Chapter Thirty #3
“That’s a good question,” I said. “I tried to understand, Kitty, why you would go to the king with a lie. It became easier once I realized how deeply you despised Alice. You were more beautiful than her. You spoke more languages. You were well traveled, quick-witted. And yet, she was the king’s mistress. How that must have grated.”
Kitty laughed. “She was the king’s mistress because she opened her legs. It was not very difficult to figure. Our father chose her to parade before the king because he knew she would be willing.”
“Did you want the king for yourself?”
“That toothless old man? No. But I would have done it, if I were asked. I was never asked.”
“I believe you misremember Alice,” Roland said.
“Or you see her in the light you prefer. The king loved her for many reasons, Kitty. He loved her because she made him laugh, while Gertrude was—and I’m being kind—not much of a wit.
Alice challenged him and sought his opinion.
Gertrude challenged him and did not care for a response at all.
He was, and believe me when I say this, consumed by Alice.
His moods swayed with hers. You knew that.
So when you betrayed her to the king, you wanted it to be the most shocking, the most vile accusation.
You wanted to be sure she would die for it. ”
She only studied us calmly, revealing nothing.
“Alice did not want to marry. She had no secret lover. Those were just lies the court was told to explain her execution,” I pressed.
“Your father was executed only hours after Alice. Presumably because the king believed he was aware of Alice’s betrayal and had kept it quiet.
Your entire family, dead. You, the only survivor. ”
Kitty stared into the distance, lost in another time.
It reminded me of Fulke—how quickly her mask fell.
“When my family died,” she said quietly, the torch on the wall flickering across her face, “it was the happiest day of my life. But you are mistaken. I did not lie. Didn’t I tell you before, Mistress Mortlake?
I despise liars. I saw them together, and I told the king what he needed to know. ”
My voice shook. “Show me. I want proof.”
“What?” she snapped.
“I’ll see the memory.”
“Poor thing. Did you think he loved you?”
“Show me,” I demanded.
“Show her, Kitty.” Only at Roland’s insistence did she finally relent. And when I sank into her mind, she was already holding the memory aloft for me. I could feel the triumph in it.
Hal chuckled as he followed a woman along the garden path. The woman turned her head, ensuring no one was behind them. Moonlight limned her profile. It was indeed Alice Seton—the pert nose and pointed chin. A shock of pale iris, surrounded by thick lashes.
Kitty crouched low in the shadows, breathing heavily as she tiptoed forward, parting the foliage to find a better angle. She could see, through one eye, as the woman pressed Hal against one of the hedges. From this vantage, Kitty could no longer see her face, only Hal’s.
His eyes were wide as she bent to kiss his neck. They looked starved. Frenzied. Their hands roving over each other’s bodies like touching each other was a rare, stolen gift. He shoved her gown to the side—a flash of a white thigh—and thrust into her. She collapsed against his shoulder.
That was enough. I did not want to know how long Kitty Seton had watched for.
Pain ripped through me. My heart hollowed out.
Kitty mistook my horror for betrayal, and she smiled.
“You see, Your Grace, Mistress Mortlake? I did not lie. I told the truth. Treason was committed. I did my duty to the king. I told him his son and the woman he loved had deceived him. And the traitors died as they should.”
I walked unseeing out of the room and fell to my knees. In the cavern I saw all of our actions lined up, wavering. And a finger, slowly, so slowly, knocking the first one down, and in a rushing cascade they fell. They fell and fell and fell, until Hal’s body lay lifeless in the meadow.
Where had it begun? With whom? We made such intimate decisions every day, not knowing they were but a succession of choices that led to fate. I had wanted truth. I had wanted the past to show me an answer worth having. And I had wanted vengeance, for all the torment and pain and suffering to end.
“Release her,” I said into my hands.
Roland’s shadow fell over me. “Whatever for?”
“Release her.”
“Release her, after she sent her entire family to the scaffold based on a lie? Mouse, Hal would never do such a thing. I never saw any ties between them. Hal and Alice? This is madness.” When I glanced over my shoulder, he saw my devastation. He thought Hal really had betrayed me.
“Her eyes shone like opals in the memory,” I said, so soft he couldn’t hear. He folded over me, stroking my arms, his mouth buried in my hair.
“Sweetheart—”
“You don’t understand.” I had not mastered transformation yet—the eyes were always my trouble. I crumpled to the floor. “The real Alice Seton had brown eyes.”