Chapter Twenty-One
“Are you quite well, Miss Genet?”
Celine came to and saw that she’d been pulling a fruit bun apart on her plate.
She had promised herself she would consume every last drop of this world, and yet she had no appetite.
Her stomach felt full of heartbeats, fast and slow.
She looked up at the duke’s secretary, Mr. Shaw, with his flyaway, greying hair and dark, kind eyes.
They sat cosily together around a corner of the breakfast table.
“Quite well. I slept badly, that is all.”
“Look here,” Mr. Shaw said, folding his newspaper and sliding it over to her. “You’re in the paper.”
He tapped his finger at a certain paragraph.
She dragged the tiny print into focus. Miss G—— was seen yesterday observing the Sunday service at St. Mary le Strand, in the pew of the D—— of H——.
Upon the conclusion of the service, she was escorted from the church by Lord B——, who is known to attend St. George’s, Hanover Square, in the usual course of events.
She was in the society pages! And her name linked to Lord Burnley’s.
She tried to feel glad, but it was difficult. She kept seeing the flash of Markham’s knife. She felt like Markham was still outside her window, still falling.
“Your spectacles haven’t arrived yet?” Mr. Shaw asked sympathetically.
She dredged up a real smile. “Not yet. To the great disappointment of Lady Florence Morton.” The young woman had apparently been sincere in her wish to become friends and had been writing to Celine daily.
Mr. Shaw finished his tea in a huge gulp, staining his cravat. When Celine made to ring for a fresh one, he waved her off. “Already late to meet the duke in Westminster,” he said, then delicately clamped his teeth over a piece of toast as he shrugged into his jacket.
After he had gone, Celine felt more oppressed than before.
She made her way through the house. Its austere spaces were undisturbed. There was no awareness of having been invaded. Domestic staff went about their usual work, the tall vases were full of fresh flowers, and somewhere, a window was open, letting in the sounds from the river.
She went through to her sitting room and lifted the sash window, then put her knee on the window seat and leaned half out, peering down. The magnolia trees were beginning to bloom, the bright blossoms springing whole from bare, winter branches. There was no body sprawled at the bottom of the wall.
She slumped back into the seat and stared out, unseeing.
Markham didn’t know anything for sure. She had been fishing for information, not acting on it.
If she’d known what Celine possessed, she would have acted far more decisively.
Markham’s bark was terrifying, but there would be no bite.
Celine had to hold her nerve. If she acted out of fear now, she would do something stupid.
Beneath these sensible thoughts was a feeling of creeping dread, as though the solid riverbank she thought she’d climbed was crumbling under her. Her gut clenched, and her skin turned clammy in the sunshine.
Incredibly, she must have fallen asleep, because next she was aware, it was late afternoon, the cool air raising her skin into gooseflesh. Somewhere in the house, the duke was shouting.
“HE HAS GONE too far this time,” Kate said, pacing. She and Shaw had come straight from Westminster and ensconced themselves in her study. “It is an insult that cannot be borne!”
Today, in the House of Lords, Lord Wroth had hit back, and his attack was on a scale she hadn’t thought possible.
He had introduced a jaw-dropping piece of legislation called the Inheritance Bill. It proposed to bring England into line with other European nations and disinherit its female lords wholesale, as well as their female heirs, reverting all dignities to the next male relative.
That it was his response to her taking the mines, she could not doubt—its clear purpose was to strip her of name, dignity, lands, and income. You took something from me, so I will take everything from you.
After all these years, she had somehow still underestimated his hatred of her.
The bill went to the heart of British privilege, culture, and identity.
The faces of her peers had been pale with shock, the chamber utterly silent as the intent was absorbed.
Then, the flush of awful consciousness in the female lords present: Lord Brooke, an impoverished young viscount; Lord Luxcombe, an old battle-axe; Lord Isley, sleek and horse-mad.
It should, in a sane world, be an easy bill to beat.
But Lord Wroth was a powerful man and an excellent politician, and once the idea of masculine supremacy took hold, it would gain traction with certain groups.
It must not be allowed to take hold. She was an excellent politician, too. She would see that the bill failed.
Shaw’s reply to her outburst was unemotional. “Will you speak to the king first, or the prime minister? We need to plan for the worst, and be sure we know how the Commons will vote.”
