Chapter Twenty-Five
Kate had expected the worst. The five-minute ride from the club had seemed interminable, giving her ample time to progress from her fear of Lord Seaton giving Celine the cut direct to hysterical images of Lord Seaton slapping Celine, rending her dress, erecting (somehow) the pillory in Charing Cross, and throwing the first vegetable at the sinful whore of the sinful Duke of Howard.
Kate hadn’t been able to imagine … this.
She got no help from Celine, who was fussing about Lord Seaton, scolding and flattering her in familiar tones.
Like she had indeed grown up by her knee.
Scolding Lord Seaton. And the old harridan, who had once scared an entire season of debutantes into tears, looked like she was about to burst from happiness.
Every one of her arch frowns was a smile in disguise.
The taut string that had pulled Kate here loosened, a sweet sensation. She hadn’t been destroyed. Not quite yet.
“Your relation,” Kate said. “What a happy coincidence.”
“Isn’t it.” Celine smiled up at her with eyes that were witch-green, sparkling with residual magic. What spell had she cast here?
Looking amused at Kate’s expense, Lord Seaton said, “Sit, Duke.”
Kate sat. A fresh tea service and an extra cup were placed on the table.
Celine did the honours, very prettily. Kate felt dazed, the quaint teatime taking on an almost unreal quality.
Lord Seaton had been a liability for twenty-odd years, refusing to acknowledge her in public, turning her nose up at being associated in any way with the whiff of treason.
How cosily that breach was now being mended!
Somehow—Kate still couldn’t fully grasp it—Celine had taken a moment of great jeopardy and turned it to her advantage.
Kate had been deserted by her dearest friend today and had raced here expecting to find her reputation and her future unravelling beyond rescue.
Instead, she had found Celine, a light in the dark.
Lord Seaton said tartly to Kate, “You have done your best, I’m sure, but you will allow me to see to it that Miss Genet is properly launched. I like her, Duke. I like her a great deal, and I mean to show her off.”
I like her a great deal, too, Kate thought, unsettled.
Celine and Lord Seaton carried the conversation, occasionally soliciting Kate’s opinion on some point or other. She hardly knew what she answered.
She couldn’t take her eyes off Celine. The way her mouth pursed and smiled, contemplated, spoke, its articulation far beyond words. Her hands were plain and square, then graceful in movement. Her eyes had a depth that spoke, in disturbing flashes, of the human soul.
It was starting to sink in that Celine hadn’t only won her a temporary reprieve: She’d stopped Lord Wroth in his tracks.
He couldn’t stir up rumours about Celine now without calling Lord Seaton a liar.
Kate would love to see him try to besmirch the most upright lord in the ton.
And with Lord Seaton and the Duke of Howard openly allied in opposition to the Inheritance Bill, the House would vote against it.
It was like an excellent joke; she felt the urge to laugh.
She was conscious her perception of Celine was becoming overblown, that she was in danger of seeing Celine as a totem, full of meaning.
Rationally, she knew Celine was fallibly human.
But she had crossed some internal Rubicon and she could no longer be rational about Celine.
There was no more suppressing what she felt.
What she wanted.
She met Lord Seaton’s knowing eyes. Lord Seaton guessed at the carnal bent of Kate’s thoughts.
“Now, Duke,” Lord Seaton said, “you have rushed Miss Genet straight onto the marriage mart—”
“It was Miss Genet’s express wish that—”
“—without even giving her a proper debut! And when have the wishes of a young woman, innocent of the ways of the world, overridden the good sense of her far wiser guardian?”
When she is in possession of a certain kind of letter, Kate thought. When she is the furthest thing from innocent.
“It seems to me you’ve taken the first likely fellow, and all but promised him Miss Genet’s hand! Lord Burnley is ugly, and his father’s a bore. She can do much better.” Lord Seaton made this pronouncement with all the confidence of a woman whose word was law in the matter of society marriages.
“I like Lord Burnley,” Celine interrupted serenely. “I intend to accept him.”
I like her, Celine had said of Royce. Celine’s loyalties were steadfast. Unshakeable. What would it feel like to have that loyalty herself, Kate wondered. To be its main object? An acquisitive rush of blood to her stomach made her momentarily dizzy.
“Miss Genet,” Lord Seaton went on more loudly, ignoring what she obviously found to be a preposterous statement, “have you heard mention of my ball, the Ten Thousand Lights, sometimes called the Decem Milia Luminum, or, more crudely, the Demi Lux? It closes Easter recess every year and is the event of the season, without exception.”
Kate hadn’t bothered mentioning it, as she never received an invitation.
“Naturally I have heard of it,” Celine said. “The debutantes speak of nothing but what they will wear, and complain terribly of their prudish mamas.”
Lord Seaton looked pleased and said decisively, “This year, the Ten Thousand Lights shall be held in your honour. It will be your formal debut.”
More colour flooded into Celine’s face, and she seemed at a loss for words.
Kate wondered if Celine was trying to find a way to tell Lord Seaton she would rather be married before then—the Demi Lux was still five weeks away—or whether Lord Seaton’s patronage and the chance to debut at the event of the season had made her waver.
Seeing Celine’s confusion, Lord Seaton’s face softened with real affection. It was extraordinary how thoroughly Celine had won her over. Kate put a name to what she was feeling and scowled down into her tea.
Envy.
She was envious of Lord Seaton, who was offering Celine friendship, offering a broader set of options than blackmail. It was only now, when the hold Celine had over Kate was loosening by a breath, that she realised it had also been her hold over Celine.
There had been something obscenely intimate about Celine having in her possession the powerful, frightening events of Kate’s childhood and holding them like a knife at Kate’s throat. And Kate, on the other end of the knife, providing Celine’s only access to the world, her single chance at a future.
At long last, the tea ended. Celine helped Lord Seaton into her cloak and admonished Lord Seaton not to catch a cold out this late at her advanced age—“Awful girl,” Lord Seaton laughed—then coddled her until Kate started to imagine simply opening the sash window and dropping Lord Seaton out of it.
Down on the street, Kate cut short the gushing farewells between Lord Seaton and Celine by getting leverage on the old woman’s hand and the small of her back and hoisting her up into her closed barouche.
Lord Seaton leaned forward out of the door and hissed, “I see what you’re thinking, you awful degenerate. I hate to leave her in your clutch—”
Kate shut the door in her face, then handed Celine up into her own carriage. She followed it home on her horse, riding near enough to speak, but not speaking.
Mr. Hill met them at the door to take their things. Celine seemed not entirely aware of where she was and wandered into the green parlour in something of a daze. Kate followed her in and closed the door, and in three strides, she held Celine’s face in her hands and bent to kiss her.
She would die if she didn’t kiss her.