Chapter Six
After her conversation with Lord John, in which she apologized for her father’s actions and her assumptions, Petra rose with all the pride she could muster and trudged back to the ballroom.
Lady Brawning, who had been kind enough to accompany her as a chaperone to the garden, left Lord Wolfridge and hurried after her.
Petra paused to let the much older woman catch up to her, feeling a previously unknown kinship with the biblical Daniel when he faced down the lion den.
As they passed through the French doors, Petra was cognizant of curious and judgmental eyes turning her way.
Yet nothing could have prepared her for the glare of her own father, who attempted to maintain his calm facade as he stalked towards her and casually gripped her arm like a vise.
While he gave the appearance of politely escorting his beloved daughter home to their hosts and the rest of haute ton, the second the carriage door closed with a snick, the atmosphere grew as heavy as a lead curtain.
“Where is my cousin?” Petra steeled herself, determined that not a single tremor of the cold dread pooling in her chest would betray her to her sire.
Though his palpable fury emanated from him in waves, she recognized the truth that kept her safe: she remained a vital piece upon his chessboard.
A prized asset whose utility he was not yet prepared to forfeit. But Jillian…
“I sent that Jezebel home. She will be gone within the week.”
“Gone?” Petra gasped out, any poise wilting like an evening primrose at dawn.
“I had the perfect marriage settled for you, Pet. With a gentleman even you did not fight me on. Yet you could not hold onto him.” Her father did not move a muscle, yet his disgust with her failure emanated off of him in waves.
Petra had to remind herself that it was not her fault Lord John was in love with someone else.
“Papa, you know as well as I there was no official betrothal, no real understanding—”
“How could you let yourself become an object of ridicule? Why could you not hold his interest?”
“Because he loves Jillian!” Petra at last found her voice. “And I shall do nothing to tear them asunder. Indeed, I will do everything in my power to promote their union.”
Her father went silent, his features assuming a mask of cold, assessing indifference that seemed to drain the very warmth from the carriage.
For the first time since she entered the oppressive confines of the conveyance, Petra felt a tremor of genuine fear unfurl within her chest as her mind was drawn back to that day many years prior when she realized exactly who her father was and how little she truly meant to him.
The day she solved her first mystery: why the maids were disappearing so rapidly.
Petra viewed the initial instances of it occurring almost like a spectator watching a play, as if the events belonged to another person’s life.
How she had so blindly trusted her father to take care of things when his dinner guest had cornered her on the way to the retiring room.
How mortified she had been when he had asked her why she was so upset.
She hadn’t even been able to get the words out the first time a lecherous old goat had groped her once her father had absented the room.
It was the third time that her father asked her what happened and he confronted the gentleman that she had begun to see what was really happening.
“Lord Royce, a moment.” Her father was always a study in the economy of movement, barely glancing up from his desk as Petra and a peer of the realm stood before him.
“Ah, my Pet,” her father had given her a ghost of a nod.
Back then she had liked it when he called her that.
As if she was precious to him. That was the day she had begun to despise when he called her that diminutive.
“My Pet tells me that you may have cornered her in the hallway.” Her father looked up at Lord Royce with a bored expression despite his accusatory words.
As if defending his daughter’s honor was wasting time he could have spent in other pursuits.
“I—I am a married man sir, and that-that—she, she offered—”
“My daughter, a gentlewoman years shy of her first Season, offered herself to you, Lord Royce? Is that what you are telling me?”
Finally allowing his disdain to show, her father speared the man with his glare. Yet, he had not moved since the man first entered his study, aside from lifting his head.
“Well, you know that foreign blood. She must have inherited…”
“My daughter has my blood running through her veins as well.”
“My lord, of course, I was not suggesting…” Like everyone else, Lord Royce had been two steps behind her father as Kemberley tutted with feigned sympathy at the sputtering earl.
“What would your dear lady wife say about you attacking a gentlewoman like that?”
“Keep her out of this, Kemberley.” For the first time, the color drained from Lord Royce’s chinless face and his bluster began to diminish in the face of a superior opponent.
“I could.” Her father cocked his head slightly to the side as if weighing whether he wished for port or brandy.
“The Limited Liability Bill. I heard you mention you were to block it at every turn, Royce.” He said this off-handedly, as if it were of no great importance, when it hit sixteen-year-old Petra that this was the purpose of the entire endeavor.
Her father straightened his head and gave a small sigh.
“Such a shame your wife would have to find out about this. You seem to get along so well. How her heart will break when she learns she has been sharing her bed with a lecher all these years.”
“You bastard,” the man spat.
“Ah, ah,” her father chided without much emotion. “There is a lady present.”
Lord Royce had glanced over at her as if only remembering she was there, appearing more uncomfortable than guilty. Petra remembered how her stomach turned as she recalled his cold clammy hands on her earlier that day.
“I have a new view on the bill I suppose,” Lord Royce muttered.
“It will benefit the realm.” Her father smiled for the first time in their exchange. Until that moment, Petra had always loved that smile, and had considered her father brave and benevolent. But in that moment, she saw how the smile did not reach his eyes.
