chapter III
I RETURNED TO TREMONTAINE HOUSE TO FIND MY uncle the Mad Duke sitting in the library, shredding things. There was a huge pile of ripped-up pages in front of him, and he was fiercely attacking more with a paper knife.
He looked up when I came in. “Old books,” he said, “worm-eaten. Theo said it needed doing; I decided to help.” The brandy decanter beside him was nearly empty. “How did it go?”
“Well,” I told him. I tried to be nonchalant, but it was hard. All the energy from the fight was still with me, converted by my triumph to cheerful bounciness. “Better than I expected. He didn’t take me seriously, so he didn’t have a chance. It was just like St—just like he taught me: when someone tries a flashy move, look for what they’re covering up and take it as an invitation. I got First Blood in about five moves.”
“Well, don’t get too smug. The next one might take you seriously, and then where will you be?” I lunged at a wall. “Don’t you dare hurt my books.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Didn’t they have food, the Godwin musicale?”
“I didn’t ask. Nobody offered. I left. Why don’t you ever have a musicale?”
“I did, once. She bit me.”
I laughed.
“And Lord Ferris?”
“He left. I think the wedding is off.”
“Good work,” he said, and drained the decanter. “Marcus!” My friend appeared. “Get this champion a sandwich.”
I started to follow Marcus down to the kitchens, but he turned to me and said, “Don’t come down; I’ll bring you something. Do you want me to tell Betty you’re back? She can draw you a bath.”
“Not now,” I said, “she’ll only fuss. Let’s go out to the gardens. It’s a lovely day. I want to tell you all about my fight.”
“I don’t want to hear all about your fight. You hit someone with your sword, and he didn’t hit you, that’s all I need to know. Fish pond?”
“Meet me there.”
Carp flitted amongst the weeds. I took a big bite of the bread and cheese he’d brought. “I like it up here,” I said. “The Hill is much nicer than Riverside.” Marcus’s cold was better, but he still wasn’t eating much. He rolled bits of my bread into pellets to chuck at the carp. “The air is healthier, too.” I took off my stocking so I could stick one foot in the fish pond. “Why don’t you want to hear about my fight?”
“I just don’t, that’s all. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not really interested in swordplay.”
“I am. Do you think I’m boring, then?”
“Hardly.” Marcus rolled onto his stomach so I couldn’t see his face.
I flicked my foot at the carp to keep them from the bread. I wondered if I could move without triggering their perfect flight. A swordsman, I thought, should be as quick to sense as a fish. “Who do you think is more interesting, the duke or me?”
“Now that,” he drawled languidly, “is just the sort of question he would ask.”
I nearly pushed him into the fish pond. “And that,” I said, “is just the sort of tone of voice he uses when he’s trying to get out of answering something.”
“Oh re-eally? And what do you suppose I might possibly be avoiding?”
He was doing it on purpose, but I went after him anyway. With one wet foot I flipped him over like a fish on a grill, and pinned his shoulders with my knees. “You tell me,” I said. “I don’t know what’s got into you, but if you think acting like my uncle is going to sweeten me up, you’re insane.”
“You’re the one who’s like him, not me.”
I gaped at him. “How can you say that?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
I searched his face to see if he was teasing. I didn’t know how to read what I saw there. “You’re being ridiculous, Marcus.”
He pushed against my knees. “You’re hurting me.”
“I don’t care. You’re insulting me.”
“See what I mean? You don’t care about anyone else. You don’t even notice what they’re feeling, ever. You just care about getting what you want, and how you’re feeling. How much more like him do you want to be?”
“You rotten little—” I grabbed a fistful of earth and rubbed it on his face. “You take that back.”
Marcus spat dirt out of his mouth. “You’re not Tremontaine,” he said; “make me.” All that training, and I was so mad I just slapped him, hard, across the face.
With a sharp twist he was out from under me, eyes blazing. “You never, ever strike me again, do you hear me?”
“What do you want, then, a sword in the gut?”
He punched me. In the stomach. I doubled over, retching and wheezing in the new grass.
When I looked up, Marcus was sitting in a tree, well out of arm’s reach, looking down at me and swinging his legs. “You all right?”
I coughed and wiped my eyes. “You fight like guttertrash.”
“There’s a reason for that. You fight like a girl.”
“There’s a reason for that, too.”
Marcus stopped swinging his legs. “Peace. Can I come down?”
I looked up at him, successfully treed. My stomach still hurt, and there was a wretched taste in my mouth. “No,” I said meanly, lifting my chin. “I don’t think so. Not just yet.”
“You look like him.”
