Chapter 21 #2
“Mother,” Peregrine snapped. “If you have a point, make it. What do you want?”
The older woman pressed her fingertips together in front of herself calmly. “I want to move back into Fitzroy Manor.”
Peregrine laughed disbelievingly. “After you hired a man to steal onto the property and have your butler murdered? You are a lunatic. Absolutely not.”
“Perry, be sensible. We must present a united front to the ton and maintain this farce of being a happy family. I would much prefer not to have to air our grievances at the moment. Do not fuss over Edmunds. I could hardly do all that work cloaking the past to leave the matter of him unsettled.”
Charity’s stomach churned. Perry’s warning that his mother would attempt to provoke faded from Charity’s memory, lost under the rising tide of fury at the woman’s cold disdain. She gritted her teeth to hold back the retort burning at the back of her throat.
Perry, too, seemed unable to remain silent. “He was the only former household member I had left, and he was providing comfort to your daughter.”
Marian shrugged one shoulder dismissively. “I have taught you both better than to rely on such things.”
“He was no threat to you. He was a broken man. What could he prove?” Peregrine hurled at his mother.
“You strive to school me on what does or does not constitute a threat, my son?” she said, her lips curving with amusement. “When you have constantly failed to understand what a real threat looks like? When everything you know now, you learned from me?”
“Clearly, I learned well enough to stay alive,” he said lightly.
Marian let her gaze run up and down her son’s figure. “I grant you that much, my love. But it bears repeating. You are so much less than you ought to have been. Now that you have had your temper tantrum over Edmunds, are you ready to strike a bargain so that I may return to the household?”
Hearing those words of endearment on Marian Fitzroy’s lips made Charity see red. “No, he is not ready,” she hissed at Marian Fitzroy. “He already told you no.”
“Your Grace,” Peregrine warned her, turning his head slightly in Charity’s direction, and Charity’s stomach dipped, to hear him address her by her former title.
Even in denying his mother entry to their house, he did not want to confess that he and Charity were married.
That she was now the lady of the household.
“Someone taught it to speak,” Marian murmured pointedly without looking in Charity’s direction, but a broad smile stretched across the woman’s face.
It was too much for Charity.
“We know what you are about, you catty witch,” Charity growled, pushing forward against Peregrine’s suddenly outstretched arm holding her back.
“How you are desperately trying to buy back your respectability. That was the only reason you gave back the dagger, was it not? The satisfaction it must have given you to watch both the Regent and the Queen accept your lies! What could be more priceless than to stand at their feet and watch them eat crow? Am I right, Marian Fitzroy?”
His mother’s head swivelled abruptly in Charity’s direction. The woman grabbed Charity by the wrists, yanking her so close that Charity’s entire world was nothing but the madness flickering in Marian’s eyes.
Caught off guard, Charity gasped at the pain of Marian’s pincer-like grip on her hands. Her hands were unexpectedly strong, grinding the small bones of Charity’s wrists together.
And just as quickly as Marian grabbed Charity, Peregrine’s hand wrapped itself around his mother’s throat, his fingers sinking into the flesh behind his mother’s jawbones.
But Marian didn’t pay her son or his hand on her throat much attention—Perry’s grip wasn’t tight enough to impair her ability to draw air.
“Do you think you can simply march into this house and take my place?” Marian Fitzroy asked Charity, the black pupils of her eyes swallowing all but the barest ring of blue iris.
Her face was a parody of life, with no light of a soul showing within.
“You are a child, and you understand nothing of this world that I have built. Nor what I have planned next.”
“Let her go, mother,” Peregrine intoned in a voice that would have been utterly terrifying if it had been directed her way.
Charity dared to break eye contact with Marian long enough to glance upwards at Peregrine, and she saw a hint of the same madness in his eyes. But his gaze was fixed upon his mother, and Charity sensed he was standing on the edge of a precipice.
If Marian didn’t let her go, Charity knew he would kill his mother with his bare hands. Not that Marian Fitzroy didn’t deserve to die—but she did not want Peregrine to suffer for it. And he would.
For a moment, everyone held still.
Charity’s eyes dropped briefly to Marian’s bare hands wrapped around her wrists. The skin on the back of her hands began to grow ruddy as the rings on Marian’s fingers pinched her flesh painfully against bone and tendon.
“Do I not understand?” Charity breathed into the space between her and Peregrine’s mother. “Does it not, perchance, involve your daughter marrying a certain Dutch prince?”
Marian’s head tilted only a fraction as she regarded Charity, before Peregrine’s fingers tightened enough to make his mother choke slightly, but she did not stop or pay him any other mind.
“That is why you want to move back in with Peregrine, to provide the image of a happy family, isn’t it?
” Charity pushed, ignoring the ache growing in her forearms. “With Perry still alive and able to control Lark’s prospects, you need to convince him to let Lark marry William of Orange.
