Chapter 30 #2
Malenkov rose from his chair to make his way around the table. Ravenscroft shifted into motion, moving to stand closer to the Tsar, and signalled one of Hill’s soldiers-turned-footmen.
When Gentz’s sharp gaze landed upon Malenkov, he understood. Without a word, he shoved back his chair and rose to intercept. The Propagandist got to Malenkov first, stopping him near the end of the royal table. “Ah, Malenkov—just the man I hoped to consult,” he said urbanely.
Malenkov, however, did not want to speak to Gentz. “Pardon, Baron Gentz,” he muttered. “Might we speak later?”
“Why wait? I need only a moment.” The Baron closed his hand around Malenkov’s wrist while Hill’s man crossed the room in front of the table. Ravenscroft edged closer so he could support Gentz while keeping his body between Malenkov and the Tsar.
“Your ring is remarkable!” Gentz’s grip tightened as he pretended to examine the ring. “Such an unusual choice of jewellery. Was it a gift?”
Near the centre of the table, the Tsar was staring at them, a red flush creeping up his neck. He made to stand, but Prinny intervened, resting a friendly hand on his shoulder to keep him there.
Malenkov’s arm trembled visibly with the effort to free himself. He swayed from side to side, searching for an opening, and instead saw the Tsar looking his way and the footman approaching. He was caught and knew it of a surety. His life was forfeit.
A terrible presentiment filled Ravenscroft. “Gentz—don’t let him—”
But it was too late. Malenkov’s hand, trapped in Gentz’s grip, made a tight fist. When Malenkov let go, he gave Gentz a glare of triumph and hatred. And then his pallor changed.
Ravenscroft realised that if he did not act fast, the man was going to die in full view of the aristocracy. “The man’s swooning!” he blurted. “Let’s take him over there to rest.”
He threw his arm around the Russian diplomat’s waist and half-rushed, half-dragged the man into the nearest alcove.
The footman lent a hand, making sure the poison ring came nowhere near either of them.
Rarely had Ravenscroft been happier than when they surrendered the man’s dying form into the custody of the other guards.
Baron von Gentz pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands, and then let it fall to the ground, abandoned. He gave a wistful sigh. “I shall have to send a note of condolence.” He gave Ravenscroft a devilish look. “Should I send it to the Tsar or to Lord Fitzroy’s mother?”
Perry wasn’t the most devout of fellows, but a steady chant of prayer followed the rhythm of his feet as he ran. Let Thorne stop the infernal device, he thought. Not for my or Charity’s sake. For everyone else’s. Please.
If it blew, half of Europe would be in mourning. And possibly go to war again.
And Galahad was… not an odious person to know. He might even be growing rather fond of him. A little bit, at any rate.
He certainly wouldn’t want to tell the Duke of Northumberland, Roland Percy, that he had got Sir Nathaniel killed. Percy’s heavily muscled build was the same as his half-brother’s, and given his pugilistic prowess, His Grace would be apt to lay him out flat on the lawn.
But if that idiot did get himself killed, Perry was most definitely putting that stupid word, ‘Well,’ on his tombstone. It would serve the bastard right. And at least that would make a soiree between Percy’s right fist and his face worth it.
He burst out of the door at the top of the stairs, more by feel than sight.
For a moment he blinked in the light, trying to orient himself.
Peregrine peered out of a gap in the drapery, trying to get a sense of what was happening at the head table, and saw a small skirmish.
Ravenscroft and the Propagandist were moving the Russian attaché, Pyotr Andreyevich Malenkov, to the side of the room.
Had he been the traitor working with his mother all along? Malenkov had been the young attaché with Lieven at Carlton House, bringing the accusations of Perry’s kidnapping of Lark.
Peregrine’s gaze jerked upwards, seeking the spot his mother should be seated. His mother was no longer there.
A chill gnawed down his spine, and trying to muster a casual saunter so as not to attract attention from the banquet, Peregrine crossed to the middle of the room so he could see the other balcony. Charity must have seen something.
But Charity… Charity wasn’t in the balcony either.
The icy dread creeping along his back grew teeth and sank its fangs painfully deep. With his heart climbing its way into his throat, he again turned to look at the Russian section of the balcony. The Grand Duchess was still there.
Catherine Pavlovna was looking directly at him, impatiently waiting for his attention. And when Perry’s eyes met hers, she pointed most dramatically to the end of the balcony. Where the second staircase down was hidden.
He jerked a curt nod of comprehension. His mother had gone that way. It would lead down into the narrow corridor walled off by the drapery.
His mother was attempting to make her escape. Charity had likely seen, left her seat, and was now trying to prevent it. Unfortunately for Charity—though he would argue it was somewhat fortunate for him—Charity would have to work her way around the outer edge of the Guildhall.
She would be unlikely to run into his mother before she reached the vestibule and slipped out.
Peregrine hurried to the vestibule door, wasting no time in being discreet.
There had been two guards positioned there to prevent his mother from leaving.
She had managed to kill one guard, leaving him slumped against the wall, while the other was on the floor, clearly dying. Both had deep scratches on their hands.
It seemed she had a second ring; this one loaded with a lethal poison.