“You act like him,” I snapped. “You’ve got a nerve telling me I do, when you’re the one who says mean things like that. I never do; I’m always careful. I don’t know what’s gotten into you. You can be a total pig, Marcus, and you have been off and on for weeks, now. If I’ve done something to deserve it, I’ll say I’m sorry—but I won’t apologize if you won’t tell me what it is.”
“Don’t be silly,” he drawled affectedly. “What could you possibly have done? It is I who am to blame, I who annoyed you so much you quite rightly slapped me like a kitchenmaid, and I who consequently punched you most foully in the gut. You should report me to the duke. I should be punished, sacked, turned out of my place—”
“Stop being stupid.” Why was he refusing to be serious, all of a sudden? “He doesn’t care. You’re more like family to him than I am—” I caught my breath. Why hadn’t I seen it before? “You’re his son, aren’t you?”
Marcus hooted. “Oh, not you, too! No, of course I’m not his son. He bought me off the street, fair and square. You don’t pay money for your own flesh and blood, do you? Oh, wait a minute.” Marcus paused to consider. “Maybe he does. He bought you, after all.” He meant it to hurt, and it did. It felt like I was being stabbed. “You think I don’t know all about it? I was there for the meetings with the lawyers. I was there when he came up with the idea for your contract,” he taunted mercilessly. “I’m always there, so I hear everything. I heard him dictate all those letters to your mother. I heard how much she needed the money…” I picked up a smallish rock, and clutched it hard. “I probably knew the whole deal way before anyone told you about it. The whole household knew; Arthur Ghent was the one who wrote those letters, after all. We all knew about you before you ever came here.”
I clenched the rock’s edges sharp in my hand, but didn’t throw it. “He didn’t buy me,” I said. “It’s not like that.”
“Why not? You think because you’re his blood he cares more about you? He paid good money for us both, but at least I do useful work around here. You’re just a toy to him.”
“You’re not my friend.” The pain was real; I felt it in my throat, and in my chest, so I could barely get the words out. “I thought you were, but I was wrong.” I threw the rock in the fish pond. “I don’t know what you are, Marcus.” I started up the long path back to the house.
“No, wait!” He was out of the tree so fast his jacket tore. “Oh, lord…Kit, wait—” He caught up with me, started to touch my shoulder and pulled away as though it burned his hand. I kept on walking. “Will you at least turn around and look at me?”
I ignored him.
“Katie, please listen. I have a temper. It’s bad, it’s really bad, and I never lose it, but when I do, I just say things. I say things I don’t mean—I don’t even know what I’m doing, it just comes out, none of it’s true—oh, god, Kit, I wish I could cut my tongue out, I really do—please don’t walk away from me. Please!”
There was something in his voice—not just pleading, but panic, as though if I didn’t turn around he wasn’t going to be able to breathe much longer. I stopped walking and turned around and looked at him. He was pulling at his own fingers as if he wanted to tear them off, babbling apologies. “I didn’t mean any of it, it was just lies, I swear. I’m all wrong, I know I am. I’m barely a civilized human being. I’ve read a lot of books, I know a lot of words, but in the end I’m nothing, nothing—I’m nothing but a minnow-a-toss street punk with good clothes and fancy manners.”
His desperation cut the knot of shocked rage in me, and I started to sob.
“Don’t cry, Katie, please don’t cry because of me.”
I knuckled tears out of my eyes. “How could you say those things to me?”
“I didn’t mean them, please don’t hate me—”
“I thought you understood,” I whimpered miserably. “I thought we were together here….”
“We are, we are. Look, don’t we watch each other’s backs? And don’t we have secrets together?”
“It doesn’t mean anything if you can’t be good to me.” I sniffled. “How can I trust you?”
“And I let you have your secrets, too, don’t I? I’m a good friend, I don’t pry. Like, I know you set up that duel without me, and I know you snuck back to Perry’s without me, and I didn’t say anything because I knew you didn’t want me to—”
“Yes, but—”
“And what about Highcombe? Do I ever ask you about whoever it is at Highcombe you still won’t tell me about, even though you know I’m dying to and you just love to torment me with it…”
Something in his voice made me laugh. He was doing it on purpose; the look on his face was silly and hopeful. “I’ll tell you about it someday.”
“It’s someone you miss. You both do. Is it someone you love more than me?”
“Marcus—are you jealous?”
“You’re all I have,” he said softly; “you and him.” Slowly he unfolded a pristine handkerchief. He reached with it, very carefully, towards the tears on my face, and I stood quite still and let him wipe them away, tender and methodical.
I said, “You know I love you best.”
“You do?”
“Better than any of them.”
He handed me the white linen. “Blow your nose.”
“Especially the duke. You love him, too, don’t you? I don’t know how you stand him all the time.”
“He’s interesting.”
“So’s a bat, or a thunderstorm. I wouldn’t choose to live with one.”
