Chapter Twenty-Eight
“You’re certain about this?”
Felicity shifted beside me again, lifting the curtain from the window to steal another anxious look at the park. As strange
as it was, her frazzled nerves steadied mine. I reached over and gripped her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze as the palace
came into view.
“I am,” I told her as the coach wheels found the gravel drive. “I want to show them that I’m not afraid and that I have no
reason to feel guilty.”
And more than anything, I wanted them all to understand that the house, the perfumery, the inheritance—all of it was mine.
Cartwell brought the coach not to the east wing’s porte cochere, but to the palace’s grand marble entrance that faced the
park. I took one last deep, steadying breath as we drew to a stop. The coach rocked as Willie and Tommy leapt down from their
perches at the back.
“Ready?” I asked Felicity, smoothing my yellow dress. I’d chosen the brightest color in the wardrobe and teased out several
face-framing red curls from beneath my bonnet. I wanted there to be no doubt about who I was, even as they took me in from
a distance.
“Only if you are,” she said.
Tommy reached in to hand me down. I was grateful for his look of concern as he eased me onto the gravel drive.
There was a moment of shocked silence as I turned to face the crowd that had gathered at the gate separating the palace from
the public park, four bodies deep in places. Behind them, Patricians in bright frocks found an excuse to promenade by, their
full attention turned toward Briarwood Palace.
Whether they truly recognized me or not, a loud murmur rippled through the assembled, followed by even louder jeering. I tried
not to flinch as the gate rattled; it was impossible to tell if they were shaking it to add to the clamor or trying to tear
it down.
But all the same, it held.
Several City Police scurried around the side of the palace from the porte cochere, but they must have been told I was coming. They hung back, their dark uniforms blotting out the ornate flower beds like clouds over the sun.
I lifted my chin, turning to Felicity as Tommy helped her out of the coach.
“Now,” I said over the uproar. “Shall we?”
Mr. Samuel C. Hornsby was as punctual as he was reserved. He met us in the grand foyer, looked decidedly unimpressed by my
show of defiance.
“How good of you to come,” Hornsby said in a voice that implied anything but.
As I lifted my face toward him, I saw a flash of recognition in his eyes. A tart curiosity and leathery shock curled through
his otherwise staid essence like the stroke of a quill feather.
“My God, you’ve the look of your grandfather,” he blurted out.
I was tempted to take offense to that.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hornsby,” I told him, with my best elocution. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.” Noticing
he still hadn’t torn his gaze from my face, I added, “Are you quite all right, sir?”
Hornsby gathered himself at once, as a piece of foolscap remembered the shape it had been folded into. He was a tall, well-groomed
man in the sunset years of his life. His shoulders were slightly stooped, as if bearing the full weight of this meeting’s
burden.
“Quite,” he answered stiffly. “If you’ll follow me to Mr. Rosebourne’s study.”
How very helpful of Mr. Hornsby—that was the exact room I’d hoped to find myself in. The only question was whether I’d be
able to filch the jasmine grandiflorum oil from the cabinet without him noticing. That suddenly seemed debatable; as we made
our way through the silent house, his gaze returned to me again and again. His wife or husband would no doubt be hearing this
entire sordid tale the moment he returned home for dinner.
Mrs. Keyes and Mrs. Silver had been correct. There was a power to infamy. It demanded attention, for better or worse.
“Cor,” I heard Willie whisper, his own essence now flooded with shock as he and the others took in Briarwood Palace. Better that,
I supposed, than the sharp mint of their worry.
Our steps echoed through the empty house.
The uneasiness I’d felt on my first visit had given away to curiosity as I looked in on each room we passed.
Rather than a repelling sheet of ice, the pristine white marble halls felt suddenly enveloping, as if reluctant to let me go again now that I’d returned.
Upstairs, Hornsby’s eyes skated along the wall of portraits, lingering a moment longer than necessary on William Rosebourne’s
before balking at the empty space beside it.
“I was sure there was a portrait of . . .” He glanced at me, as if unwilling to say it.
“My mother?” I finished innocently. “Perhaps someone’s made off with it.”
The study was exactly as Hugh and I had left it only a few days before, disheveled in a gentlemanly fashion after being hastily
put to rights. Felicity gasped in delight at the sight of the crammed shelves, all but flying to the nearest one. Tommy remained
in the doorway, keeping watch of the hall, and Willie went to one of the windows.
