly shuffled the deck of cards, then held the pack in two piles and used his thumbs on the corners to flick them together before he pushed them into one pile. He dealt out all the cards face down into four piles, and then place down the last card face up in the middle of the pile.
"So this top card, that's the trump suit," Rupert explained, tapping on the face up 4 of diamonds. "Okay a winning round is called a trick, and to win a trick, you want to be the person who plays the highest value card. If you play a diamond card, because for this set that's the trump suit, that will automatically win you the trick for that round." Eliza nodded her understanding, and picked up the set of cards nearest to her, while Rupert took his hand, and then turned over the other two so they could see the cards.
"You and I are a team, and these two spare set's are a team, and together we need more then 6 sets of tricks, and you get a point for each set over six. For example, if we get eight tricks then we win 2 points. I'd recommend re-sorting your hand so all the suits are together and in order." Rupert took one of the two spare hands and spread them out face up on the table so they could see the cards.
"How do you know all this?" Eliza asked, as he sorted the second of the two hands and laid them face up so they could both see the spare cards.
"Oh, my grandmother used to play, she taught me Whist. After she died, one of my governess's was a lovely young girl, she used to steal me away from mother when she was in one of her moods, and we'd play cards downstairs in her room." Rupert smiled as he remembered her, even though it had been years since he'd even thought of the girl.
"She taught me how to play Bridge and Kings in the corner, it was fun, like our little secret. That was until mother caught us one day, and she fired her for insolence. I think she thought me playing cards with her would lead me to become a hardened gambler."
Eliza laughed. She couldn't imagine Rupert being a hardened gambler, though probably like most men, she assumed he probably enjoyed a game or two with his friends.
"How come you've never played?" He enquired, as he checked over his cards.
"Who would I play with?" She questioned with a confused looked. She didn't remember her grandparents, and she hadn't exactly had a governess as a child like he had. Ivy didn't play cards and it wasn't like she surrounded herself with other women to play against. Rupert nodded, clearly having never had it cross his mind that Eliza didn't seem to spend much time with other women.
"How is your mother?" Eliza asked checking her cards, while Rupert played the 10 of hearts from his hand, and then chose the 4 hearts from the hand to his left.
"Oh you know. She keeps asking when I will give Tilly a ring and set a wedding date. She tells me Tilly won't wait around forever," he told her. "Now to win this trick, you need to play a card higher then the 10 of hearts. If you don't have any hearts, you either have to play a diamond card to win, or chose a low numbered Club or Spade to get rid of those cards from your hand."
Eliza looked through her hand and placed down a Jack of hearts from her hand, and Rupert pulled out a 2 of hearts from the hand to his right.
"So you win the trick, and can start the next set. To start, the trick, you have to play a heart card if you have any in your hand, and if don't have any, then you can play another suit to start a new round of suits." Rupert explained.
"Rupert, why does she think you and Tilly are getting married? You never actually agreed to it remember?" Eliza told him as she looked through her cards, and placed down the 5 of hearts.
"Well, what was I supposed to say? I thought, that if mother thought I had a prospect in Tilly she would be happy," he shrugged. He should have realised his mother wouldn't be happy till he had a ring on his finger, and quite possibly a child on the way. He shuddered at the very thought of it.
"How does Tilly feel about it?"
"Mother seems to like her, they are both quite terrifying though," Rupert admitted.
"You know you don't have to marry her, if you don't want to." Eliza told him, as he pulled out a card each from the spare hand, and then gave the set to the winner on his left. She wasn't sure if Rupert wanted to marry Tilly or not. She felt fairly certain he was just trying to placate his mother, which wasn't the best reason to marry someone, in her mind.
"I'm sure I could do worse then marrying Tilly," he admitted. They had been spending a little time together recently, and it hadn't all been bad. She was actually quite funny, even if they did have very little in common.
"Not if you don't want to marry her," Eliza confirmed.
Rupert wasn't sure what he wanted. He knew didn't want to get married, but he also wanted his mother to stop pressurizing him, and the only way he could do that was to make her think that he'd potentially found a woman to marry. They quietly continued to play another set, and slowly Eliza felt she was getting the hang of the game.
"How's your Inspector?" Rupert asked, changing the subject and giving her look and a smile.
Eliza chose to ignore his comment referring to William as hers, whilst also knowing that Rupert had no real interest in how William was or if he was hers. He was just fishing because he liked the thought of William himself.
"He's up to something, I just don't know what. I followed him this afternoon to some back alley on the other side of the Thames," Eliza told him sounding annoyed. "He was meeting with some people I didn't recognise, it all seemed rather off."
"Well, he is a high-ranking officer of Scotland Yard, I'm sure he can handle himself," Rupert said with a chuckle, clearly amused by the thought of William and whatever he could supposedly handle.
"High-ranking he maybe, but he's not invincible," Eliza said, slightly more sternly then she meant it to. Yet, Rupert seemed not to notice her tone, too interested in his thoughts, presumably of William, and his cards, as he finished off the game.
"Now, count up the number of rounds we've each won, I've got four."
"I have three," she told him.
"Excellent, so we've got ourselves one point and now we're winning one point to zero," he told her proudly, as he gathered up the cards then handed them to Eliza.
"You can be the dealer this time."
Eliza held the cards, and carefully shuffled the deck, then split them into two piles to flick them like she'd seen Rupert do. Only no mater how hard she tried she couldn't get them to flick together like Rupert had, and they ended up as just a mess of a pile.
"A little practice and you'll get there." He told her with a smile.
Eliza wasn't sure she agreed, but practicing at this would at the very least keep her mind off of William and his latest escapade.
To Be Continued….
A/N So The scene with Rupert is a little off topic, but I love the idea of him teaching her to play cards, and it reminded me of playing cards with my nan when I was a child. Though I was always rubbish at Whist, never fully understood Bridge, but Kings in the corner was great fun.