“He’s clever, and he can be kind if he likes you. When he remembers.”
I sniffed. “He’s not reliable.”
Marcus looked at me with steady brown eyes. “I am reliable.”
I felt it then, that curious warmth below. It had something to do with wanting to touch his curving mouth and knowing that he wanted me to. He was watching me very carefully. If anything was going to happen, I would have to do it first. I felt the edges of his lips with my fingers, and his breath on them. He was standing very still, his hands at his sides. What would have happened then is hard to say, because it didn’t; instead we heard someone running down the path towards us, and it was Betty’s voice, calling, “Lady Katherine!”
We broke apart, and just in time, for she took one look at me and started to carry on. “Look at the state you’re in! All over mud, and no time to clean your hair; I’ll just have to put it up, that’s all. And you the duke’s own champion, too, I hear, but when we’re going to celebrate I do not know, for such a to-do with her coming here I cannot possibly get you all cleaned up in time. Such a fine lady, what will she think of the care that I’ve been giving you? But if you will go fighting and playing in the garden—”
“Who is it?” I asked. “Who’s here?”
“It’s your mother.”
I felt the whole world shift and drop out from under me.
“My mother?”
What was she doing here? Why had no one told me?
“Don’t worry about your hands, we’ll just put some cream on them…”
But it wasn’t my hands I was worried about. “Marcus, I can’t!” I gasped. “I can’t see her now. I am—I look—I don’t have any dresses! Oh, tell her to go away, tell her I’ll write to her, I can’t, I can’t—”
“Katie, stop.” He took my clenched hands in his. “Don’t be a fool. You can do this. Just go wash up, and put on a clean shirt, and go welcome your mother to Tremontaine House. I’ll tell her you’re coming.”
I held on to his arm. “No! No, I don’t want her to see you—”
“She won’t.” He smiled a funny little smile, and let me watch him transform into a sedate, well-trained servant, perfectly composed. “There, see? Nobody here.”
“Don’t tell her…” I whispered.
He smiled into my eyes. “Don’t worry, Lady Katherine. I’m very good at not telling people things. And I’m very reliable.”
He bowed, and kissed my hand. He didn’t do it very well, but it was adorable. I squared my shoulders, and went off to get cleaned up.
I HAD FORGOTTEN HOW BEAUTIFUL SHE WAS, AND HOW much she looked like the duke. The skin at her temples was thin, and her hair was plainly dressed. She sat in a velvet chair by the window in the mirrored drawing room, looking out over the garden and the river beyond it. I entered very quietly, so that I could look at her first. It was strange how well she fit the room; she didn’t look countrified at all, just plain and elegant. She had a book on her lap, but she wasn’t reading it; she was turning the pages while staring out the window.
“Hello, Mother,” I said.
I saw the shock on her face.
“It’s true,” she said. “Oh, my god, Katherine, what’s he done to you?” She didn’t wait for an answer. I felt my swordsman’s poise deserting me; suddenly I didn’t know what to do with my hands, and I was horribly aware of my legs. “I came as soon as I could. Gregory told me you were just in some kind of fight, and I meant to wait a day, but I came rushing up yesterday because it’s been six months, my darling, six long months and I could not wait a moment longer. I wanted to surprise you—”
“I’m surprised,” I said. “Truly.”
She rushed to me, and took my face in her hands. “Oh, my darling, are you all right?”
I tried not to let her feel me stiffen and draw back. “Of course I’m all right, Mother. It was a short fight. I won.”
“Oh, Katherine.” Her voice was full of sorrow. “My sweet, brave, good darling. I can only imagine what you have been through….”
I squirmed. “It’s all right, Mother, really.”
“You don’t have to be brave any longer,” she said softly. “You’ve done it, my darling; you’ve saved us.”
I looked down and felt myself flush with pleasure. This was more like it. When she held out her arms this time, I went to her and let her embrace me, and breathed in the scent of lavender from our gardens at home. She guided me back to her chair and I nestled down in the corner of her skirt, my special spot where I always felt safe. “Your hair’s gotten thicker,” she said, stroking it.
“My maid washes it with special stuff.”
“You’ve got your own maid? Oh, Kitty!”
“And a big room over the river, and a velvet cloak with gold tassels, and—oh, Mother! Are you staying with Gregory? I want you to see my room. You can stay with me, if you like; the bed is huge.”
“Now, now, Kitty, we’ll talk about all that later. We’ve got more important things to talk about right now.”
“What things?”
She laughed, and patted my back like a puppy’s: “Just run upstairs and tell your maid to put you into one of your nice dresses, and you can order us some refreshment, if you like.”
“I—shall I order us something now?”
“What’s the matter, darling?”
