CHAPTER 5: SUNDAYS
2341 Words
Nobody told her Sunday dinners were an event.
Not like that.
Damien had said *the family can be particular* and she'd filed that under things men said when they meant something significantly worse but didn't want to be the one to say it out loud. Mrs. Paulson had said *dress appropriately* with a face that suggested the word appropriately was doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Even the house felt different. Tighter. Like it had heard Sunday was coming and decided to behave.
Eloise stood in front of her mirror in a deep green dress.
Green because it wasn't Ashford blue but it was close enough to not look like a statement. She wasn't ready to make statements yet. Statements came later. Statements came when you'd already won.
She opened the notebook. Wrote one line.
*Tonight — watch. Say little. Let them show me who they are.*
Put it in the drawer.
Walked out.
---
She heard them before she saw them.
That specific kind of noise that families make when they've been having the same conversations in the same rooms for so long they've stopped actually listening to each other. Voices layering. A laugh that cut off too fast. The particular silence that happens when someone says something that lands wrong and everyone pretends it didn't.
She stood outside the dining room door for exactly one second.
Walked in.
---
The room noticed her.
Not loudly. It was more like a ripple. The people closest to the door saw her first and then it spread until everyone had done it and everyone was pretending they hadn't.
She smiled.
Easy. Unhurried. The smile of a woman who had walked into rooms that didn't want her before and found the whole thing mildly entertaining.
Four seconds to clock everyone.
Helena at the far end with an expression she'd clearly prepared in advance. Two men near the fireplace she recognised from her research — cousins, both in finance, both with the specific confidence of men who inherited their positions and somewhere along the way confused that with earning them. An older woman by the window who was watching everything and saying nothing.
And Damien.
Standing near the head of the table with a glass of something amber, looking at her like she was a problem he hadn't finished solving.
She crossed the room toward him and let him watch her do it.
"You're on time," he said quietly.
"I'm always on time."
She accepted the wine that appeared — Mrs. Paulson, definitely Mrs. Paulson — and looked out at the room without looking like she was looking.
"Which one should I worry about," she said.
"All of them."
"That's not helpful."
"It wasn't meant to be."
She almost looked at him. Didn't.
"The woman by the window," she said. "Who is she."
Something moved in his jaw. Quick. Gone.
"My aunt Cecelia. My father's sister."
"She hasn't looked away from the door since I walked in."
"No," he said. "She hasn't."
Not a warning. Not quite. More like a man watching weather come in from far away and deciding not to name it yet.
Before she could ask anything else Helena appeared at her elbow like she'd been standing there the whole time waiting for an opening.
"Eloise." The warmth was practiced. Just slightly. "How lovely. That dress."
Eloise turned to her.
Helena was in purple. Head to toe, fully committed purple, the kind of colour choice that had made a decision and wasn't taking questions. The brooch on her neckline was enormous — gold, sunburst shaped, every ray perfectly symmetrical, the kind of jewelry that didn't sit on you so much as announce itself and expect applause.
Eloise looked at it.
Just a beat too long.
"Helena." She touched her own collarbone lightly. "That brooch."
Helena's hand went to it automatically. "Yes?"
"It's incredible." Eloise tilted her head like she was genuinely trying to find the right word. "You know what it looks like? Those astronomy diagrams. The ones that map the sun's rays. Every single line perfectly measured." She looked up warm and sincere. "Most people just wear jewelry. You're out here wearing a celestial body. That's a whole different commitment and honestly I respect it."
Silence.
Helena's mouth opened.
The cousin nearest them suddenly needed to be somewhere else and left at a speed that was almost impressive.
Three seconds.
Four.
Helena's expression did the thing expressions do when a sentence has arrived and the brain is still figuring out where exactly it landed.
"Dinner."
Reginald's voice from the doorway. One word. The room responded to it the way rooms respond to things they've been trained to respond to for decades.
Everyone moved to the table.
---
Eloise read the seating arrangement in forty seconds.