A proprietary feeling swelled in me as my nose picked up on other, unfamiliar essences, and again as Hornsby moved to stand
behind the desk, where documents had been laid out.
“Have you issued other bequests today?” I asked.
Hornsby looked up, as startled as if I had asked him if I might eat his heart. “Er—yes, at the reading of the will.”
“To which she was not invited?” Felicity asked sharply, tearing herself away from the bookshelves.
Hornsby cleared his throat. “I thought—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I interrupted. “I’m interested in what these other bequests were.”
“Small allowances to longtime servants, personal articles to friends, and such. Here is the relevant passage of the will that
concerns you: ‘To my daughter, Lily, or her child should she not be living, I bequeath my commonplace book’”—Hornsby held
up a thick black leather-bound journal, then continued reading—“‘as well as the collection of perfumes in the crate bearing
the letter L to use as they may. Should no other direct heir be living, they may lay claim to the family’s Treasury.’” Hornsby looked at
me over the rims of his silver spectacles. “I fear I do not know what that is, though I suspect you do.”
“Yes,” I told him, and left it at that. “What is the crate the will spoke of?”
Hornsby crossed the room, coming close enough to the hidden archive for my breath to catch. Instead, he tapped a foot against a cloth-covered object.
Willie went to it at once, Felicity a step behind him. With a dramatic flourish, he pulled the cloth free, revealing the crate.
As indicated, the letter L had been branded into the lid.
Strange, I hadn’t smelled it at all.
“What the devil is this made of?” Willie asked, crouching in front of it. As he knocked on it, it gave a hollow, metallic
sound.
Felicity and I exchanged a sharp glance.
“Iron,” I said. Which meant only one thing.
“Perhaps you ought to let me open it and have a look,” Felicity said carefully. Willie fell back, holding his hands up as
he put more distance between himself and the crate.
Hornsby returned to the desk. “In truth, Miss Lockwood—”
“My lady,” Tommy corrected, reading his lips.
“My lady,” Hornsby said, making it sound altogether like a question. “I rather think you might consider leaving his commonplace
book with the House of Rosebourne. I realize it is likely your aim to inherit the business, but your grandfather did not leave
the company nor this property to you outright, as your mother rejected that inheritance so callously. The perfumery staff
and the board have the business well in hand and would be far more comfortable keeping his notes—”
“Forgive me if I don’t care a whit about what the board prefers,” I said. “If he left me his notes, it was for a reason.”
What reason, I couldn’t possibly say. A commonplace book usually held a gentleman’s notes or collections of articles and quotations
meant to be kept for a lifetime. But as Hornsby had said himself, William Rosebourne hadn’t left me the company or the fortune
to go with it.
The solicitor looked as if he’d swallowed his tongue. Willie snickered.
“You haven’t the slightest notion what it means to run such a business,” Hornsby began, his jaw set.
“Mr. Hornsby”—I enjoyed the flash of alarm on his face as I advanced a step toward him—“I’ll allow that I have not been at
the helm of a business this size, nor have I created products at this scale, but I am a perfumer, and I know my trade. It
is in my blood.”
For years, I had been running my own perfumery business, albeit far smaller. But the economics were the same regardless: supplies,
labor, and sales.
Hornsby snorted, a sound that made my temper heat in an instant.
He seized his hat and walking stick from the desk. “As I have executed my duty, our business is now finished. I have instructed
the City Police to remove anyone who remains in the house after two o’clock, regardless of who they are.”
My jaw set mulishly. “I understand.”
“Then good day to you all,” he said, cramming his hat on his head. Tommy gave him a narrow look as he stepped aside, allowing
him to pass.
“Bloody hell,” Willie said into the silence. “I’ve met more pleasant worms.”
Felicity looked back over her shoulder. “At several points he looked as though he was holding his breath—did he really think
you’d wear some perfume to enchant him?”
“I wish I had,” I groused, coming to help her unlatch the crate. “It might have given him something to truly complain about.”
The lock on the crate was rusted, as if it had been shut and forgotten long ago. My soul gave a little shudder at the inhuman
groan of the metal as it finally released. We lifted the lid.