“Nothing, I just—I don’t feel like changing right now, that’s all.”
“I just thought you’d like to show me one of your new dresses.”
“Maybe later.” I wanted to put the moment off as long as possible, when she would find out what my life in the duke’s house was really like. She would not be happy, I knew that. I so wanted her to be happy, now. “Tell me all about you, first. Is your tooth all better? How are the boys? Has Annie married her sailor yet? Did the Oldest Oak survive another winter? What did Seb sow in the south reach this year?”
“You’ll see, won’t you?” she said mischievously.
“Will I?”
“Well, of course you will, my pet. Not right away, of course: I thought I’d stay in town and do a little shopping—you don’t want to be seen with your silly old mother looking like some country frump, do you? And I can still have my own ‘Season,’ even if it’s a little late!” She laughed. “You won’t mind that, will you my darling, if we stay a few weeks?”
“Of course not, Mother,” I said automatically.
She squeezed my shoulder. “I knew you’d understand, Katherine, you always do. After all, there’s no hurry, is there?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, if Sebastian’s all right at home without you—and you haven’t seen Gregory in ages—is he coming to visit me, too?”
“I don’t think so, darling; he and your uncle don’t really see eye to eye.”
“Oh.” That didn’t surprise me.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter—Greg will put up with me awhile longer, and then, when the town empties out for the summer, we can all go home together.”
There was a clutch in my stomach. “Home?”
“Yes, my love.”
“But my uncle—the contract—don’t I have to stay?”
She flicked her hands in the air, very like the duke. “He’s not as clever as he thinks he is, for all his money. I’ve got new lawyers, much better ones than before. They say there’s absolutely nothing to keep you here. We promised him six months, and he’s had them.”
I had never seen the contract, but I had watched my mother go through lawyers like kindling before, trying to get out of other unwise bargains she had made. I wondered what the truth was this time. I wondered why it had never occurred to me until now simply to ask Arthur Ghent to take it out and read it with me, so I could understand it myself.
“Just think—you’ll see all the dear little ducklings, and the lambs. You always love to give them names and help Fergus with them.”
“Of course, Mama.” I’d forgotten all about the lambs—the lambs and the linen and the liniments and all that. It seemed like a hundred years ago, or something I’d read in a book. Did I like lambs? I did, of course I did. Lambs were sweet. Then why was my heart pounding as if I were in a fight? I took a deep breath. “Just not quite yet, as you say. You want to see the city, first.”
“That’s my darling.” She hugged me. I had dreamed of her arms, but now I was finding them a little too tight. “I know I can always depend on you.” She smiled tenderly at me. “You have no idea how lovely it will all be, now that we’ve got our money back again. All the funds that were tied up while he picked quarrels about them, returned to me with interest; it’s quite a lot, much more than I thought it would be, and I mean to spend it now. I’m going to have a carriage, and I’ve ordered new hangings for the bedrooms, and all sorts of lovely fabrics and china—”
She was always forgetting the practical things. “What about the roof?”
“Oh, a new roof, of course, and books for poor Sebastian, and more kitchenmaids, so Cook has agreed to stay on after all—It will be lovely, much nicer than before, you’ll see! I’d no idea there was so much there. All thanks to you, of course, my brave heroic daughter, who walked right into the ogre’s den without a thought for herself, and captured his treasure for us.” She hugged me. “I mean to get you the best of everything: pretty clothes, and fine furnishings, and an extra sewing maid so you don’t ever have to do that nasty mending again—You can even have a real Season someday, if you want one, with balls and gowns and flowers and everything.”
I thought of the Godwins’ musicale, the girls in their bright dresses, and me with my sword and breeches standing before Artemisia to challenge Lord Ferris. “Oh, that’s all right,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll bother with that after all.”
“But don’t you want to be like all the other girls here?” she asked anxiously.
“Not really.”
“Oh, Katherine.” She breathed a sigh of admiration—or maybe it was just relief. “I couldn’t do without you.”
I took the end of her hair ribbon and twisted it gently, teasing her, but anxious for the answer. “But you’ve managed a little without me, haven’t you? Just a little bit, on your own, for six months?”
“Just a little. Of course Sebastian has been a great help with the house, once he stopped moping. I think he wished the Mad Duke had sent for him instead of you—the duke is a patron of the University, and you know how Seb loves his books.”
“Maybe he can come to classes, when we’ve got everything settled.”
The little frown appeared between my mother’s brows. “Oh, no. No one else understands farming the way Seb does. I wouldn’t know what to plant, or how to tell if the tenants were cheating us.”
Sebastian was by far my favorite brother. I wondered if the duke would like him. Perhaps he would be willing to help him find a farm manager and send him to University. “I’m longing to see Seb again. Maybe he can come back with me in the fall, for a visit.”