Helena directly across from her — either a power move or a miscalculation, she hadn't decided. The cousins in the middle seats, which meant they wanted to watch without being watched. Cecelia at the far end. Still. Observing.
Damien at the head.
Reginald to his right.
Eloise to his left.
She understood immediately that Damien had arranged this deliberately and she still couldn't decide if it was protection or a test.
Both probably. He seemed like a both kind of person.
---
First course. The conversation did what conversation did in rooms like this — moved carefully around the edges of everything, never through the middle of anything. Property. Business. A vague mention of someone's wedding that at least three people had strong feelings about and nobody aired directly.
Eloise ate. Said the right things at the right moments. Watched.
Cecelia still hadn't spoken.
Helena was waiting for something specific. Eloise could feel it.
The louder cousin — Edward, she'd confirmed, the one who'd been to the bar at the Harlow dinner — was building toward something. She could feel that too. The way he kept half starting sentences and pulling back. Testing the temperature.
He got there on the second course.
"So Eloise." Casual. Friendly. The conversational equivalent of a trap with good lighting. "How did you and Damien actually meet. The official version is a bit" He smiled. "Vague."
The table tightened. Everyone felt it.
Eloise looked at him. Warm. Open. Completely comfortable.
"A function," she said. "The Harlow Foundation dinner. March. We were seated near each other."
"Which section."
"East side of the room. Near the window tables."
"Interesting." Edward leaned back slightly. "I was at the Harlow dinner."
Complete silence.
Eloise didn't blink.
"Were you," she said pleasantly. "I don't think we were introduced. Although—" she tilted her head like she was genuinely trying to place him, "—you do look a little familiar actually. Were you near the welcome table at the entrance? I remember there was a group there that—" She stopped herself. Looked briefly apologetic. "Sorry. I'm sure it was a great evening regardless."
Edward stared at her.
The sentence had sounded completely fine on the way in.
Three seconds.
Four.
His face changed.
James looked at the tablecloth with great interest.
Helena looked between them recalibrating visibly.
And from the right side of the table —
Reginald set his fork down.
Picked up his wine.
His shoulders moved.
The table saw it.
Every single person at that table saw it and the effect was immediate and total — Helena's knife stopped mid air, Edward forgot the sentence he'd been about to say, even Cecelia at the far end went completely still.
Damien looked at his father.
Then looked at Eloise.
She was already looking at her plate. Cutting her food with the calm expression of someone who had said a perfectly ordinary thing and genuinely couldn't account for the reaction it was getting.
Damien stared at her for a long moment.
She felt it on the side of her face.
Didn't look up.
---
Dinner finished. The family moved to the drawing room.
Eloise excused herself for air.
The east garden was dark and cold and smelled like rain that hadn't arrived yet. She stood in it with her arms crossed and actually breathed for the first time since she'd walked into that dining room two hours ago.
She heard him before she saw him.
His footsteps. She'd learned them without trying to.
Damien came to stand beside her. Not close. Not far. The exact distance of a decision.
They stood there saying nothing.
"The Harlow dinner," he said eventually.
"Mm."
"Edward wasn't near the welcome table."
"I know."
"You know."
"He was at table seven on the west side. I checked the seating chart when I was preparing." She paused. "He didn't know that I knew. That's the whole point."
Silence.
"He was going to embarrass you," Damien said.
"He was going to try."
"Is there a difference."
"An enormous one."
The wind came through the garden. The roses on the north wall moved in it — his mother's roses, Reginald had said that first afternoon, offering it like something he hadn't meant to hand over.
"My father," Damien said.
"Mm."
"His shoulders."
"I noticed."
"Last time that happened at a family dinner—" He stopped. Something crossed his face that she didn't have enough light to read properly. "It was a long time ago."
She looked at the roses.
"Who was it," she asked quietly. "Last time."
A pause.
"My mother," he said.
She didn't say anything.
Sometimes nothing was the only right answer.
They stood in the dark for another minute. Maybe two. The house lit up behind them. The family somewhere inside doing what families did.
Then—
"Miss Barker."
"Mr. Ashford."
