Chapter Forty #2
At school Brooke had once tried, after a late-night dunking in the Thames, to ally herself with Kate because of their similar circumstances. The fifteen-year-old Kate had made it clear she allied herself with no one.
“Fuck off, Howard,” Brooke said. She took a large gulp of wine and tucked into her dinner.
Kate had the sudden, unwelcome thought that Brooke had been in danger of losing everything, too, because of the great enmity between the Howards and the Wroths.
Kate hadn’t spared a thought for her, or any of the other female lords, Lord Seaton least of all.
She looked around the table, and for the first time really took in who else had been invited to dinner.
Besides her own party and the Peckes’, three female lords were present: Lord Seaton’s old crony Lord Luxcombe, Lord Isley, and Lord Brooke.
It dawned on her that Lord Seaton hadn’t been swayed to their side by Celine’s considerable charm alone. By making Celine her guest of honour—and by inviting these lords to dinner—Lord Seaton was sending Lord Wroth a message.
The effrontery of his Inheritance Bill would not be allowed to stand.
AS THE GUEST of honour, Celine stood on the receiving line with Lord Seaton, and as Celine’s guardian, Kate did as well.
After they were married, it would fall to Burnley to receive guests with Celine, but for now, Kate superseded him, and she felt no small pleasure in seeing the back of Celine’s future husband, who had gone in to find his mother a seat by the fire.
Down in the entrance hall, the gleaming silence of their arrival had long since been banished.
It was a comprehensive squeeze, moving very slowly towards the top of the stairs.
The noise rose and fell with a roar like the ocean, and candles glittered in the depths of the huge mirrors, where other crowds, just as large, were gathered.
Celine never flagged or faltered. In fact, Kate thought with no small desperation, had there been a task devised specifically to show Celine off, this was it.
Her fine instinct for people allowed her to address each with personal interest. Her charm and energy made her infinitely likeable.
Each guest was made to feel the night wouldn’t have been quite complete without them, and so dazed were they by having Celine’s full attention for those few minutes, none greeted Kate afterward with the usual fear and awe.
It was difficult not to feel she and Celine were receiving guests together as more than ward and guardian.
It was made even more difficult by the way Everett had dressed them both.
Kate knew they were a pair so perfectly matched, so perfectly dressed, they must almost look like fairy folk who had emerged from the mirror-assemblies downstairs, come in alien splendour to preside over the evening.
Celine’s beauty would be the gold standard after tonight, the unattainable goal of every young woman here.
But she knew Celine in a way no one else did.
She knew where Celine had been born, what she had come from, what difficulties she had endured and overcome.
She knew Celine was never just one thing—that she was incredibly kind and could also be merciless, playful, and serious, interesting in a way other people weren’t.
For an acquisitive person, could there be anything more precious or rare than understanding another person in their entirety and holding that knowledge private?
As she knew Celine. As Celine knew her.
So why was she the one person on whom Celine lavished no attention and expended no charm? If their arms happened to touch, Celine moved. If their eyes met, Celine looked away.
She had no time to dwell on this consuming question, however, as Royce had just turned up.
Royce was wearing an overcoat with a broad fur collar from which emerged her very long legs in their high leather boots.
Her eyes were dark with shadow, her mouth a mocking line.
Even under the blazing candles, she looked cold.
Lucifer come up from hell for the night.
The crowds seemed to melt back from her, faces turning away even as eyes darted back, over fans and around mamas. Royce’s wicked mouth expressed amusement at the effect she was having, and when she caught the curious, scandalised eye of a debutante, she winked. The girl fainted full away.
“Lord Royston,” Lord Seaton said in freezing tones, “you did not receive an invitation.”
“You’re right!” Royce said. “I didn’t. The royal mail gets worse every year.”
Lord Seaton scowled.
Royce’s mouth parted around a gasp, and she said, “My dear lady, you can’t mean to imply you didn’t send one? You will make me feel so awfully wretched.”
Kate felt Celine look at her, and knew it was because Celine had recognised a familiar mannerism, or expression. It had always been thus: The actions and words of Royce held a strong echo of the older, idolised cousin Kate.
She didn’t know how to make the first approach, how to breach the frigid gap, but in the end, she didn’t need to. Celine stepped forward and said with open affection, “Lord Royston, I do hope you will put your name on my dance card this evening?”
