Chapter Twenty-One

Catherine knew something was amiss when a carriage was sent to bring her to Lady Wisterberg's town house first thing the following morning. A message had been brought in to her at breakfast by Mr. Pike. It read:

Dear Miss Keating,

You are wanted at once.

Yrs, Lady Wisterberg

Free of frills and exclamation points. Very unlike Lady Wisterberg.

Her stomach awash with icy foreboding, she boarded the waiting hack. She was already logy and subdued from her strange, swift, somewhat tawdry encounter with Lord Kirke the night before.

She was admitted to Lady Wisterberg's town house by another footman, whose expression was unnervingly grim, and led into the sitting room decorated in primarily green. It featured a gigantic portrait of the late Lord Wisterberg over the mantel.

Lucy and Lady Wisterberg sat side by side on a settee. Both were as pale as if there had been a death in the family.

Lucy looked up at Catherine with enormous eyes.

Terror nearly took the legs out from under Catherine. "S-something has happened. My aunt, my father? Are you sound? Please tell me what's happened!"

"No, dear. You may rest yourself on that account. Everyone is sound. But it seems we may have to, ah, postpone our party." Lady Wisterberg's voice was odd. Clipped.

And then Catherine realized it was because she was furious.

"We've just had a few more cancelations," she added. The word "cancelations" sounded ironically venomous.

Catherine's heart was now pounding painfully. "How many?" she asked weakly.

Lady Wisterberg closed her eyes. And said nothing.

So Lucy whispered it. "Thirty-two."

Catherine gasped.

"Lord Vaughn and his parents among them," Lucy said miserably.

Catherine's knees gave way and collapsed onto the settee.

They all stared at each other.

"But... how... why?" Catherine's heart sickened her with its tempo.

"I don't know," Lady Wisterberg said tersely. "But I expect we will find out soon enough."

Catherine and Lucy spent the morning helping Lady Wisterberg to write politely cheery notes to everyone invited to the party, regrettably canceling. It was a grim exercise in exquisite penmanship conducted in utter silence, unless one counted Lady Wisterberg's audibly incensed breathing.

According to the rules, she was required only to spend four evenings per week in the sitting room at The Grand Palace on the Thames.

That evening she didn't feel she could bear to face anyone at all. She took dinner in her room, too.

And then she climbed beneath her blankets. She thought about how very odd it was that dread was an absorbing occupation, as consuming as plowing a field or reading a book. One could simply sit and dread. She imagined saying to Mrs. Pariseau, "I'm sorry, I cannot listen to the story tonight, I'll be dreading all evening."

She sat on the bed with her knees tucked up to her chest to make herself small, and because her chest felt as cold and hollow as a gorge. And she pondered.

An attack had been levied. Or at least that was how it felt. A message unequivocal in its nature had been sent.

There wasn't a thing she could conceive of that she might have done wrong, other than being herself. Surely no one had seen her in the Shillingford garden, in the ivy, her bodice half-off and her dress hiked up, with Lord Kirk? She had been quite certain they'd been hidden and alone.

But it seemed clear that some tacit, vociferous censure had taken place. She couldn't help but recall Lady Pilcher's beautiful, cruel face and Lady Hackworth's puzzled assessment of her dress. How had Lord Kirke put it the night she'd handed over her handkerchief? Sometimes insults are more valuable than compliments, and sometimes what seems like kindness is a sort of a chess move. Perhaps this censure was indeed a compliment: she was perceived as so powerful a threat to the women of the ton that she must be summarily removed, and they had found an excuse to do it.

Radiant, Kirke had called her. In a voice gone helplessly soft.

Remembering it even now made her skin warm. And then her warm feelings crested into frustration and something like fury.

He had warned her there would be consequences for dancing with him. Had these consequences finally descended?

It just seemed to her that nastiness was inefficient; it offended her sense of the practical. It was so unnecessary, when it was so much easier to be kind. And kindness was not tantamount to weakness. Kindness just meant recognizing the humanity in the other person. But she also knew it was easier to be kind when you solidly knew yourself. When you weren't buffeted by the whims of fashion, or dependent upon the approval of certain people. For this was what made one afraid and unsteady.

