Chapter Thirty-Six #3
soft laugh. “But I’ve become rather taken with the elegance of the process.”
The duke smiled at my silence, stepping closer. The hair rose on my arms.
“You see,” he continued, “after the silkworm spins itself into the very cocoon meant to transform it, it is left out in the
sun to wither, or it is steamed or boiled. In the end, the result is the same.”
My stomach tightened, but still, I said nothing. That suited the duke as well.
“The silkworms cannot be allowed to hatch and emerge,” he said. “In doing so, they would break the single thread of silk wrapped
around them, rendering it worthless.”
He drew another step closer. I stiffened at the sensation of his finger ghosting over my sleeve.
“Some silkworms are born for breeding,” he continued, “but in their lowly, reduced state of existence, they cannot fly. They
cannot escape the natural order of our world. Their brief lives have no value beyond the offering of that lone strand of silk,
which will one day adorn a superior creature. A lord or lady—perhaps even a queen.”
Apparently, we were dispensing with all subtlety now. “I cannot help but think this is becoming a rather tortured allegory.”
“Is it?” Glenmoor said. “It only strikes me that your perfume is not so very different. Flowers cut down in their prime to
steal their essence, animals slaughtered for their musk and ambergris. And yet, when you dab the perfume to your wrists, only
the impression of loveliness remains. A silkworm dies, and the memory of its brief life fades at the first brush of silk against
skin.”
His finger hooked over the edge of my bodice and I slapped it away.
He laughed at his little game, but the move had served its purpose.
The confidence I’d felt upon entering cracked, sending a shiver of uncertainty through me.
His words were less frightening than the unpredictability of where he was leading me with them.
“That is the deception of beauty, is it not?” he continued. “It mesmerizes you, so you do not think to look for its shadow,
where death and pain linger. It is pleasure itself, a luxurious moment of forgetting that all life is ephemeral and that everything
has a cost.”
“That is quite easy to say when you are never made to pay it,” I ground out.
His smile was worse than his touch. “Correct, Miss Lockwood. Some are born to enjoy beauty and pleasure, and others are destined
to bear the cost. In time, the kingdom will come to understand my plans. They will be grateful for the elegant world I have
created for them. As the years pass, no one will remember the poor, wretched creatures sacrificed to achieve it.”
I stilled, feeling my grip on the moment unraveling as his meaning cut through me like a knife.
“What are you talking about?” I managed to get out. “What sacrifice?”
The Duke of Glenmoor faced me now, those strange eyes inhuman. I took an unconscious step back. “To perfect our society. To
rid it of its unwanted, the ugliness and desperate rot. To ensure the lower classes properly serve their betters. The most
powerful perfumes call for the sacrifice of a life, do they not?”
The blood drained from my face. Around me, the room smeared with shadows. This was—this was so far beyond what Hugh had imagined
the duke’s motivations were, I was struggling to grasp the magnitude of it.
“Perfumes to control the minds of others, perfumes to kill, perfumes to extend a life into immortality . . .” he continued
in a singsong voice, circling behind me. “Wars will be won in moments, not decades. The kingdom will be invincible, and my
rule complete.”
Nausea rose in me, as swift and brutal as the appalling images his words stirred.
“Oh dear. You’re trembling,” he said, with hollow sympathy. “You might have been part of the making of this new empire, if
you’d only had the nerve for it.”
I was trembling. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t muster the words through my terror. My skin was cold and clammy beneath
my gown, my heart beating suffocatingly fast.
He meant it. Every word. The utter lack of remorse in his expression as he spoke of murdering countless people . . . My stomach
turned violently.
A void in the soul.
“I would never help you,” I choked out. I backed up, stumbling into the wall behind me.
At the door, the duke smiled. Pitying. Heartless.
“Thank you for the gift of this perfume,” he purred. “I shall use it to ensure I rule for many years to come. You can take
comfort in knowing that your insignificant life proved valuable in that, at least.”
My hands shook as they knotted in the skirt of my dress. He opened the door and signaled to the four policemen waiting there.
The shadows lengthened around me as the men spread out through the pristine room, snuffing out the candles as they passed
them. I edged toward the table with the small crystal tray, the sight of them blurring with my fear. The air thickened with
the pepper of excitement and the terrifying sulfur of malice.
“Please,” I began. “Wait—there’s been a misunderstanding—”
A pistol rose in the dark and, before I could scream, fired.