Kate tensed, waiting for Royce to do something outrageous like scoop Celine into her arms and kiss her, which would lead to some very public fratricide, but Royce gave a proper, elegant bow over Celine’s hand and said, “If you will have this unworthy soul for a partner, it would be my honour.”
Kate’s heart bled at the gallantry.
She realised a painful truth: The Farnsworth-Baxter family with their cosy teas and comfortable, lived-in house didn’t need Celine. But she did. She needed Celine, and the reprehensible Marquess of Royston needed her, too. Celine made Kate’s family possible.
“Good evening, cousin,” Kate said, and offered her hand.
Royce looked down at it with an unreadable expression, and Kate’s body grew tense as the moment stretched out.
But Royce put her gloved hand in Kate’s.
How warm and firm Royce’s hand felt. It was the hand of an adult, no less volatile and unsteady than the youth Kate had let down, perhaps, but grown now.
Master of herself and all her mess. Eleanor hadn’t been able to grow into adulthood, but Royce had.
Why was that a startling notion? She’d known it for years.
Kate, you’re such a fucking mess.
She put her other hand around Royce’s as well. Royce wasn’t the liar Kate had believed her. There were amends to be made.
Royce didn’t immediately disappear into the ballroom but stayed nearby—whether to enjoy the ton’s shock at finding her in attendance, or to remain with Kate and Celine for the evening, Kate wasn’t sure.
The only other fraught moment came sometime later when Lord Wroth approached the receiving line with his party.
He was received with great equanimity, and no mention of the Inheritance Bill was made.
Tomorrow it would be debated in Parliament and thrown out.
Tonight, Celine was the guest of honour at the event of the season. For Kate, it was enough.
The Wroth heir, Lord Vespasian, wore unrelieved black from her cravat to her high-heeled shoes with their onyx buckles.
She wore her ubiquitous black leather gloves, and her hair was pulled severely back.
When she turned to speak to someone behind her, Kate saw that her long coat was sewn over with black spangles and glittered darkly.
Richard, on whose arm Lord Vespasian had entered, looked handsome and expensive and miserable. Kate exchanged a brief, polite greeting with him and ignored his attempt to speak further. Dismissing him, she turned to the next person in line.
It was a nasty shock.
The Wroth bastard had made no effort to dress up for the evening, which gave her the dangerous air of a fox among the chickens— or, more accurately, a pirate come among aristocrats and their jewels.
There was no way the bastard had been invited, but Lord Seaton couldn’t send her packing without mortally offending the Wroths—an outcome that wasn’t to be courted lightly, in a moment of pique.
Lord Seaton had decided to send one sort of message this evening, Lord Wroth another.
Lord Seaton gave the bastard a frosty greeting and received a smirk in response.
Kate realised Royce, who had been watching events unfold with louche amusement, now stood beside her, both of them in front of Celine.
No word had needed to be spoken. All the provocative game-playing had dropped from Royce’s body and demeanour, and she was nothing but tall, lethal grace.
Kate, beside her, had no doubt she looked no less lethal, the similarities between them never more evident.
It somehow didn’t surprise her that in this matter—protecting what was theirs—she could count on Royce absolutely.
The Wroth bastard stopped for a moment before them and scratched her chin. Raising her brow, she said, “Well, isn’t this sweet. The Howard cousins, together at last.”
The quality of that voice, rarely heard but never forgotten, slid uneasily down Kate’s spine and made her hackles rise farther. It was a rasping, painful voice that plagued her nightmares. The Wroth bastard had had a hand in every loss she’d suffered as duke.
The bastard smirked and said, “Will the sweetness fade at first light, do you think, as though it were a dream?”
Kate felt Celine go rigid behind her and wished, savagely, for a weapon. Markham would frighten anyone, and this was the danger that would stalk Celine so long as she was close to Kate. Worse still, if it became known how desperately Kate loved her.
She needed Celine with her. She needed Celine as far from her as possible. Pressure bore up through her fractured desires.
The Wroth bastard passed by at last. Celine continued to greet the guests with an ease and charm that seemed totally unaffected. Kate attempted to match her. Royce stayed as well, keeping an unobtrusive gaze on the ballroom, with one arm inside her coat, where Kate suspected she did have a weapon.