But perhaps this was more naivete on her part. Lord Kirke might have scoffed. His life was one of strategy, and he seemed to surf the vicissitudes of public mood like a gull.

He'd likely known from the first that she was destined to be crocodile food. One had to be born in the jungle to learn how to navigate it, it seemed.

She was no coward. She'd faced and survived difficult challenges, blood and illness and death among them. She had a healthy sense of competition, when it came to any sort of contest. She was unafraid of defending herself and perfectly willing to do it.

But this type of enemy was baffling and amorphous. It was like Lord Kirke's argument concerning why Lord Bolt would be less prepared to fight a genie than a pirate: she simply didn't understand, and couldn't anticipate, her enemies' powers. And she didn't think she could fight them with the ones she possessed. She felt, at the moment, like an entirely different species than they were.

For these reasons, she was frightened. She could feel the consequences of potential ruination howling like an abyss inches from her feet.

And how she felt told her how thoroughly she had come to count on her popularity. It had become a substitute for happiness. A sort of inebriation.

She could now too well imagine the loneliness that would follow. Her stomach churned. The possible years of skulking in the shadows as a companion to her aunt. Her father's disappointment and confusion when she returned home from a failed season. He would be hurt for her. She squeezed her eyes closed.

Perhaps she had indeed flown too close to the sun, and now she had only herself to blame.

Mrs. Pariseau, who was up before the birds the following morning, had gotten hold of her own copy of The Times before Dot could bring it in to read to the maids.

And she rushed with it into the kitchen as if it were a fire needing putting out.

"The horror!" was the way she announced her presence. She slapped the newspaper down onto the table and pointed.

Delilah and Angelique, who were sitting at the table discussing the day's menu with Helga, shot to their feet, hearts in their throats, and peered at the paragraph beneath Mrs. Pariseau's finger.

As so often happens in London, we have discovered the once-assumed-angelic Miss K has proven to have feet of clay—for we have it on good authority that she waltzed with an heir in an exquisite blue dress known to have been made especially for—you may wish to repair to your fainting couch before you read the next three words—Lord K's mistress! It's difficult not to draw the conclusion that "his mistress" and the allegedly angelic "Miss K" are one and the same.

Pass the smelling salts, s'il vous pla?t. But what do we really know about the young lady, apart from her talent for bewitching? Don't worry, gentlemen. If Lord K's history is any indication, she'll be free again soon enough!

The words seemed to pulse with casual evil before their eyes.

"Oh dear God. The blue dress!" Delilah finally breathed. "Miss Keating's blue dress! Is that what this is referencing?"

"It's not true," Mrs. Pariseau said stoutly and immediately. "What a steaming, hateful pile of balderdash. What a terrible thing to do to a young woman! And to Lord Kirke! I was with her! I was with her when she tried it on! She refused to take the dress at first and Madame Marceau insisted she would look beautiful in it, and she did. I imagine that all of the women of the ton were jealous when they saw her. Awful, awful people who would perpetuate such poison. Pure invention."

She would get no argument from Angelique or Delilah about how awful the ton could be.

Angelique was pale with anger on Miss Keating's behalf. "Why? Why must they do it? Who does this sort of thing?"

They stood together in a certain wretched silence.

Delilah knew Angelique had once been devastated by a staggeringly unkind mention of her in the gossip sheets. She briefly covered Angelique's hand with hers and Angelique shot her a grateful look.

"But... how on earth did that dress come to be, Mrs. Pariseau?" Delilah asked. "Who originally had it made?"

It had to be asked.

Mrs. Pariseau was quiet for a time.

"I've no clues at all. I'm inclined to believe precisely what Madame Marceau said," she said slowly. "But I am confident that our Miss Keating is entirely innocent in the matter. And that is all I'm willing to surmise. Miss Keating fell in love with a dress she never would have been able to afford, she looked lovely in it, and it was being offered to her for no price at all. Who among us could have resisted?"

They could not argue with this: it was easy to fall in love with a dress.

Of greater concern was who might have fallen in love with Miss Keating.

And whether this meant she was ruined completely.

