The Collectors by Megan Easley-Walsh

Author:Megan Easley-Walsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Literary Fiction, Literary Historical, Victorian London, Victorian, Novels Set in England, 19th Century Fiction, Secret Society, high society romance in victorian london, London High Society Romance, London High Society events, London High Society, female sleuths romance, historical suspense and international mystery, historical fiction mystery thriller
Publisher: New Historical Fiction
Published: 2018-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN ​

“George Patrick, I have to tell you something.”

Amelia looked at him, her eyes searching his face for any shred of evidence one way or the other as to his involvement with all of this. Well, here was the test. An interloper would react to news of their engagement; Philip Preston had insisted on it. She had to tell him, yet something pressed against her, begging her not to. It was as if telling George Patrick would shatter everything in their easy conversations. The glass house would burst and rain down over them, leaving them with shards of discarded friendship. At least, Amelia feared that might happen. If she delivered the news and George Patrick were innocent, he'd do the gentlemanly thing, the honorable thing, and remove himself from long conversations with another man's fiancée. And if Philip Preston were right and there was an interloper among them, and it turned out to be that George Patrick were that man, what then? Then, he'd be lost to her forever. There would be no more friendship, no more stories, no more wood shavings in the glass house.

He looked at her, hearing the serious note of her voice. It wasn't like Amelia to take on such sternness. That belonged more to Madam Hidgens. It was almost as absurd as the thought of Elias Penbrooke lecturing firmly to the Collectors and not cracking a joke.

“Yes?”

She swallowed. There was no point in letting this build any longer. Amelia looked straight at George Patrick and said,

“I have agreed to marry Philip Preston.”

“Oh,” he said. It was a small word, but he regretted it immediately and tried to make amends for it, “Congratulations. I am certain that you will be happy together, that you will live a good life.”

Had he sounded disappointed or had she only hoped that he had?

She smiled, nodding her thanks, but her heart wasn't in it. That was the problem; she knew there would be no good life, no happiness together for her and Philip. It was just a sham. But, what was more, what really tore her apart was that there would be no happiness nor long life for the Collectors. Sure, the group would continue. It always had. She had agreed to this engagement precisely to ensure that it would go on. It would be different, though, drastically so. For Amelia's Collectors had always included the six of them. For one of them to be dramatically cut-off was to take away one-sixth of all she knew of them. Each one of them, in one way or another, was a friend. They were more than that, though, they were a collection of diverse individuals that had become a family. They knew things that her own family, save for her father, did not. Their secrecy pulsed through London, but never did she imagine that there was a secret among all of them.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Miss Borchardt, I hope that you will not mind if I continue to come to the glass house.

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