by Emma Newman
Cornelius nodded slowly. “I see it. Yes, it could work. I know enough, and you’re capable with a wealthy and powerful family behind you.” He extended his hand across the table. “I am yours, brother. I pledge my service to you as adviser.”
Will clasped his hand with both of his. “Excellent. Now, more bacon, a brief rundown of the families to watch and then I must leave.”
“I have a question,” Cornelius said, his voice steadier and more like Will remembered. “If you don’t mind, seeing as we’re not ignoring any elephants in the room this morning.”
“Go ahead.” Will speared another rasher and dropped it onto the plate.
“I heard the servants say it was your wedding day yesterday. Is that true?”
“It is.”
“Is it not customary to breakfast with one’s wife during the honeymoon?”
Will sighed as he resumed his place. “Indeed. We’ve not had the best start. In fact, I fail to see how it could be worse.”
“Forgive my saying so, but how do you expect to take the Court without a solid marriage? They’ll want stability from a new Duke, and if they don’t respect her, it will be all the harder for you.”
Will’s appetite ebbed away. “All you say is true, and I don’t have an answer yet. Catherine is…different to anyone else I’ve known in society. But I’ll get through to her. Now, tell me, who will put themselves forward once the dust settles? What was the old Duke like?”
“Horatio’s grandfather was not a popular Duke but he was a strong one,” Cornelius said, dunking a sliver of toast in the remains of his egg yolk. “His loss will shake up the Court immeasurably. He was Duke for over two hundred years, and his father held the title for three hundred before him.”
“What happened to the father?”
“Madness, so they say.” Cornelius shrugged. “I hear it happens to the very old ones. As for who will step forward, the first will be the head of the Semper-Augustus-Tulipa line. A regal lot—William of Orange was one of theirs, so they claim, and they haven’t lost the notion that they should be rulers. Other than them, the only other large family with any clout are the Violas, but they won’t be a problem.”
“Why?”
Cornelius smiled. “You’ll see. Your main competitor will be the Tulipa chap, but you have at least a fortnight or so to find your feet. The Marquis of Westminster won’t call the Court to convene with everything in chaos as it is now.”
“Why not? Surely this is the time a Court and a Duke are needed most.”
“Everyone will be terrified of a war, so they’ll all be speculating about who to back,” Cornelius replied. “They prefer to do all that behind closed doors. I suspect they’ll all be hoping that the strongest will step forward, declare his intention and be backed by such a majority it will be over quickly and painlessly.”
“Could the Tulipa achieve that?”
“Perhaps. It’s the most likely outcome, as things presently stand. When the Londinium residents hear about your intentions it will change the playing field.”
“Let’s dine together, once I’ve moved into my new house,” Will suggested. He wanted to pay full attention without being distracted by day-old clothes and a poorly tied cravat. “I’ll send a carriage for you.” He stood. “Thank you for hearing me out, Cornelius. I’m greatly heartened by this turn of events.”
Cornelius also stood and shook his hand. There was a reassuring warmth to his smile. “Thank you for your honesty. I have hope for our future once more, and I never thought I would. Before you go, there’s something you may not know about Londinium. Travelling between Nether properties can be dangerous. The roads between them are unprotected and people have been robbed in their carriages.”
“Highwaymen!” Will chuckled. “How quaint.”
“But with modern weapons from Mundanus,” Cornelius said. “Be careful. Some of the more paranoid travel in Mundanus and enter the Nether closer to the property. When you declare your intention to stand for Duke, I don’t think it would be a bad thing for you to do the same.”
His warning echoed in Will’s thoughts as he sat in the mundane taxi back to the flat. Londinium was a challenge on many levels, and Will regretted rushing straight into Amelia’s bed. He should have walked for an hour, cleared his head and gone back to talk it through with Catherine and try to build some sort of trust between them. He didn’t want to force her into anything but there were expectations that could rapidly become problematic if he didn’t win her over. The family would be waiting for the announcement of a pregnancy and Cornelius had been right about the need for a solid marriage.
The argument with Catherine pressed upon him and made him sink lower in the seat. He’d been exasperated with her because he expected her to just consummate the marriage as a simple matter of duty. He hadn’t considered her feelings or whether the assumption that he now had a right to her body was even acceptable. He wouldn’t have dreamt of behaving so reprehensibly whilst on the Grand Tour so why should he treat Catherine so poorly?
But even as he considered her feelings there was an undercurrent of anger bred into him by his privileged life. This wasn’t the sort of thing he should need to worry about. Catherine should know what was expected of her and—
No. That was the voice of his father, not him. He looked out on the mundane crowds wrapped up against the cold and unaware of the mirror city he was soon to live in. He didn’t want to be Duke. He didn’t want to make Catherine miserable and himself in the process. She’d said with such bitterness that women didn’t have choices, but she didn’t realise that so few of the men did either.
10
Back in a corset and back in the Nether, Cathy sat in an elaborately decorated iris-blue day dress, looking out of the carriage window. William sat across from her but she tried to ignore that fact.
She was tired and nervous, an unpleasant combination. William hadn’t told her anything about the house they were about to move into, only saying that it was supposed to be a “wonderful surprise”. That made her more nervous than the prospect of meeting new servants and having to begin the farce of married life; his idea of a wonderful surprise was highly unlikely to bear any resemblance to her own.