"Thank you, Mrs. Pariseau."

"We do have our share of dramas, don't we," Mrs. Pariseau said. Not without relish. "I will see you ladies at dinner!"

Despite the circumstances, Angelique and Delilah were touched by the "we."

The assumption that Mrs. Pariseau belonged to them and they to her; The Grand Palace on the Thames was home.

That they were in this together.

Behind them, Rose and Meggie, the maids, were yawning and trying to look alert while Helga was patiently doling out the morning's chores.

Delilah pulled Angelique aside and lowered her voice.

"Angelique... Lord Kirke knew that Miss Keating and Mrs. Pariseau were going to visit the modiste. He was in the room when they planned it."

"I recalled that, too. But if he somehow had this dress made... how? He could hardly guess the girl's measurements precisely. I refuse to think even a rake has that kind of magical skill. What were his intentions, if so? What are his intentions? I thought the girl was being courted by Lord Vaughn."

Secretly, however, neither of them believed St. John was quite serious about getting married anytime soon. They had come to know him, and regarded him with a certain exasperated, impatient fondness.

"Maybe he had none, other than ensuring a lovely girl who wanted a dress got one? Maybe it had been made for his mistress. And for some reason was never given to her?"

Angelique was quiet. She'd been a mistress, too, long ago, in unhappier days. Such arrangements were seldom permanent, and seldom ended precisely as peacefully as either party would have desired.

Granted, those unhappier days had nevertheless led her to the life she was leading now, and had brought Delilah and The Grand Palace on the Thames and ultimately Lucien into her life.

"Do we dare ask him about it? Is there any call to do it?" Delilah ventured.

The notion was excruciating. Then again, they'd once called a duke to task for a transgression. But his transgression had been overt, and in front of witnesses. They could not see themselves confronting Kirke with an insinuation.

And there was another unspoken question: Would they need to ask him to leave, per the rules of The Grand Palace on the Thames? No proper gentleman would gift a young unmarried woman with a dress. It was just not done.

They were in uncertain territory, indeed.

"I think..." Angelique said carefully. "We must wait to see what happens next."

They'd also both learned that men who were utterly fearless, brilliant, and competent could behave as though they were lost in the wilderness without a compass when it came to matters of love.

It was the women who often had to guide them home.

In Catherine's room Dot stood near her while Catherine stared at the paragraph in the newspaper.

As the words penetrated, it felt as though a sheet of ice moved over her skin. Until she couldn't feel her limbs at all.

Every one of her senses seemed to amplify. The pale morning light blinded. The very silence itself howled like a siren.

And then finally a sound penetrated her horror: above her, she heard a chair slide across the floor.

It might be a maid.

But it was very early, and Lord Kirke was still in his room.

"Miss Keating," Dot said quietly, finally. "Do you want me to throw it into the fire?"

"No, thank you, Dot." Her voice emerged almost as a croak. "But may I keep this for a little while before you bring it to the other guests?"

Dot nodded. "I'm so sorry if you are distressed. Should I have brought it to you?" she whispered.

"Yes. Thank you. Please do not worry. You did the right thing." Catherine could scarcely hear her own voice through the ringing in her ears.

Dot curtsied and scurried away.

The moment Dot vanished from view down the hall, Catherine did the formerly unthinkable.

She went upstairs with the newspaper and knocked on Kirke's door.

"Catherine." His voice was startled. Warm.

Then his expression went decidedly wary.

Because he'd registered her expression.

He was in shirtsleeves. His waistcoat cravat was looped around his neck. It was a strange echo of her first-ever glimpse of him.

"May I come in?" she said stiffly.

"I—" He stopped. He pressed his lips together.

After a hesitation. He stepped aside.

She closed the door.

Wordlessly, she immediately extended the newspaper to him.

He looked hard into her face. Then gingerly took the newspaper from her.

He glanced down. He seemed to instinctively know what to look for. God only knew, he'd allegedly appeared in the gossip pages often enough.

She saw the words enter him.

Because before her eyes, the blood drained from his face.

"Is this true?" she asked. "Was the blue dress made for your mistress? Did you arrange for me to have it?" She could hardly believe she was able to utter the words. They felt oddly foreign on her tongue.