My mother’s frown increased. “But why would you want to come back so soon?”
“Back here?” I looked at her blankly. “I—well, I’ve got things to do here.”
“What things, Katherine?”
“Well—friends and things. And my lessons, of course. And, well—things.”
“Katherine Samantha,” she sighed. “You have not been listening to what I’ve been telling you. You’re coming home with me, so we can put this all behind you.”
“What? No. I mean, that’s not possible.”
“My poor heroic darling. Of course it looks that way to you, locked up here with this madman for so long, and no one to turn to for good counsel. But listen to me.” My mother leaned forward. “You can still have a normal life. Nobody blames you. They know my brother is a lunatic; Gregory says no one decent will even visit him anymore, or have him in their homes. It’s not your fault if he’s sent you out in public like this—” she indicated my jacket and breeches “—And now this awful fight at Lord Godwin’s…” At least Greg hadn’t told her about the Rogues’ Ball—maybe he didn’t know himself. “Well, they’ll forget in time, if we let them. The best thing to do,” she explained with elaborate patience, “is to get you settled back home, do you see? Just long enough that people can forget all about it. A year or so should be enough.”
“And then?”
“And then…well,” she said archly, “if you decide someday that you can do without me—for I surely will never be able to do without you—well then, perhaps we can find a nice man for you to marry, and you can have—”
I couldn’t say it. Not to her face, not with my heart pounding and my breath catching in my chest. I stood up, crossed the room so I stood under the portrait of the lady in grey, and clutched the marble behind me.
“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t do any of that. I’m sorry, Mother. It’s too late.”
“But that’s just what I’m saying! It isn’t too late. We can still save you—”
“I don’t need to be saved.”
My mother twisted the ends of her hair. I’d seen her do it a hundred times. It used to look sweet, but now it just looked silly to me. “Katherine. Stop it. You’re not being very adult. There’s a whole world out there you know nothing about. Gregory has been out in Society, and he understands these things far better than you. He agrees with me that the best thing to do is to get you out of this madhouse as quickly as possible. I’ve got it all worked out. You’ll have a quiet summer at home, and then you can start over, as if it had never been.”
“But it has b—” I began, but stopped myself. You didn’t tell my mother things like that.
“You can’t stay in your uncle’s house playing at swordfights forever, all dressed up like some booth at a fair.” You couldn’t argue with her when she got like this. If only she would be quiet and let me think. But her voice rattled on, more and more shrill. “You may be having fun now, but my brother is utterly mad. When he gets tired of you, you’ll be out on the street, and then you’ll come running home but the damage will have been done. And then what will you do? Answer me that.” What kind of damage did she think there was that hadn’t been done already? I remembered Marcus saying, “He bought you, too.” If my uncle had bought me, my mother had sold me to him. “We must think of your future, Katherine. You know I only want what’s best for you.”
“You should have thought of that before you sent me here.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
I opened my mouth to apologize, to take them back before I could do any more harm. But my mother was quite still. She stood looking at me as if she were looking at a stranger, at someone she did not love or even like at all.
“You’ll do as I say,” she told me. “Go get your things. We’re leaving.”
“No, Mother, please. If you could just—”
“Katherine,” she said, her voice musical with suppressed rage. “Don’t make a scene.” She picked up a silk pillow, thick with embroidery of exotic birds with long tail feathers, and began picking at the threads with her nails. “This nonsense has to stop. We must think of your future.”
“I can’t,” I said miserably, watching the bright threads of silk flying out of her hands, clinging to her skirt, falling to the floor. “I would if I could, honestly, Mother, but I just can’t do it now.”
Her fingers dug into the cloth of the cushion. “It isn’t like you to be so selfish. Do you want to bring disgrace on our entire family? What am I going to do without you? I can’t manage alone!”
There was a noise as the door opened. The Duke Tremontaine stood in the doorway, dressed to go out, and only slightly more sober than when I’d seen him last. He looked at me, and looked at his sister, and blinked.
“Hello, Janine,” he said. “Welcome to Tremontaine House.”
My mother looked her brother in the eyes. He was taller than she was, but her gaze was fierce. “My daughter,” she said to him. “You have ruined my daughter.”
My uncle looked startled. “Ruined her? I never touched her.”
“You didn’t have to. Look what you’ve done to her!”
“She seems all right to me. Are you all right, Katherine?” I pressed my back against the wall, as if I could melt right into it, and didn’t answer. I knew what was coming, even if he didn’t. He took a step toward my mother. “There’s nothing wrong with your daughter. My cushion, on the other hand, you are certainly ruining.”
“What do you care?” she said, tearing it further. “You’ve got plenty more. You’ve got everything in the world here, haven’t you? Look at this house! Look at your suit, for that matter—I can’t imagine what that costs.”