Shaw was right, damn him. Indulging in rhetorical anger would get them nowhere. The second reading of the bill had already been scheduled for after Easter recess, giving them five weeks to marshal the support they needed.
She got a hold of herself and had just sat, pulling pen and paper to her, when a knock drew her attention. Royce stood in the doorway, louche and heavy-lidded, huddled in her greatcoat. It was an unpleasant shock. It was the last thing she needed.
She leaned back and took a deep, calming breath. Shouting would get her nowhere. “What are you doing here?”
She remembered Celine saying, She told me being here, in your house, feels like dying. Was that what Royce felt when she came to Kate? Like she was dying?
Royce raised her hands and walked slowly forward. The closer she came, the worse Kate felt. “Pax,” Royce said. “I heard about the bill Wroth introduced today, and—”
“And what?” Kate bit off. She couldn’t worry about Royce right now as well. It was too much. “You thought you would come and make everything even worse? Get out.”
Royce responded the way she always did—with a sneer and a gathering intensity in her eyes.
She opened her mouth and Kate, exhausted, waited for whatever caustic comment was to follow.
But then Royce closed her mouth again, breathed deeply through her nose, and stood straight.
Royce was so often leaning, slouching, or just plain fainting away on whatever surface was nearest that the effect was startling.
Her hair over one shoulder, the broad shoulders of her many-caped coat, and her long boots all came into new visual effect.
“I came to help,” Royce said through tight lips. “The situation is more dangerous than you realise.”
“Look,” Kate said with forced patience, rubbing a hand between her brows where a headache was brewing, “if I need someone seduced or drunk beneath the table, I’ll send for you. But for now, if you truly wish to help, you will leave Shaw and me to sort this out.”
Royce took a hard breath, then said, “I know something you don’t—something you need to know—but you’re not going to like it.”
Good God!
All these years Royce had been nothing but ruin, nothing but loss, always accumulating and never relenting.
She had been the reminder of what Kate had broken, a dark weight that made everything Kate had to do more difficult.
It had been Richard who stood beside her.
Richard whose steadiness she could rely on, whose affection never wavered.
“If you say anything about Richard—”
“Richard is in league with Wroth!” Royce spat, all her cool detachment leaving her. Her voice swooned like a lush into its familiar pattern: petulant, aggrieved, and with a slur that gave her away. “He has been for ages.”
Kate came to her feet. It was too much. It was too much.
“Get out,” she said, fighting for control. “Get out, you useless, destructive—child!”
Royce’s face underwent an awful change. “He always wanted you to himself,” she said. “He started the work of separating us before I even met him. He poisoned you against me.”
“Good God, can you even hear yourself? The paranoid, obtuse—You will lose your title, too, if Lord Wroth gets the votes to pass his bill, do you grasp that? Your real estate, your dignities, every last scrap of respectability you possess. Yet the best you can do is insert yourself into matters of state, like a child interrupting a dinner party begging for attention.”
“What a shame for you can’t just ship me off to Switzerland again.”
“New South Wales would be too close, you—”
“You were blind to our aunt’s faults, and you’re blind to Richard’s, too. You think I understand nothing, but Kate, you have no idea what price I’ve paid—”
An image came to Kate: herself at seventeen, her raw-boned limbs collapsed beneath her in her rented room.
Pressed beneath the enormous loss. The parent who had been the sun to her.
The consequences of the sun going out. She had longed for someone—anyone—who could share the weight with her. She had known there was no one.
“Oh, you’ve paid,” Kate roared. “You? My God, the most helpful thing you’ve ever done was stay on the other side of the bloody continent!”
All the colour left Royce’s face. Her nostrils were pinched, her mouth a painful slash.
She said hoarsely, obstinately, “Richard has been meeting with Wroth at his club. They are meeting today. No, don’t bother shouting at me again, I’m leaving.
I only came for Celine’s sake. Do what you want with the information. ”
Royce turned and strode to the door where she almost collided with Celine, who had arrived looking flushed and out of breath. The two women caught hold of each other.
“What’s going on?” Celine asked.
“Royce was just leaving,” Kate said in freezing tones. Somehow seeing Royce and Celine in this almost-embrace was the worst part of a very bad day.