He remained frozen and silent. His eyes fixed on the newspaper. But his breath was coming shorter now.

He looked very much like a man trapped, which was all the answer she needed. She could feel the storm of outrage stirring right outside the boundaries of her numb shock.

"Are you gathering your story, Lord Kirke?" Her temper was surging, rising in her body. It leaked into her words. "A yes or no will suffice."

He looked up at her at last. His eyes were stunned. As though he'd sustained a blow.

"Yes," he said simply.

The air went out of her.

"Oh my God." Her voice was a rasp. Her hand went up to her mouth. "But... how... how did you..."

"She ordered the dress without my knowledge, before she assaulted me and disappeared. I was sent the bill. I paid for the dress because I always pay my bills. I discreetly communicated my wishes to Madame Marceau via my man of affairs when I learned you would be visiting her establishment with Mrs. Pariseau. And the modiste... took care of the rest."

That beautiful dress. Every bit of it had been chosen by, and fitted upon, a woman to whom he'd made love. His mistress.

She didn't know why this should make her want to claw her skin away then and there. She could not rationalize away the scalding jealousy and outrage, all entangled as it was with embarrassment and shame that others knew. It held her in a vise. She could feel it in her throat. It boiled in her.

He was pale, and while his voice was quiet it was hatefully steady. "I knew Madame Marceau would never tell a soul, not if she ever wanted to take a commission from some duke in the ton who was trying to please his mistress, or anyone who cherished discretion. So the little item of gossip didn't come from her, I'm certain of it. It would mean the end of her business. I... have my suspicions."

"Lady Hackworth," she breathed suddenly. "She said she inquired after the bolt of silk and was told it was spoken for. Someone must have told her it was being held for your mistress."

He squeezed his eyes closed. "Fucking. Hell. Tell me. Was I wrong about the Hackworths?" he said tautly.

She didn't even wince at the cursing, and he didn't apologize.

"How much did it cost? Dear God, the cost of a dress like that!"

"The cost is beside the point," he said almost coldly. "You were never meant to know it was I who paid for it, and you were certainly never meant to know the cost. You were simply meant to have the dress. I in fact entertained this possibility before you and I became in any way... significant... to each other. I knew it would make you happy and you would look spectacularly beautiful in it. And it did and you did."

She stared at him, still reeling. She gave a short, stunned laugh.

"Good God," she breathed in wonder. "You do think I'm an absolute idiot, a bumpkin of the first order. ‘Clover,' indeed. Why else would you think I'd believe Madame Marceau would just give me such a dress. I feel like such a fool."

His stance was wary and tense. "No one can make a fool of you if you don't allow them," he said tersely. "The gossip columns have not made a fool of you. You are not a fool, by any definition of the word. Why on earth should that dress go to waste when you could do it justice?"

"So it was by way of being practical, is what you're saying," she said sardonically, still light-headed from furious disbelief. "Like putting last night's leftover peas into tomorrow night's stew."

He dragged a hand over his face, as if he was about to lose the battle to maintain his composure, and his words were more clipped now.

"Believe it or not, Catherine, I took every bloody bit of this into consideration. I had no way of knowing whether you'd accept the dress, but I asked Madame Marceau to try. I considered your possible reaction, if you should ever discover it. I knew the chances were very slim—but not nonexistent—that anyone in the ton at large would know anything about the origins of your dress. And then..." He paused at length. Then gave a short, bitter, wondering laugh. "I did it anyway."

"But... why?"

He was silent for so long that she began to believe she was witnessing history: for the first time, Lord Kirke simply had no idea what to say.

His face remained leached of all color, which made his eyes look obsidian dark.

"You didn't see your face when you saw Mrs. Pariseau's new dress," he said quietly, finally. "But I did."

He sounded ever so faintly... not quite defeated. But resigned. As if he was confessing to a crime after years of running from the law.

What other words had he entertained and dismissed during that long hesitation?

But he said nothing more.

She froze, absolutely blank with astonishment. Uncertain and off-balance now.