“Neither can I; that’s why they send me the bill.”
“Are you trying to make me laugh? You have everything, everything, everything—money, jewels, land, heaven knows what, and it isn’t enough for you—you have everything you want and more—and now you try to take my child from me.”
I wondered if it was worth darting in and trying to clear things from her path. But that would only make it worse. And she was right; he could buy plenty more.
“That’s ridiculous,” the duke said weakly.
“Is it?” my mother hissed. “Is that what it is?”
“Janine, stop carrying on like some sort of mad stage witch.” She picked up an etched glass bud vase, clutching it in her hand like a dagger. “Janine, listen to me and be reasonable and put that down.”
“Why should I be reasonable? Were you reasonable? You didn’t think much about being reasonable when you ran away and ruined our chances with Grandmama and left us thinking you were dead, did you? You left me all alone to deal with Mother and you know what she was like—”
“I left you? I left you?” Something changed in him, like a fighter who thinks he’s playing in a practice bout and suddenly realizes the swords are not tipped. His face was very white, and his hands were no longer elegant. He opened them and closed them on nothing. “You’re the one who left, Janine. I was there waiting for you. Don’t you remember? You said you would run away before you’d marry that old fool. And I said, Right, then, we’ll do it. I said, No one is going to take my sister away like that. I said, Meet me in the orchard—in the orchard, Janine, not in the goddamned chapel!”
I had never heard him roar like that before. She was staring at him, mesmerized, as white as he was and whiter, down to her lips, as though his story were draining all the blood from her. He stepped toward her, and she didn’t move. “What on earth was I doing freezing in the orchard all night with a bag of food and a pair of cloaks, while you were being laced into your wedding dress?”
My mother shook her head, mute. I had my hands pressed to my mouth, listening, listening. The trouble was, I could see it. I could see it all perfectly clearly.
“I missed the main event,” he said dryly, a bit more like himself. “I got in trouble for that, for missing my sister’s wedding. Mother locked me in the—” for a moment he lost the word, lost his smooth and cruel habit of speech—then he gasped and regained it—“She had them lock me in the storage cell, you remember? Well, of course you do, you’d been there, too, not long before. I wasn’t whipped; I was just locked in, to teach me manners. It was very cramped in there, I was getting big for it. But it didn’t matter. Nothing did, because you weren’t coming back.”
She held out a hand to him. “I didn’t know. I thought you were angry with me, that’s why you weren’t there. I wanted to come. But I was so afraid of them.”
“I would have helped you!”
“You couldn’t.” When she said that, he actually flinched as if he had been struck. “You couldn’t help me. You couldn’t do anything. You couldn’t stop them marrying me off any more than you could stop them locking you up, Davey. I knew that then.”
She tried to touch him, but he turned away. “It was a long time ago,” she said. “But I did the right thing.”
“You did what they told you to do. And what did it gain you?”
“I had a husband,” she said. “I have my children. I did my duty.”
“You should have fought,” he growled. “You should have stood and fought.”
Oh, stop, I wanted to tell him. Mother never fights, not the way you mean. Stop before something happens. But I was afraid to come between them.
“You’re being unfair. Our parents meant well. They wanted the best for us.”
He looked at her in real surprise. “No, they didn’t. We were raised by servants. Don’t you remember? All Father cared about was his maps. Mother cared about chapel and about getting back at her own mother, the dread Duchess Tremontaine, who was, let me tell you, a real piece of work.”
“I wouldn’t know. I never met her. She had no interest in me, Mother said.”
“Mother didn’t wait to find out, did she? She was in too much of a hurry to marry you off to the highest-bidding country bumpkin. I would have brought you to the city with me—”
“No, Davey. She did try. When Charles first offered for me, Mother wrote to the duchess, to ask if she would bring me out properly and make a better match. But the duchess wrote back to say, no, she wasn’t interested. So Mother accepted Charles’s suit.”
My uncle stared at her. “To spite her? She married you off to that idiot just to spite her mother?”
“Charles wasn’t an idiot. He was a prosperous landowner, from a fine old family. I was very lucky, really. So were Father and Mother, because I lived nearby so I could look after them—”
“Stop it!” he raged. “Stop lying! How can you be saying all these things? You, you who were—oh, god. You, Janine. You were so pure of heart. You saved my life, you held me in your arms and told me stories when things were really bad—you made up whole countries for us to hide in, horses for us to ride there…don’t you remember Storm Cloud and Flame of the Sea?”
My mother clutched the folds of her skirt, saying nothing. He turned his back to her, poured himself a brandy. “You were strong and true. I wanted to be like you.” He knocked back the drink. “I know you fought them. You’ve forgotten, that’s all. I wasn’t there. I was in the orchard. But you tried, I know. I remember, if you don’t. And afterwards—everything I did, I did to avenge what they did to you. Everything.”
