Chapter Five
The next morning, Kate went to the club, looking for Richard. If there was anyone who could point her to the eligible bachelors, it was he. She knew no one as avidly abreast of town gossip.
Her swift approach through the sitting room caught Richard’s peripheral attention, and he began to rise from his place by the fire, blushing with surprise.
She waved him back and sat in the armchair opposite.
“Apologies,” he said, seating himself after a hesitation. He folded the newspaper he’d been reading and put it aside. “I would have left your seat free, had I known you were coming.”
“Don’t be absurd. Cousin…” She leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I have need of your particular knowledge.”
She had left Paris three years ago, sure it would never follow her here. Sure what she’d done and felt with Celine would stay across the Channel, never to be thought of, never to be repeated. Within the terror of Robespierre’s Paris, a personal act of carnage.
She hadn’t slept last night. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her own part in bringing on this crisis.
Telling Celine about the existence of a letter.
Losing control. She had racked her brain but couldn’t think of a single other time she’d let herself off the leash like that, before or since.
She couldn’t make sense of it. It was uncharacteristic.
Inconsistent. The consequences of it, catastrophic. What could she have been thinking?
Below that was the thrumming awareness of what Celine had unearthed: The old secret. The old threat. The unforgivable act. Not dead, but here.
Richard plucked at the upholstered armrest. “You aren’t in the habit of drinking your coffee at the club.”
She let out an annoyed breath and prodded his foot with her own. “It is of no note to me where you sit. Stop being so prissy.”
He leaned back into the chair, crossing one leg over the other—an elaborate show of making himself at home. He raised his brows at her—Happy?—and a small smile tugged on her lips.
Becoming serious again, he opened his hands and said simply, “What do you need?”
The unquestioning show of loyalty soothed her in some indefinable way, working against the thrashing panic she’d been fending off since last night. Quieting it. She would find Celine a husband, and the letter would be returned to her. It was simple.
“I need a list of the five most eligible bachelors who are in town this season,” she said. “Though, if you can, narrow it down to the single best candidate.”
Richard’s mouth dropped open. “Good God, you aren’t thinking of marrying?”
He needn’t look quite so horrified. She had no intention of ever marrying, as he well knew, but she wasn’t as bad as all that, surely. “No, of course not.”
His face loosened with relief, and then he coloured a little and gave an embarrassed cough. “Not that you aren’t … I mean if you ever wanted to…”
“Relax, man, you have the wrong end of the stick. There’s a young woman I wish to introduce into society—” Richard choked on the mouthful of coffee he’d just taken, with some cause.
Kate hadn’t attended a ball in at least ten years.
“Indeed. You grasp the problem. I wish to see her married as quickly as possible, to someone suitable.”
“I … don’t even know where to begin. Who is this young woman?”
“No one you know. A French orphan, recently come into my care.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. She saw him decide not to pursue that line of questioning. “Is she young? Beautiful? What of her dowry?”
Was Celine beautiful? She had evidently once thought so, given how thoroughly she’d fucked up in Paris, but it was difficult to remember seeing Celine that way, with her appearance last night superseding any older, feebler recollection.
Grimy, thin, unkempt. The stamp of poverty all over her.
And yet her fingers, her mouth, the unmistakeable way she moved had been viscerally familiar.
It was disturbing when Celine was, to all purposes, a stranger. A dirty stranger in a cheap dress who had insinuated herself into Kate’s home. A stranger who spoke informally—tu—to Kate, who was a duke. Her skin prickled with unease.
“She’s young, she’s the ward of a duke, and I’m settling twenty thousand on her.” Then, with gentle irony, in response to Richard’s raised brows, “Does it matter if she’s beautiful?”
“I…,” he said. “Twenty thousand is a handsome sum.”
Not handsome at all. Compliant. “Yes. Now the names of potential suitors, if you please. I wish to be rid of her.”
Something in her tone caught his attention and he peered intently at her.
He knew her entirely too well. “This orphan…,” he said slowly.