The Longmount brothers hung back a safe distance, trying to see over our heads.
“Well?” Willie prompted. “What is it?”
The crystal perfume flacons had been kept with immaculate care, protected from light and dust. The warm wash of magic that
swirled up through the clashing scents sparked in my blood, dizzying. I felt Felicity’s gaze on me, seeking permission before
she carefully lifted one from its velvet compartment.
“‘Arrow of Adoration,’” she read. “A love perfume?”
I nodded, momentarily unable to speak. The handwriting on the label, the essence that clung to the cold crystal—that was Mama’s.
She had been the one to make these perfumes and had left them here, despite their great value.
. . . as your mother rejected that inheritance so callously.
No, that wasn’t right. That was . . .
I stood, my head spinning. “Felicity, can you make a list of the perfumes?”
“What is it?” Tommy asked.
I turned so he could read my lips, backing toward the door. “I need to ask our worm a question before he wriggles away.” Willie started after me, but I held up my hand. “Alone. I’ll be back in just a moment, I promise.”
Before anyone else could protest, I darted into the hallway. Picking up my skirt to allow for more movement, I hurried down
the stairs, the soles of my boots sliding across the marble with the force of my run. I found the solicitor just as he reached
the entrance to the porte cochere, where his coach waited.
“Mr. Hornsby!”
He straightened as if I had shot him. For a moment, I was sure he would run through the door to escape me.
“Mr. Hornsby!” I called again. “A word, please.”
With obvious reluctance, he turned, taking in my disheveled state and breathlessness with disapproval. “Yes?”
I steadied my voice. “You said something earlier, about my mother. I want to understand what you meant.”
“What is there to understand?” he said. “She hurt your grandfather horribly. She was his whole world. I witnessed the devastation
she left behind personally.”
Fury stormed in me, snarling. “He banished her. He held a bloody funeral, for God’s sake.”
The solicitor flinched at my harsh words. “Why would he banish his only child—his only heir? He wanted to find a husband for
her so that the child—so that you—might be born into legitimacy, but your mother spurned him and all other offers for help. She wanted nothing more to do with
him.”
My breathing grew ragged. “That’s not possible.”
“The funeral was in poor taste, I acknowledge that,” Hornsby said. “But what else was he meant to do? After a year he’d word
that she had perished in childbirth, and it was only later he discovered she and her child had survived. He spent years searching for the
both of you. Years!”
I couldn’t understand it. There wasn’t a hint of deception in his essence, only disgust coiling at the heart of it.
“You’re wrong,” I told him flatly. “He sold you a lie to console himself.”
Hornsby shook his head. “I will not allow you to slander his memory, nor my name. I have told you the truth, Lady Foxcourt.
Whether you accept it is entirely up to you.”
He took his leave of me then, allowing the door to slam shut behind him.
It was a long moment before I could bring myself to move again.
Hornsby was wrong—beyond wrong. Deluded. I turned on my heel, stalking back down the echoing halls, my mind awhirl with tormenting questions I refused to acknowledge,
let alone try to answer.
Mama would never have allowed us to suffer if there had been a way back. If she’d never had to leave here at all.
I was nearly to the stairs when I heard it.
“Miss?”
I turned, seeking the source of the frail whisper.
“Miss?”
It sounded like a child. Theo’s face flashed in my mind then, soot-stained and frightened.
“Hello?” I called back. “Who’s there?”
A door down the hall creaked. I eased back off the first step, heading in the direction the noise had come from until I saw
the boy, no taller than the doorknob, half hidden by the doorjamb. He smelled utterly ripe, as pungent as a grown man twice
his size.
“Miss,” he called again, “I’m sorry to trouble ye, but . . .”
The boy shrank back into the room as I reached the door. It seemed to be a small servants’ hall, leading out to the grove
of oaks at the back of the palace. He fussed with the torn collar of his shirt as he edged toward the door there. The odor
from the hall was staggering now: sweat, piss, ale, silver, and the dockyards—
“What’s the matter?” I asked him, stepping into the hall. “Are you hurt?”
The boy’s wide-eyed fear gave way to a grin.
A hand clamped over my mouth and nose, stifling my scream as someone wrenched me back against their hard, reeking body.
“No,” the man growled in my ear, “but ye’ll be, if ye don’t do exactly as I say.”