“Including trying to ruin me and my family?”
He turned slowly to look at her, his head low. “You could have come to me. You could have written, or you could have come.”
She turned to him with that same strange gesture he had made before, hands outstretched, opening and closing on nothing. “You know why I couldn’t come.”
“I know now,” he said harshly. “It’s because you’ve forgotten everything. You’ve turned it all into comfortable lies. You’re just like the rest of them now. Go away. I don’t want you in my house.”
“No!” I heard my own voice shatter the awful stillness of the room. But I wasn’t fast enough this time. I should have been. Had I forgotten? I should have seen her looking back at the glass bud vase. I should have been by her side, I should have taken it out of her hand before she smashed it against the table and held a shard so tightly the blood started seeping between her fingers.
“Oh!” I heard the duke draw in his breath, not shocked, but as if he’d suddenly remembered something.
She dropped the glass to the carpet, showed him her open hand, bleeding. “This is truth,” she said. “I know that this is truth, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I used to do that, too.” He took her palm and examined it. “It’s all right.” She let him wrap his large white handkerchief lightly around her hand to catch the blood. “But I’ve got something better, now. Here, I’ll show you. Want to see?” She stared at him, spellbound. He crossed the room to a locked cabinet and took out the key.
I knew what he kept in there. “You can’t give my mother that!”
“Watch me,” he said calmly, taking out the little vials of precious stuff. “Or better yet, don’t.”
I shouted, “You put that down!”
“Don’t speak to your uncle like that,” my mother said. “He’ll think you weren’t brought up properly.”
“Run along, Katherine,” my uncle said. “Your mother and I have a lot to talk about.”
I took the stairs to my room two at a time, and slammed the door and locked it behind me. Maybe Marcus could stop him, but he’d never stopped the duke before, and I didn’t want him to see my mother like this. I didn’t want to ask Marcus for anything, either, not after what had nearly happened in the garden between us. I got into bed and snapped the curtains on their rings closed around me, and pulled the covers over my head.
I had wanted to know family secrets. Well, now I knew them. My uncle didn’t hate my mother after all. And he had always been angry at everyone, not just us. He didn’t know that she still told wonderful stories, and snuck off to the orchard to eat apples when she should be counting spoons. He didn’t know that my father and mother had planned a garden together, and stayed up all night when I was sick. Maybe she was telling him now. If she was even there. If they could even talk.
The night was coming on. I unwrapped myself, and lay stiffly staring up at the dusky canopy above me.
Today I had wounded a man, and hit my best friend and almost kissed him. I had seen my mother for the first time in half a year and defied her. Three fights in one day, and only one I knew that I had won for certain, the one with rules.
Just that morning, I had been polishing my sword for the duel. I had to remember that whatever else happened, today I had avenged the honor of my friend Artemisia. I had challenged a real swordsman, who was neither stupid nor drunk, and I had bested him. Maybe my family didn’t want to hear about my fight, but half the nobility of the city had witnessed it. People would talk about me, and know my name. I had spoken it loudly and clearly, for all to hear. Maybe I would become fashionable; maybe people would invite me to dinner and demand to hear the details. In my head, I played over again all the moves of the duel. It was harder than I thought to remember each one in order, but I wanted to get it right, for when someone finally asked me.
I T WAS DARK WHEN I WOKE UP. BETTY HAD UNLOCKED my door. I heard the clatter as she warmed milk for me at the hearth.
“Where’s the duke?” I asked, and she said, “Out.”
“Where is my mother?”
“Gone with him, gone…Never you mind all that, my hero, it doesn’t matter. You be easy, now.”
She poured whiskey into my milk, and stirred, and gave it to me and I drank it. She poured cans of warm water into my tub, and bathed me, and washed and dried and plaited my hair, and crooned, “My champion, my great sword, you are, you are…” I smelt the whiskey on her breath, and I didn’t care. I just sat in the tub and cried, and let her dry me off and put me back to bed.
I WOKE UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING. THE HOUSEHOLD was barely stirring. The duke would not be up for hours yet. Marcus might be awake, but I wasn’t ready to face him. I had to see my uncle, first.
I put on some loose clothes and went to the wet-rabbit room and practiced furiously for a long time. When I heard the commotion that meant the duke was awake and asking for things, I went to change out of my practice clothes, because it would be another hour before he was fit to be spoken to.
At noon I found the Duke Tremontaine eating breakfast in the morning room.
“Where’s my mother?” I demanded.
He looked quizzically at me. “Are you going to accuse me of ruining her? Please don’t. And don’t speak to me in that tone; I’ll think you weren’t brought up properly.”