It made her wonder. Had she ever seen his eyes light up when he smiled?
That was the moment Petra realized her father would never protect her.
And there was nothing to stop her from being the bait for her father’s traps now that she was old enough to be tempting to her father’s targets.
On that day, as Lord Royce fled Kemberley House with his tail between his legs, Petra solved her first mystery.
And yes, she became a pawn in a much larger game of chess, but she also ensured that no maid in Kemberley House was ever forced to be a pawn again.
Her father was a practical man. He knew a lecherous peer or MP was far more likely to fear the word of a gentlewoman than a woman of a different station.
After that day, Petra had hardened her heart so that it could never break again the way it had broken slowly over the course of their conversation in her father’s study. When she realized that her father was just looking for Lord Royce’s vote and had no intention of fighting for her honor.
The only one left to fight was her.
The memory faded as Petra felt the weight of her father’s assessing gaze, his features transfigured into a flickering mask as the carriage wended beneath the warm, intermittent glow of the passing streetlamps.
The amber lamplight washed over her father’s frigid visage, alternately illuminating and obscuring the unyielding lines of his countenance as the conveyance rattled through the night, before his lips twisted into something resembling a smile.
“My Pet,” he began and the words caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. “You may be useful to me yet.” And then he said no more.
With a heavy heart, Petra exited the carriage and went to find her cousin, who seemed to be in the middle of an explosion of garments and fabrics.
“Jillian.” They stared at each other for a moment, then Jillian walked to her cousin and took her hand.
“Petra, I’m so sorry.”
Petra shook her head, unable to process everything that was happening as she took in the bedchamber.
“What is happening here?”
“I am leaving.”
“No! Not on my account. There is nothing to be sorry about.” Petra gripped Jillian’s long, capable fingers, beseeching the one person she loved to stay with her.
“Yes, there is. I have wronged you in the worst way, Petra, I didn’t know.”
“I know, Jillian. Like I said, there is nothing to be sorry for.”
“And Lord John, I don’t know how he could—”
Petra held up a hand. “Jillian, you should not blame Lord John.” She sighed, willing herself to make this right.
She could not let them be torn apart by her naive feelings.
By her yearning for safety. “I believe…I think I was a bit carried away with the idea of marrying him. There was no understanding between us. It was all my father’s idea.
From what I have gathered, Kemberley wanted ties to both Camborne and Herron Shipping.
And I wanted to be married to a good man.
One who cared more about other people than he did about power.
He didn’t have to love me…” She trailed off and looked pointedly at Jillian.
“But I would not want to marry a man who is clearly in love with someone else, no matter how good he is. Especially if that costs the happiness of my favorite person.”
“We are the oldest of friends. We are not—he doesn’t—” Jillian must have been deep in denial, for she hardly ever stumbled over her words.
“Jillian, anyone with eyes saw something between you two. I do not know what happened that makes it so hard for you to acknowledge it, and I suppose you cannot solve that in one night. But I need you to know Lord John and I have no understanding. And I think you should give him a chance.”
Jillian’s eyes watered. “Petra.” She kissed her hand, a gesture they had learned from their mothers. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Yes, you do.” Petra drew her into a hug then stepped back to survey Jillian’s packing. “But where are you going?”
“I cannot go to the villa until the fighting has died down, but I might travel.” Jillian’s late husband had left her a villa in Italy, but the war there had made it impossible to settle.
“I will go stay with Mildred for a little while first. I would like to see my cousin Flora.” Mildred was Jillian’s father’s sister, the widow of a gentleman, she resided in London.
Petra nodded and stepped further into the room as if willing Jillian to open up just a fraction more. There was more to her cousin’s story, she could sense it. “Are you going to search for Stephen?”
“If I can,” Jillian admitted and Petra released a breath she had not realized she had been holding. At last, Jillian was telling her the truth. “Petra, I have to tell you something…” Her cousin paused and Petra could almost feel her weighing how much to tell her. “He is innocent—”
“I knew it,” Petra blurted before she could stop herself.
“And we finally have the proof.”
Proud and a little envious of her cousin’s detecting abilities and freedom as a widow, Petra listened to Jillian recount what she had been doing in London to uncover her brother’s innocence in their mother’s death.
As she finished, Petra looked between her cousin’s eyes, determined to discover more.
“You are not staying in London long, are you?”
“I cannot say for sure, Petra.” Jillian bit her lip, and Petra was filled with the uncomfortable sensation that her cousin was still hiding something. “But I can tell you I will be doing everything in my power to look for Stephen. Which likely means travelling.”
“I will cover for you, Jill. I will let it be known that you have returned to Madrid or Italy, or wherever. Just do what needs to be done to find him. If you need money–”
“But your reputation, Petra, if it is known that I am—”
“Hang my reputation. Finding Stephen is all that matters.” Petra swallowed hard, letting go of her last remaining disappointed hopes. What did that matter in the face of true love? “And do give Lord John a chance, please?”
Jillian shook her head and merely repeated, “I don’t deserve you Petra.”
Petra brushed off the sentiment. “When we were girls, you were always my champion. Now let me be yours.”