A/N:

This part picks up directly after Part 2. - just after William falls asleep. I do give William credit for not doing something with Sylvie he might later regret. It would have been so easy for him to do, right at that moment, but not our man, even as a teenager. I would add that I usually give Eliza a lot of credit for being self-aware and able to see what is right in front of her, when, in truth, that might not be the case.

Thank you for following along this angsty path as the story unfolds. I appreciate all your input and kind comments. As per Shakespeare, "the course of true love never did run smooth." Take heart, and focus on the true love part - Eliza and William will get it together eventually...at least they do in my stories!

Part 3. Eliza

The same could not be said for Eliza. She lay in her bed that night, her mind full of questions that did not have answers. Sleep would not come, only tears that would not stop as she thought about the emptiness that now filled her heart - emptiness that crept into the space that had always been occupied by William.

She knew then that she was in love with William. She loved him - not as her older "brother" and friend, but as her mother and father had loved each other. She and William sometimes had spoken about her parents' marriage and the huge amount of love she could remember filling her home while her mother was still alive. She had told him of her hope that perhaps one day she would have that same kind of love for herself. William, who had been gazing at her intently while listening, had smiled shyly, laughing quietly to himself while shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down at the ground, away from her eyes.

When William had held her in his arms earlier that day, she had felt safe, and she might even have said that she felt loved by him. She could not deny that she had wanted him to kiss her, and she had returned his kisses eagerly. She had not wanted him to stop, but he had stopped and then stepped away from her. She had been mistaken. She loved him, but he did not love her - not like her parents had loved each other. He was only comforting her, and that was more than she could bear.

Still, she owed him an apology for her harsh words and for slapping his face. She needed to make him see that she had been overcome with grief that afternoon over the loss of Skip but that she still wanted him in her life, if only as her friend. She would have to figure out a way to coexist with him despite her unrequited love for him; she could not lose William.

Four days went by, however, and on each of those days, she rose early, thinking only of seeing William again to set things right with him. The days dragged on, but William did not come to the house to meet with her father, as she had hoped he would. On each of those four days, she listened at the door of her father's study for William's voice, but there was only silence. On each of those days, she stood looking out her bedroom window to see if William was with her father in the back garden, but he was not. And on each of those nights, she fought to push the disappointment that he had not come to the house out of her mind and the emptiness she felt, out of her heart. Each night, the tears came, slowly trickling down her cheeks and dampening her pillow.

Gradually she came to realize that William would not come. He would stay away. Perhaps he never wanted to see her again. Perhaps she had gone too far, and he would not forgive her unkindness to him.

Her father sensed that something had changed between William and Eliza the day Skip was killed in the street. He asked her whether anything had happened between the two of them that would account for William asking to now meet her father in his office at the police station rather than at the Scarlet house, as had been the usual custom. Eliza had not wanted to reveal to her father that she and William had kissed, and then afterward she had slapped his face. Concerned that her father would disapprove of her behavior that afternoon, she chose to lie to him instead. She told him that she and William had quarreled over Skip and that William had told her if she had been more responsible, then Skip would not have been out of the house and in the street, where he met his demise. When her father pressed her further about whether she and William were working to resolve their argument, she told him that they were not and that she and William had not spoken for several days. Henry encouraged her to own up to her share of the blame for their argument and asked that she at least consider writing William a note of apology. Eliza had retorted that it was William who owed her an apology, but her father would not hear it.

"Lizzie, you must make amends with William. It is important that callous words and misunderstanding not undo the friendship the two of you have had over the past 2 years. He is part of our family now; he is almost like a son to me and an older brother to you, and you must not remain at odds with him. When I am gone, you two will only have each other to rely upon in the world. So I urge you to find a way to fix whatever has been broken between you and William."

"Yes, Papa. I will consider what you have said, but I do think it should be William who comes to me first." When William did not come to the house to see Eliza, she finally resolved to write him a letter of apology a few days later.

She sat at the writing table in her bedroom and started several letters to William, but none of them seemed right. The one that she desperately wanted to send to him was the one in which she laid bare her heart and told him that she loved him. She asked for his forgiveness and pleaded with him not to be angry with her and to return to visiting the Scarlet house so they could mend the rift between them. This letter, however, she worried gave away too much to William. It left her feeling completely open to further humiliation since he did not seem to return her love. It made her too vulnerable to him. She had crumpled up the draft and thrown it on the floor of her room. Eventually, after several more tries, she wrote a letter that she felt covered what she needed to say without giving away how much she loved him and wanted him to return.

"Dear William -

I trust you have been well over the last several days. Father has asked that I write to you and apologize for my part in our argument the other day when Skip was killed by the carriage. He does not want us to be at odds with each other. So in the spirit of putting this disagreement behind us, I am writing to you now to apologize for my harsh words and admit that I should not have slapped your face. I do not think I am completely wrong in questioning whether you might have taken advantage of me and my grief that afternoon. Still, I hope that you will accept my apology.

Yours,

Eliza Scarlet"

She folded the letter and sealed it, writing the address of William's boarding house on the outside of it. She ran down the stairs to place the letter on the serving tray that rested on the front hall table for mail pickup at the house. She hoped the letter could still make the day's late pickup and be in William's hands by the following morning or later that next evening, at the latest.

She headed back to her bedroom, and while putting away her stationery supplies, she noticed the letter she had thrown on the floor, picked it up, and uncrumpled the edges. She felt as if she was holding her heart in her hands and offering it to William, as she reread what she had really wanted to say to him - about her love for him and how sorry she was that she had hurt him. Instead of throwing the letter in the waste bin, she smoothed out the paper and folded it carefully, then tucked it away in her notebook, the one she kept on her bedside table. She hoped that the letter she was posting that afternoon would be enough to at least get William to come to the house so they could talk. She wasn't sure that it would, however, as it had seemed so impersonal, nothing like the conversations they had had before Skip was killed and they had kissed. It also had not been completely truthful; deep in her heart, Eliza did not feel that William had taken advantage of her and her grief that day. She would just have to trust that her letter would serve as an olive branch between them.

When she heard nothing from him, however, after she was certain her letter of apology would have been received by him, she was alternately angry with him for not accepting her apology and then in the throes of despair because William had stayed away and seemingly had not forgiven her for what had happened between them on the day they kissed. She paced the hallways in the house, at one turn, fuming at his silence and at another, crying because his absence was too much for her to bear. She cried during the night and was irritable during the day. She was miserable without William in her life.

When she did not think she could endure her anguish any longer, she decided that she would go to William's boarding house to confront him about why he had not responded to her letter, why he had not accepted her apology and in the deepest recesses of her mind, why he had broken her heart that day and every day since. She needed to see him, even if his answers devastated her all over again. At least then she would know where they stood with each other, and she would have some closure, even if they ended up completely severing their ties. She resolved to go the following Saturday, when she knew her father would be tied up with some of his cases, and she would have the freedom to go to William's boarding house without too many questions being asked. She hoped that William would at least agree to see her.