"Stay away from Cecelia."
She turned and looked at him properly for the first time all evening.
He was already looking at her. Not the calculating expression. Not the measuring one. Something she hadn't seen on his face before and couldn't name in the dark.
"Why," she said.
"She asks questions," he said. "And she doesn't stop."
Eloise held his gaze.
"That makes two of us," she said.
Something shifted in the air between them. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just — a change in pressure. The kind you feel before a storm when the temperature drops half a degree and your body knows before your brain does.
She felt it move through her chest.
Looked away first.
"Goodnight Mr. Ashford," she said.
She walked back toward the house.
At the door she looked back once.
He was still standing there.
Still watching.
She went inside.
---
Upstairs she opened the notebook.
Wrote four things.
*Edward — neutralized. Not a real threat.*
*Helena — waiting for something. Don't know what yet.*
*Cecelia — knows something. Figure out what.*
Then underneath in smaller writing —
*The garden. The shift in the air.*
*Don't.*
She stared at those two words.
Closed the notebook.
Her phone was already going.
**Maya:** REPORT. I have been patient for three hours. THREE. I made tea. Made more tea. Theorem knocked over his bowl AGAIN and I didn't even react because I was waiting for you. That's growth Eloise. That's me as a person growing.
She smiled.
**Eloise:** Reginald's shoulders moved at the dinner table.
Four seconds.
**Maya:** IN FRONT OF EVERYONE???
**Eloise:** Helena's knife stopped midair.
The typing bubble appeared. Disappeared. Appeared. Disappeared.
**Maya:** I'm on the floor. Literally on my floor. Theorem is sitting on my actual face and I don't have the strength to move him. I am FLOORED.
**Eloise:** There's a woman. Cecelia. Reginald's sister. She was watching me all night.
Typing bubble.
Stopped.
Longer pause than usual.
**Maya:** What kind of watching.
Eloise looked at the notebook.
*Cecelia — knows something.*
**Eloise:** The kind that means she already has questions.
Another pause.
Longer.
**Maya:** Be careful with that one.
Eloise frowned at the screen.
Maya said be careful all the time. The same way people said *drive safe* — reflexively, warmly, without thinking too hard about it.
But this one had weight behind it.
She could feel it through the phone.
**Eloise:** Do you know something about her?
Typing bubble.
Stopped.
Three seconds.
**Maya:** No. I just don't like the sound of her.
Eloise read it twice.
Something about it sat slightly wrong. Like a song with one note just barely off. She couldn't say exactly what. Couldn't explain it. Just—
**Maya:** GO SLEEP. You have an entire manor to investigate and you need rest. I love you. Theorem says goodnight. He's in his bowl again. I've accepted this is just his thing now.
Eloise smiled.
**Eloise:** Goodnight Maya.
She put her phone down.
Lay on her back and looked at the ceiling.
The east wing was quiet. No sounds. No movement.
She thought about the garden.
The shift.
*Don't.*
She thought about Cecelia's eyes across the dinner table. That flicker. Not just assessment. Something closer to recognition. Like looking at something familiar wearing unfamiliar clothes.
She thought about Maya's pause.
The bubble that appeared and disappeared.
*No. I just don't like the sound of her.*
She lay there for a long time.
Sleep didn't come easy.
When it finally did it was deep and dreamless and when she woke just before seven the first thing she did was open the notebook.
Wrote one new line.
*Maya paused.*
Stared at it.
Didn't know why she'd written it.
Left it there anyway.
Reginald was already in the east garden.
Standing among the roses with his back to her, hands behind him, a cup of something steaming on the stone bench beside him.
He didn't turn around when she came out.
But he shifted slightly. Made space on the bench.
She sat.
They looked at the roses together in the early morning quiet and said absolutely nothing.
It was the most honest conversation she'd had since she arrived.
*She just didn't know yet that the most dangerous people in this house weren't the ones who showed their teeth.*
*They were the ones who already knew exactly who she was.*
*And had chosen, for their own reasons, to say nothing.*
- Writer
