'Don't look, Lillian. Never look into the eyes of a Sin-Eater, you will be as cursed as he is and will forever languish in darkness.'
Lillian Elmes remembers the warning her mother gave her about the town's Sin-Eater only too well.
How could she n...
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'Psst... Lillian, quickly now.'
I gasp and turn abruptly towards the servant's passageway, where a discombobulated ghostly hand beckons me from the shadows. I stare at it, alarmed, until Lizzie's face appears, looking quite agitated. I relax, glad to see her, even if she does look a bit annoyed with me.
'Goodness,' she says as I draw close, 'if you are going to lead this secretive life, you really need to get better at all this cloak and dagger stuff.'
'Well, I did not expect to find you lurking in the service corridor.' A thought occurs to me. 'Have you been here all this time?'
Lizzie shoots me a look as if I have finally gone truly bonkers. 'Of course not, why would I do that? I have far better things to do than lurk in the dark. I came straight away as soon as I got the message. Mr. Carver is here.'
My heart jumps. 'He is? Where?'
'I cannot bring him into the house, Lily, you understand, don't you? It is one thing to help you with this mad scheme to lure the Sin-Eater to Lutwyche, but I cannot let him enter without scaring the entire staff of housemaids out of their minds. Not to mention Mrs. Wood, the cook, would probably have a seizure if she laid eyes upon him again.'
I nod, feeling a stab of sadness for Daniel that people react in such a way to his mere existence, then remember it was not so long ago that I had done the exact same thing.
'Where is he?'
'Now, don't have a fit, but you must go through the kitchen to the servant's entrance, take the pathway directly to your right and you will find him waiting at the orchard.'
I stare at her, pursing my lips. 'Elizabeth Jane Darby, why on Earth would I have a fit for using the servant's entrance? Do you really think me that snobbish?'
Lizzie wrinkles her nose and smiles. 'A touch, yes. But you appear to be loosening up, I must say. A few weeks ago, you would have fainted at the thought of meeting a young man unchaperoned, and yet here you are summoning him to a clandestine meeting among the cherry blossom. How terribly romanticheroine of you, Lillian.'