Heartless though it was, he ignored the dying man. Perry couldn’t do anything to help him except ensure that his killer was brought to justice. He threw open the door to the outside and jogged out into the night.
Far ahead of him, the silhouette of a woman’s skirts, illuminated from the front by gaslight, hurried away. Around her head was a halo of bright blonde hair.
“Mother!” he shouted, breaking into a run.
She slowed briefly, and then stopped, spinning to face Peregrine as he stopped a handful of paces away. Her face was creased with worry. As if she were overburdened with regret and now, faced with the consequences, afraid.
“Perry,” she choked out, as if she were about to break into tears. “You must understand. Everything I ever did—I did it all for us. Always for us.”
Liar.
What a liar she was, ready to play upon his emotions like one might play an instrument. He knew her too well now. How her vile mind worked. She would say whatever she needed to say. Act however she needed to act.
His mother did not suffer fear—none whatsoever. And a creature who experienced no fear would not worry about death or divine retribution. So his mother wouldn’t take the easy way out by surrendering. She would kill, deceive, and hurt anyone who stood between her and her escape.
Peregrine’s anger snapped taut, and a roar of denial left his lips. “The hell you did. Lark and I never asked you to kill for us, Mother. We were children. We wanted your love. The one thing that never was, nor ever will it be, within your power to give.”
Marian Fitzroy’s eyes flickered briefly.
“How dare you say such a thing to me? You had no idea who your father really was. The beast he was behind closed doors. The way he learned to strike me where the bruises would never show. You were his boy. Someone to be cherished. But your sister had no such protection. In nature, a mother’s job is to protect and kill for her offspring, Perry.
What is love,” she spat with contempt, “if not that?”
But even if that was how it had begun, as something vaguely noble, it had quickly twisted and broken as his mother lost her way. As her soul had, if she had ever had one.
“I wasn’t deaf, Mother. I knew what my father did to you. But your ends never justified the means,” Perry said sternly. “You do not have the right to decide who lives and dies.”
Marian cocked her head, pretending to listen. She took a step closer, still carefully circling outside of his reach.
“Nor do you have the right to determine who loves whom,” he said, softer. “Not Ravenscroft. Not Charity. Not I. Just because it is beyond your comprehension does not mean you have the right to destroy something so precious.
“I hate you,” he hissed, a tear slipping down his cheek.
“But more than anything, I pity you, Mother. Because love is… the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. I cannot imagine living the way you do. Being denied this gift. What must it be like to not be able to balance the terrible feelings in my life—envy, anger, bitterness—with the things that give me hope, and comfort, and ecstasy?”
He took another step towards the streetlight behind her, and she turned to face him.
They were only feet apart now, and the way the shadows pooled on her cheeks was eerie.
“I think, in your place, I would have become exactly the same. Sick with resentment and devoid of any purpose except ambition. And perhaps that’s not even your fault.
But you are mad, and ill, and you cannot be saved.
I will not let you escape.” He dropped the words with finality.
His mother’s mask slipped, and any remaining trace of something human, something Peregrine could feel sympathy for, vanished entirely.
“You may be right, my son. But for your entire lifetime and more, I have existed without the burden of such weakness. For more than thirty years, I understood better than any how to pull the strings that govern a man’s heart.
“But I did not predict that, even had you somehow managed to break your sister, you would find it within yourself to abandon the duchess to be here tonight,” she sneered at him.
“Do you think you have won? I have the satisfaction of knowing it cost you everything to bring me down. Everything. Including providing comfort to your dying love.”
Peregrine took one taunting step closer to his mother, smiling sadly at her. “No, Mother,” he murmured. “You—your hate—and this duty to stop you… you are the reason I have absolutely everything.”
It happened quickly, though time seemed to slow. Marian’s hand lifted, as if to dash her palm across his face. But his eye seized upon the glint of metal. The shine of gaslight on the ring on her bare hand. He waited, hands at his side, while her arm began its arc.
And right at its apex, it stopped short, her wrist caught in the heavy glove of the man who had approached Marian from behind.
“You’ve dealt enough death for one night, I reckon.
But this—” Hodges callously broke her wrist, disarming her—“this’s also for what you did to my nephew.
And what you threatened to do to my family. ”
Marian’s scream of surprise and pain rang through the air, her knees buckling. Peregrine closed his eyes and turned away. It was difficult to breathe. To harden his heart. Knowing this was the right thing—the necessary thing—was so different than living it.
Movement caught the corner of his eye.
Charity, with her pale skirts flowing around her, strode forward like an angel of vengeance. She led a small army of guards in her wake.
Her light had found him. He was not alone in the dark.
Perry’s chest tightened. He reached for her, letting his gaze, his fingers, and his very soul tangle together with hers, tracing the line of the ring upon her finger with the edge of his own.
He turned back to his mother, pulling Charity against his chest. “Who could have imagined this feud between you and Lady Cresswell would be what gave me my wife?”
Never had he seen his mother’s face like this. Black rage and insanity lurked just beneath the surface.
“Things are not finished between us, Peregrine.” The basilisk peered through his mother’s eyes, unnervingly steady.
“Perhaps, Mother. But for tonight, I am done with you.”