Had the ache of wistful covetousness, the stab of pain she'd felt when she'd seen that dress been so obvious on her face? The notion made her feel raw and exposed and so terribly embarrassed.

But his strange composure and white face suggested to her that there was something else he was determinedly disguising. She could not quite bring it into view through her haze of furious, horrified mortification.

Her voice was hoarse and clipped. "I suppose none of that matters, anyway. Because here is the irony, Lord Kirke. You once claimed to have dreaded ruining me. And yet it seems I am now literally ruined. Lady Wisterberg informs me that thirty-two of the people who previously accepted an invitation to her party have now sent their regrets, canceling. We have canceled the party. My invitations to events have stopped completely. As far as the ton is concerned, I have clearly been cut dead. As though I never existed. My chances of a decent match anywhere in England are possibly over. My season certainly is. But I suppose you did warn me there would be consequences for dancing with you. I take responsibility for that." She said this bitterly.

She could hear the blood ringing in her ears in the silence that followed.

"I am sorrier than I can say to have caused you such distress," he said finally, so gently. "When I have valued our friendship more than I can say."

Friendship.

She didn't think she would ever forget how this room looked during this moment. The slant of the shadows. His coat slung over the chair. His papers strewn over the desk. How desperately she had wondered about the intimate details of his life. How she'd longed to know everything about him, as if in so doing she could finally know his heart. When this had always been impossible, because this broken man simply would not allow it to be known.

"I will find the person responsible for this little paragraph," he said calmly, "and I will destroy them."

She stared at him. She felt the little hairs prickling to attention at the back of her neck.

For the first time she understood how much of his eerie calm was merely skillfully contained fury.

"Will that make the fact that I wore your mistress's dress any less true?" she said bitterly.

"The object of the paragraph in TheTimes was to hurt you for entertainment purposes," he said slowly, laying the words down like bricks. "For the amusement of the masses. Do not think for one moment I will allow that to stand." His voice had escalated.

"Do not shoot anyone on my account, Lord Kirke. I'm certain the gossip columns will savor that, too, if you do. I will return home as soon as I can get the mail coach," she said, the words cracked and trembling now. "I can't... I can't stay in London any longer." Tears were gathering in the corners of her eyes.

Another of those pauses ensued while she could almost hear his formidable mind clearly working away. "I have a possible solution."

She waited.

He pulled in a breath and released it slowly.

And then another.

Still, his voice shook a little. "I am willing to marry you."

She stared at him. Her mind blanked in astonishment.

"What?"Her voice was cracked and threadbare, pitched flute-high with disbelief.

"It's what is normally done, isn't it?" His voice was still so very, very careful. "To salvage reputations in situations such as this. To provide a woman a modicum of freedom from judgment. To get the gossip to stop."

A fresh wave of nauseating shock swept through her.

"You... are... willing... to... marry... me," she repeated slowly. She moaned in near pain, and held her head in her hands. "I... it's... how ghastly. Do you hear it? Do you hear how that sounds? How martyred? As though I am some terrible problem that must be solved by throwing yourself on your sword? What kind of life would that be for you? What kind of life would that be for me? Everyone will believe I had been your mistress, and then no one will receive me, and we wouldn't have any friends. You would forever resent me for cornering you into this solution. No. Never. Never. Not if you were the last man on earth."

Her own torrent of furious words shocked her. Her capacity for blind rage and pain was a revelation. Her willingness to inflict it on him was another. She didn't know whether she even meant them. She only wanted to administer a killing blow, and they were the weapon at hand and so she used them.

She had learned an astonishing number of things about herself in London.

Kirke was as pale as if blood had never pumped through his veins. She could detect no movement at all. Not his breathing. Not a flicker of an eyelash.

"Maybe it's just you. Maybe you ruin everything you touch without trying," she added bitterly.

She could see these words land. She witnessed the breath literally leaving him. The pinched skin about his eyes. Which suddenly looked like dark bruises on his face.

The very air in the room seemed to sting her skin. Everything hurt intolerably.

"I will leave The Grand Palace on the Thames at once." His voice was uninflected.

She nodded shortly.

Then she turned her back so she wouldn't have to see what she'd done to him.