Chapter Thirty-Four Conditional Covenant
Chapter Thirty-Four
Conditional Covenant
Two days after the fitting, Poppy secured permission from her parents to visit Catherine under the pretext of seeking marital advice. Thoroughly satisfied that she was making efforts to accept her fate, her parents agreed readily.
Catherine and Theodore ushered her in, calling for iced lemonade and sweets. As they waited for the refreshments, Catherine’s anxious gaze roved over Poppy, darting from the scab on her thumb to the pink line of new skin across her throat. “You must have been terrified,” she fretted. “Poor thing.”
“It was . . . unpleasant,” she said. She recalled her days in the cell, the slow pressure of fear building in her chest, to the blank terror of the fire and blood of the night at the museum, to the desperate panic when Hasan’s knife had bitten against her thumb.
All of these things had been horrifying, but the original danger still remained: a future bound to Richard Montrose.
Catherine took Poppy’s hand, running the tip of her finger below the wound on the base of her thumb. “The Jackal must be a real brute.”
The corner of Poppy’s mouth turned up. “He was,” she said, “and I told him so too. Several times.”
But when she thought about it—really thought about it—the wounds Hasan had inflicted on her were transactional, blood for his brother. Richard’s hatred was violent and personal. Only one of the two men was a monster, and it wasn’t the one who had abducted her.
“Well, I’m glad you’re safe now.” Theodore sighed. “The last few weeks have been tense, to say the least.”
Poppy looked down at her lap. “I fear that your relief may be premature.”
Theodore and Catherine exchanged a look. “What do you mean?” Catherine asked.
Here was the part she had been dreading: telling Catherine about Richard’s plan.
She knew her friend would believe her—after all, she had tried to warn her off him from the beginning.
What she feared was being blamed for her predicament.
She would take responsibility for pursuing Richard, but his violent racism could not be laid at her feet.
“Richard plans to betray me, once we’re married,” Poppy said.
Both of them gaped. Whatever they had thought she was going to say, it clearly wasn’t that.
Without mincing words, she told Catherine and Theodore exactly what she had overheard the night of the engagement party.
“And in case you think I misunderstood, he all but admitted it to me in the car ride on the way home.”
“I believe you,” Catherine said. “In a way, this is my fault—if I had been more adamant, perhaps I could have prevented you from getting tangled in all this.”
“No, I would have found some other way to pursue him—which is one of the reasons my parents, and the rest of society, would likely never believe me. I should have listened to you. But I need to get out of this engagement. I cannot allow Richard to become viceroy.”
“What are you planning to do?” Catherine asked.
Poppy bit her cheek, holding back her next words. But if she could not voice her ambitions to her best friend, the one person on this island that she trusted, then she might as well not do this at all. “I have to succeed my father, not him.”
Poppy saw Theodore shoot a glance at Catherine. Catherine didn’t return his look, but she hadn’t been able to stop her eyebrows from shooting up her forehead. Poppy held her breath. How her best friend responded now would change the course of her life.
“Poppy, there’s never been a vicereine,” Catherine said cautiously.
“I’m aware.”
Catherine chewed her lip. “Do not think me insensitive,” she said, “but why not just break off your engagement, weather the storm, and marry someone else? Someone you trust to become viceroy instead?”
“I cannot trust that the same thing wouldn’t happen again,” Poppy said. An edge of bitterness laced her words. “I doubt there is a single man in the nobility who would court me if not for my father’s station.”
Theodore put up one hand. “To be clear, you intend to put yourself next in the line of succession as a single woman, thus thwarting any attempt by any man to take the office through marriage and abuse his power over you.”
“That sums it up.”
“Is there no other reason?” Theodore asked. “Why go to all this effort to take an office, if all you want is to avoid being controlled by a husband?”
“Because I’m the best fit,” Poppy snapped.
“It’s not just about my husband controlling me.
It’s about my husband commanding this colony.
I am the child of the current viceroy. Why should my blood and my gender make a difference?
This is my right, both by birth and by parentage.
I am just as qualified, if not more, to inherit my father’s office.
But I cannot work alone. I need allies. Will you help me? ”
Tentatively, Catherine said, “You know I will support you, Poppy, as your friend. But in a bid for vicereine? What could we even do for you? We are not even part of the First Families.”