“If there’s something more to the connection, if she has presumed on you in some way …
You are going to extraordinary lengths for someone I’ve never heard you speak of. ”
He was already halfway to the truth. For a moment, it felt possible to tell him. To confide in him, rely on him. Already, at just the hint something might be wrong, his hackles were half-raised on her behalf. But she had grown up malformed by betrayal.
It simply wasn’t possible for her to rely on anyone.
“I want to be rid of her, because the sudden acquisition of a ward is a nuisance and a bore, and I wish to return as soon as possible to my own unencumbered life.” Supposing she could get Celine an offer in two weeks, and allowing three for the banns to be read and contracts to be drawn up and signed, the whole blasted affair might be over in a mere five weeks.
“She is the daughter of an old friend. He lived modestly in the countryside with very little company, so she lacks any town polish. What do you think?”
Lacks town polish was severely understating the matter. But expensive dress would go some way to ameliorating Celine’s deficiencies, and Kate’s name would do the rest.
Richard didn’t look entirely convinced, but he didn’t attempt any further probing questions. The puzzle of finding the perfect suitor for her ward engaged him, as she’d known it would. He became lost in thought.
But when at last he gave the answer, it was with an apologetic wince. “Your best bet is Lord Burnley.”
“Lord Burnley? I don’t know him.”
“He’s the eldest son of Lord Pecke, which means he’ll inherit—”
“No!” she said, aghast. “My God, have you gone mad? Give me another name.”
“Kate, he’s far and away the most suitable candidate, he—”
“I will not be forced to endure Lord Pecke’s inane, pious homilies for even one minute, never mind two weeks’ courting. The man can’t be shut up!”
Richard groaned and rubbed his face with his hand.
“I’m not saying it won’t be a trial, but if you want a quick, advantageous marriage, Lord Burnley is the one.
He wishes to marry, and his parents support him in the endeavour.
He has had no success yet, however. You aren’t the only one who doesn’t relish a connection with his father. ”
The Earl of Pecke was a ridiculous, bothersome old curmudgeon who haunted the halls of the House of Lords, looking for unsuspecting victims. He had a do-gooder mania about poverty that was completely divorced from a realistic sense of how the issue might be tackled, and would talk anyone’s ear off who came too close. He was avoided like the plague.
If she were to associate herself with him, it was even possible her own reputation and power in Lords would suffer some cooling in the short term.
But then, nothing about blackmail was easy. Lord Pecke was only one trial among many. And if Richard said his son was the quickest way to marry Celine off …
“I hope you’re very sure about this,” she said grimly.
“I wouldn’t have dared suggest him if I weren’t. Look, Lord Pecke is in committee all day. If you call on Lady Pecke this morning, you’re guaranteed not to have to see him.”
Good God, a morning call. She couldn’t believe she had to do this. Bloody Celine Genet, coming all the way across the sea just to poke a stick into the well-oiled wheel of the Duke of Howard’s life. She let out a long breath, enforcing patience. “Very well.” She stood. “Wish me luck.”
She turned to leave, but he called her back softly.
“I wanted you to hear it from me,” he said, meeting her eyes with some effort. “I’ve arranged rooms for Mr. Buttle and his family, and paid the first quarter’s rent for them. I couldn’t stand by and let them fall into poverty. I couldn’t do it, Kate.”
She felt a hot bloom of anger. He was her family!
He should stand with her; he should understand that she acted to benefit them all, not just herself!
And she felt love. She knew enough about his finances to guess he was probably taking bread from his own table to make sure the Buttles didn’t go without.
“Careful,” she said, “you’re starting to sound like Lord Pecke.”
His gasp of outrage followed her from the room.
THE SUN WAS higher in its springtime arc when she returned home. She rode down the cobbled lane at the side of the house and entered at the mews door. Inside, it was dark and fragrant, full of the soft jangle of tack.
Her secretary, Shaw, had been waiting for her.