I didn’t laugh. “Where is she?”
“How should I know? She cried a lot. We talked. We devoured eight whole tablets of raw chocolate and the rest of the brandy. We talked until midnight, when it was time for me to be at Blackwoods’. She lost money at cards. She plays very badly, your mother.”
I ground my teeth. “Has she gone back home?”
“To your brother’s. The respectable one on Lower Patrick Street. I don’t know where she’s going next; I suspect she doesn’t, either. You can write her and ask,” he said. “You’re free to correspond with anyone you like, now, you know. As she reminded me more than once. The woman has no head for drink, none at all. If I understood her, she will be writing you frequently. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it.”
He was in that kind of mood.
“And get your things together. We’re going back to Riverside until this place is truly habitable.”
“I’m staying,” I said.
“Here? On the Hill? By yourself?”
“I mean, I’m staying with you.”
“Well, of course you are. Pass the jam.”
I wanted to throw the toast in his face. “What about me? Were you so busy debauching my mother you lost track of why she came here in the first place? Did you get her drunk just so you wouldn’t have to talk about my—my future?”
“Your future is entirely up to you.” The jam was perfectly within his reach when he bothered to lean up and over for it.
“Well, who is going to provide for me?”
“Please don’t shout.”
“I’m not shouting. My mother thinks you’re going to toss me back out when you’re sick of me, you know. She thinks you’ve made me into an unmarriageable freak.” He didn’t interrupt; he just kept crunching on his toast. I’d had enough. “Do you even think of me as your kin at all, or am I just some—some minnow-a-toss street kid to you, with good clothes and a sword?”
It got his attention—but not the way I wanted. He put down his toast half-eaten, and gazed at me icily. “Where did you hear that phrase, pray?”
It’s what Marcus had called himself yesterday, but I was certainly not going to tell him that. “I dunno.”
“Do you know what it means?” he asked.
Cowed, I answered, like a schoolgirl with a lesson: “A minnow’s what they call a brass coin in Riverside. A toss—some kind of ball game, I guess.”
“Keep guessing,” he said dryly. “And don’t let me hear you use that phrase again.”
I glowered at him. “You’re not my mother.”
“She doesn’t know what it means either. But if you say it around someone who does, they will either slap your face or laugh at you. There—you are warned.” He slathered more jam on his half a piece of cold toast. “I suppose, if Janine is going to be unreasonable, that I’m going to have to offer you something or you’ll pester me to death. A salary, or a gift of land, or something. You figure it out; it will be good for you, teach you the value of money and how things work. Come to me when you have some idea, and we’ll negotiate. You’ll learn a lot.”
“I’ll ask a lot,” I said, and he said, “Fine.”
“And by the way,” I added, “I think I know all your names now.”
“What?” he asked, through a mouthful of toast.
“The first day I came here—you don’t even remember, do you?”
“Of course I remember the first day you came. Ring for more toast. Have you eaten? Well, in that case, have you seen Marcus yet today? He seemed a little odd.”
I had not seen Marcus; I’d wanted to confront my uncle before anything else happened. Now I went upstairs to find him and bring him up to date.
Marcus was extremely odd. He was in his room packing for Riverside already. He folded each of his own shirts very carefully, lining up all the seams like folds on a map.
“Your mother’s pretty,” he said, folding.
“What did she say to you?”
“Nothing. I make a very convincing servant.”
“Well…well, thank you.” It was utterly maddening, the way he fussed over that shirt and wouldn’t look at me. “Marcus,” I asked, “are you still angry with me?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what’s wrong or I’m going to rip that shirt right out of your hands!”
He put it down and looked straight at me.
“Are you leaving?” he said. His face was very white—I could see some stubble against his skin. I didn’t know he shaved.
“No. She wanted me to, but I said not.”
“Oh.” He picked up the shirt, and put it down again. “Oh.”
“Why are you doing that? I bet Fleming would pack for you, if you asked him.”
“I don’t like other people touching my things.”
“How about me?” I offered. “I bet we could get it done in no time, if you let me help.”
Marcus smiled slowly. “Katie. You’re up to something.”
“I was just thinking…” And I was. I needed my friend now; I needed to put yesterday behind us, and take us back to where we were together, bonded in mischief and common cause. “The duke’s still in his dressing gown, eating toast,” I said. “He’ll be hours, yet. If we hurry, we can still nip down the Hill to Teresa Grey’s together before we leave for Riverside. That is, if you’re still interested in what she might be up to.”
“Hand me those brushes,” Marcus said.
We left the duke being shaved by his valet and changing his mind about his clothes again, and went off down the hill to the house of Lucius Perry’s mysterious lady, together.