“Then I want you to introduce me to the Second Families,” she said. “The First Families will likely side with Richard, but if I can gather enough connections within the Second Families, my father may see merit in my case.”
“I’m not sure how familiar you are with the history of the Second Families,” Theodore said, pushing his glasses back up his nose, “but I’m sure you’ve realized by now that there’s not a lot of goodwill between us and the office of the viceroy.”
There had always been a palpable divide between First and Second, but Poppy had never thought about why. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with this.”
“The Second Families came from Welkland at the same time as the First Families, but we came with trades, not titles. We were shipbuilders, weavers, craftsmen, and as such, we were looked down on,” Theodore explained.
“Over the years, the Second Families leveraged their craft into businesses, building wealth that rivals that of the First Families. But the Council of Lords, the patriarchs of the First Families, continue to gatekeep legislation. If the House of Representatives passes a motion that is favorable to us, then the Council will shoot it down. We’ve asked the viceroy to expand the Council to include men without titles, but he has refused. ”
Poppy’s brow creased. “Why?”
“The First Families resented the idea of our joining.” Theodore scowled.
“Our Founder wrote about the potential of all men to become equal, but all they’ve done is stratify society into subgroups to protect their own power.
The system they’ve created here is equally brutal, if not more, to the one that they replaced. ”
“I see that we have common ground, then,” Poppy said, seizing on that. “Both of us know what it is to be denied something we are entitled to because it makes people in power uncomfortable.”
Theodore considered that. “We do. But common ground doesn’t always make for common interests.
Speaking candidly, there’s a good chance that even with our backing, your bid will fail.
For one, your father hasn’t shown much respect for Second Families, so he may not even recognize the support.
And from our perspective, unless the reward outweighs the risk, the odds of bringing others on board are low. ”
Poppy narrowed her eyes at him, picking up on his evasion. “Are you going to help me make connections or not, Theodore?”
He glanced at Catherine, whose jaw had fallen open at Poppy’s latest response. She shut it quickly, but she couldn’t hide her smirk. “Sorry,” Catherine said, “but you weren’t nearly so assertive when you left. It’s refreshing.”
Theodore chuckled. “It is refreshing, especially after hearing your father make pleasant, empty statements for the better part of the last decade. Since you’ve been straightforward with me, allow me to be blunt with you: I’ll make the necessary introductions and brief you on the interests of the Second Families, but you will have to negotiate with them yourself.
I am only a liaison. I will not try to influence any of them on your behalf.
This way, if you lose your bid, I won’t go down with you. ”
“Fair,” Poppy agreed, hiding her unease. How would she win over the Second Families if she couldn’t even secure Theodore’s endorsement?
Sensing her concern, Catherine leaned over to Poppy. “An introduction is an endorsement,” she whispered. “It’s just far more implicit.”
She brightened. “Very good, then. But how are we going to call off the wedding?”
“That”—Theodore put his hands up—“is your own challenge. Based on your own account, you have everything to gain by breaking off this engagement. But by going against the Montroses, we stand to lose everything, especially if he ends up becoming our viceroy.”
Her spirits plummeted. “But surely you—”
“No,” he said. “There’s only one thing I’m sure of, and it’s that I won’t stick my neck out in front of all of society. That is a risk that outweighs the reward, every time.”
“But my brother is a monster,” Catherine protested. She cast Poppy a desperate look. “We can’t allow her to marry him.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “You know I loathe your brother, love. But this is bigger than us. If I contest the wedding, it will invoke the wrath of the Montroses and their allies for generations. We tried to protect Poppy from the start, but she insisted on pursuing Richard. She got herself into this. She can get herself out.”
Poppy flinched at the firm pronouncement.
“Okay,” Catherine said, though her lips were pressed in disapproval. “But if Poppy does escape, then she stays with us. We’ll shelter her from her father and the Montroses.”
Theodore balked, but the expression on Catherine’s face told him it wasn’t worth the argument.
He nodded once. “Then let us recap the terms of our agreement. If you succeed in extricating yourself from the wedding, I will help make introductions to the Second Families. And”—he hesitated—“if you can turn them to your cause, I will make my support for you public. Are we agreed, or is there anything else?”
“We’re agreed.” Poppy extended her hand across the desk to Theodore, who shook it once. “Thank you,” she added grudgingly. He hadn’t provided everything she had wanted, but Poppy had one more ally than she’d had this morning, and that in itself felt like a miracle.