He was a middle-aged gentleman with too-long hair, greying at the temples.
He was dressed … in a fashion, and wore his baleful morning eyes.
“You’re letting the French woman stay?” he said before she’d even dismounted.
“I heard she was in a right state when she arrived, looking like a—”
“Yes?” she said icily, daring him to continue. She handed her horse off to the groom and took her time removing her gloves. There were certain people she did not relish lying to. A French orphan, recently come into my care. It sounded treacly. Utterly fanciful.
He stared at her, as though wondering if she were quite in her right mind.
“If it gets out—excuse me, when it gets out that your French ‘ward’ isn’t quite the respectable young miss you would have everyone believe, the ton is going to be embarrassed and angry, and that’s a hell of a combination.
Tell me you plan to send her on her way! ”
Insolent! Messy, late, obnoxious, blunt, stubborn. Shaw’s flaws were too many to list, and none of them were relevant, because he was also right. He almost always was.
As she wasn’t at liberty to make the sensible response, however, she said merely, “Is Miss Genet awake?”
“No. The household’s in an anticipatory frenzy.”
She set off over the lawn towards the house, not looking to see if he followed. She pushed open the door and passed through the bright salle where she housed her sporting equipment.
If the servants were already gossiping about Celine, she was going to have to do everything by the book, even at home. The air she could freely breathe reduced by half. She reminded herself that in five weeks, Celine would be wed and she would have the letter.
Shaw, keeping pace a step behind, said in a different voice, “By the way, Lord Royston called on you early this morning. She’s still in the entrance hall, hat in hand. She would wait.”
Royce, here? That was a new and unpleasant development. Kate reversed course away from the entrance hall and began climbing the stairs to the first floor. “You may tell Lord Royston I haven’t time to see her today.”
Shaw’s breathing had become audible, but his quick, neat steps didn’t falter. He said hopefully, “And the French woman?”
“I won’t send Miss Genet away.” When he opened his mouth to argue, she said in a low, warning tone, “Do not push me on this.”
It was so much worse than he knew. Yes, if the ton discovered she was shoving a prostitute down their throats, there would be hell to pay. And as bad as it was, the alternative was still worse.
The letter, and everything it implied, was worse.
Forget the mines. What judge would rule in her favour once her childhood act of treason became common knowledge?
What society would accept a woman who had killed her own family?
What bank would loan her money, or lord countenance her presence in Parliament?
She would have to leave England, living the rest of her life in exile.
She had built herself power and prestige as the only monument to her family she could afford.
Guilt had not been allowed. Remorse had not been allowed.
The smallest sign of either would have been the weakness her enemy used to destroy her.
And to let herself fail would have been to let her family’s deaths be for nothing.
No. She would find the unsuitable Miss Genet a husband, sparing neither effort nor expense.
“I’ll need you to get me the full social calendar. Do I still get invited to any of these things?” It was ten years or more since she’d attended anything a debutante might attend.
“Yes,” Shaw wheezed. “All of them.”
She snorted, somehow not at all surprised. She could just imagine the steady flow of envelopes coming through her door every day and Shaw grumpily disposing of them.
She gained the top of the stairs and strode down the hallway towards the north stair. “Good. I’ll be attending anything Lord Burnley or Lady Pecke attends for the next two weeks. As will Miss Genet.”
His footsteps stopped, and as she kept walking, he fell quickly behind. “I’m going for breakfast,” he said sourly, and left without a farewell.
SHE BATHED THOROUGHLY from a basin of hot water—the time-sapping, languid heat of a bath irritated her—then sat, attempting to focus on the paper while Everett trimmed, brushed, and styled her hair.
Instead of reading the print, she was staring at the signet ring on her left hand. It was a mark of rank she wore even when she was naked. She had wanted it for as long as she could remember, and she had fought for it.
She had killed her family for it, and had to live when they didn’t, and had to live with it.
She would not let a French vagrant render it worthless.
“Has Miss Genet woken yet?”
“Not yet, Your Grace.”