You need to keep the scent of any scandal away from your daughter. ”
Like a candle being lit, the woman’s face suddenly transformed from its terrifying blankness back into amusement. But Peregrine’s hand tightened again, and Marian’s lips parted, looking for air. Her grip on Charity’s wrists finally began to slacken.
“Perry, don’t strangle her,” Charity said urgently, trying to call him back from the brink of his rage. “She’s only holding my wrists.”
“I will let her go when she lets you go,” Peregrine told her through gritted teeth.
Finally, Marian let her hands drop from Charity’s wrists. Charity immediately stepped back, away from the madwoman’s ability to reach her, and rubbed her aching wrists. Peregrine released his mother once Charity was out of reach.
Marian staggered slightly on her feet, but she recovered her footing quickly. More disturbingly, she held Charity’s gaze the entire time.
“You are nothing,” the woman repeated to Charity, her face still twisted in a black sort of delight. “And you have no idea what is happening here. If you doubt me, then I will tell you plainly. I will not have to kill or coerce my son to enact my plans—nor to utterly destroy him, Duchess Atholl.”
Marian collected herself so quickly that only the pale marks of Peregrine’s fingertips showing on the skin of her throat gave any evidence that anything untoward had occurred. “Trust that I will achieve my aims.”
Finished with her message to Charity, Marian drew herself up primly and pointedly turned to her son again. Peregrine’s chest was rising and falling quickly, his breathing quickened in ire. “You have overstayed your welcome and need to leave,” he told her. “Now.”
“You should reconsider my request, dear son,” his mother told him. “The next time I ask you to do something for me, it may involve a price you are not willing to pay.”
“The hells shall freeze solid before I give you Lark or let you set foot inside this house again,” he gritted. “You plighted your troth to the Russians. Perhaps you should go home with them, Mother.”
His mother gave him the faintest smile. “The decision regarding that will be up to the Tsar. I shall not consider your answer final, Perry. Not just yet. But if you decide you wish to talk to me again later today, you shall find me at the Pulteney.”
“I will never look for you. Not for any reason,” he hissed, his shoulders rising as he began to lose his grip on his anger.
“Never say never, my dear.” Marian pressed two fingers to her lips, blowing him a kiss. Then she turned smartly to walk the path that led around toward the front of the house.
Peregrine silently and slowly trailed his mother to be sure that she left without trouble. All Marian did was get into her carriage and drive away again. Once she had left, he took Charity’s arm and tugged her along, fury speeding his steps.
Charity nearly had to trot to keep pace beside him, but she did not complain or beg him to slow. And when he got them inside the door again, he turned on Charity, his expression tense between the anger and fear coursing through him. “Did she harm you?” he asked her, reaching for her hands.
“It is fine, Perry.” She folded her arms over her chest, not wanting him to see or to admit to the bruising Marian surely left behind. Peregrine would lose what was left of his mind over it.
Restless, Peregrine walked deeper into the house, not stopping until he reached the sideboard in his study. He tipped a finger of whiskey into his glass and tossed it back before offering some to her.
“It is harsh, but after that, I think we both deserve fortification.”
Charity accepted the proffered glass and gulped a draught, nearly choking at the fire it chased down her throat.
But it worked as promised. A second sip, much smaller, allowed Charity to taste the smoky flavour of the drink—Thorne’s preferred beverage, she recalled.
She took a seat on the leather sofa, tugging the sleeves of her gown down to cover her wrists.
Perry remained standing, rubbing his temple as he stared sightlessly at the shelf-lined wall. “I cannot make sense of this. Why would she ask to return here? It was a fool’s errand.”
“I thought for sure she would demand Lark’s return,” Charity added, equally perplexed. But Marian had not so much as even asked after her daughter’s health.
“We are missing something,” Perry muttered. “Asking to return to the house feels like she is playing for time, and that goes against the idea that she is pressed for it.”
He rocked back and forth, unspent anger robbing him of any hope of peace. He set his glass aside and began pacing the length of the room.
Charity tried to help form a new theory, but she was finding it difficult to concentrate.
She grew dizzy, her stomach was churning, and a lethargy was creeping up her arms and down her spine.
Fatigue pulled her deeper against the seat, and she let herself lean against the back.
It seemed like the strong spirits, so early in the morning, were exacting a toll.
Maybe it was a combination of that and the warmth that was making her sleepy. She fought against the tug of her eyelids, biting the inside of her cheek to rouse herself.
But the exhaustion grew worse, not better.
A curious cold numbness followed the sense of weight, but despite the sensation of cold, she could see sweat beading on her arms. The numbness climbed up her arms, and black sparkles began to dance around the edges of her vision, obscuring her view of her beloved.
What was happening? No sip of spirits, no matter how strong, should steal her wits so thoroughly. Confusion reigned in her thoughts, and it took too long for the fear to rise.
By the time she caught on to the seriousness of her condition, it was too late. She pursed her lips and whispered his name.
“Perry—?” But nothing came after that. No word. No thought. All the light in her world extinguished, leaving behind complete darkness.