The Samurai That I Loved

第43章

Eliza faced the looming windows that overlooked the outside gardens instead of the festive, glittering ball taking place behind her. Her right hand tapped and squeezed into the soft, emereld green muslin of her gown in a tactic she had learned over time in order to quell her anxiety.

Her eyes scanned the moonlit gardens where she could see pink hydrangeas and blue bougainvillea in bloom. Subconsciously, she kept looking until she finally noticed a tiny patch of buttercream yellow roses growing in the far back of the garden near the fountain.

The flowers were ones she had seen over a hundred times in various, different locations around London, however the simple sight always gave her a sense of calm. Whenever she felt alone or empty, she knew they were always out there somewhere, same as her lost love.

Somewhere out there in the world...

Banishing the unwanted thoughts and painful memories, Eliza turned her back to the windows in a half-effort to rejoin the world of the living.

The thunderous volume of the music, of all the many conversations taking place all around her, meant absolutely nothing to Eliza. Somehow she managed to mentally tune out everything but that persistent, little voice inside her mind that greatly discouraged her.

Your husband is humiliated by you.

These people merely tolerate your presence.

You're a dead woman walking...

"Stop it." She whispered to herself brokenly, weaving through fellow guests and dancers until she found herself standing a mere ten feet from the gentlemen's parlor.

Earlier in the evening, her husband had chatted away excitedly about the upcoming introductions he would make with his new business partners: A duo of men who were supposedly like brothers and the most successful traders in the eastern seas of Asia.

He had not said much else about the two merchants, however he did mention one of the men was from Asia himself. This information intrigued her in a dreadful, fear-inducing sort of way, as if this complete stranger had anything to do with her at all...which he did not. She was simply being paranoid.

Yet here she was now: standing right outside the parlor with an unsatiable curiosity to see who exactly the foreigner was. She knew better than to imagine they could be Japanese, however the thought was still there. What if they were? She had so many questions...so many things to say.

No.

She would say nothing. Her time in Japan was a deep secret meant to be buried along with her heart.

Her eyes drifted towards the familiar evening coat that belonged to her husband. He was standing twenty feet away near the back of the room. Eliza squinted her eyes to get a better look between the crowd of other men in the cramped, smoke-filled room. There were the two gentlemen her husband had spoken of facing him...but the smoke made it impossible to see their faces in any detail...

Frustrated, Eliza bit her bottom lip and left from the open doorway. As she walked away, a sudden strange uneasiness fluttered to life from deep inside her stomach and she halted. Turning halfway, she angled her neck to look back in one final glance towards the gentlemen's parlor. She wasn't quite sure what she expected to see, however she did feel incredibly foolish. Sighing, she returned to the ball.

That evening after the ball, Radford spoke of nothing else but his new partners, Hopkins and Yoru. Eliza could tell from his unique and boisterous attitude in regards to even speaking to her that he was in an elated mood to say the least. He was never usually this talkative to her, nor so animated about a subject.