She’d barely slept since the wedding. The first night had been lost to despair and pacing up and down the flat as she tried to think of some way out before he returned. She had exactly the same problem she’d had before they’d married: she could bolt, but the Irises would be able to find her anywhere she went in Mundanus or the Nether. The second night she’d laid awake next to him, crammed over as far on her side of the bed as possible, utterly freaked out by sharing a bed with a husband she didn’t want. At least he hadn’t tried to touch her, and hadn’t mentioned the argument.
If married life was going to be all about non-conversations, her family had prepared her well. He didn’t ask her where she’d been or what she’d been doing, which both surprised and relieved her, even though she had a cover story all worked out. Instead, he focused on making the most of the rest of the day. They’d visited the National Gallery, which did nothing but send her into a silent panic about having to produce the painting for Lord Poppy, had afternoon tea at the Savoy, walked in St James’s Park, gone out for dinner and then on to a show. It was a textbook romantic day out in London. Just with the wrong man.
She sneaked a peek at him, bored with the silver mists of the Nether. He was too handsome to be married to her and she expected whispered comments about that at the first social event attended together. He was clever, well-mannered, graceful and confident. All of his strengths would make her failings all the more apparent. Why couldn’t they have married him to Elizabeth? Her sister would decorate his arm and not bruise his toes when they danced. She would know exactly what to say and when. This match was a disaster.
“What is it?” he asked. She’d failed to notice he was looking back at her.
“Nothing.” She looked back out of the window.
“You’re very quiet.
”
“I was just thinking.”
“I still have that last song stuck in my head,” he said, smiling. “It was a very strange show.”
Cathy couldn’t think of anything to say so she just nodded and looked back out the window. She consoled herself with the fact that she at least had a mobile phone. Once she knew their new address she could arrange for the rest of her tech to be sent and she could get in touch with her course tutor and look up her reading list. Above all she needed to work out a way to make contact with the Sorcerer of Wessex again so she could earn the boon he’d promised her. Being dependent on a Sorcerer hundreds of miles away who had no interest in helping her wasn’t an ideal situation, but it was the best she had.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked. “It seems very serious.”
“That show,” she lied. “Musicals are weird. No one seems to mind when people randomly burst into song.”
“I feel that way about opera,” Will replied. “Oli made me sit through a performance of the Ring Cycle whilst we were on the continent, all those people blasting arias at each other for hours on end.” He grimaced. “At least last night’s show was only a couple of hours.”
There was a pause. She fiddled with the beading on her dress.
“I thought yesterday was very pleasant, didn’t you?” Will asked.
“Yes,” she said, trying her best to be nice. It wouldn’t be helpful to comment on how she had found it socially agonising to make small talk and steadfastly not address the dire situation they were in. She’d come to two conclusions. One, she had to find a way to be replaced by the Irises that didn’t involve her death or the Agency. Two, she would probably have an easier life in the meantime if she was civil with William.
It helped that she felt sorry for him. It wasn’t his fault, any more than it was hers, and as long as he didn’t force himself upon her she would find a way to try and make things easier for him too.
If she could find a way to persuade him that a replacement would be best for both of them, he could become an ally, and the only way that was going to happen was if she found a way to make him really listen to her. If they became entrenched and even more alienated, he would just shut her out.
“Please don’t look so worried,” William said, leaning across to pat her hand. “You’ll love the house, I promise.”
“I’m not worried about that,” she said and cursed her inability to think first when worried. “It’s the…servants, I won’t know them.”
“There won’t be any, just the handover staff who’ve cleaned it and removed any trace of the previous owner. And my valet, of course, I didn’t want to leave him in Aquae Sulis. I was given to understand you didn’t have any attachment to your previous lady’s maid.”
“No.” She didn’t want to take any staff from her parents’ household with her. They’d only report back to Aquae Sulis about every tiny detail and, besides, she didn’t want any reminders of that imprisonment. “So we’re not having other staff?”
He laughed. “Very funny.” He frowned when he saw her confusion. “Catherine, as lady of the house you’ll be hiring the staff. In fact, a person from the Agency will be there later this afternoon.”
“Oh, God.” She sank in the seat. “You’re going to expect me to handle all of that kind of stuff, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” He seemed genuinely confused. “Weren’t you taught how to run a household?”
She thought back to her lessons with Miss Rainer. They always started with a nod to some aspect of domestic management then rapidly moved on to more interesting subjects like revolutions or the Suffragette movement. Should she declare ignorance now and provide another excellent reason to replace her? Was it too soon? “It’ll be fine,” she said, trying her best to sound confident. She didn’t want to arrive at the new house in the middle of an argument.
“Good. I’m going to be in a meeting for the afternoon, I have correspondence to catch up on and then I’ll be dining with Cornelius, so feel free to have dinner whenever you wish.”
It hadn’t occurred to her that he would set the mealtimes. She could feel disaster looming and knew it would be caused by her ignorance of some minor detail, something any wife would know. “You’re having dinner with Cornelius? Is that a good idea?”
The memory returned of the Gallicas being dragged off by the Agency, and along with it her sister’s speculation about why William had saved the Albas. She was reassured to discover she still didn’t care whether he had a mistress, but it seemed a risk to dine with someone who’d lost everything and had Will to blame.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I know they’re indebted to you, but won’t they see you as responsible for what happened to Lady Rose?”
“I made sure we understand each other. But I’m heartened you thought to ask the question, and I thank you for your concern.”
He looked pleased. She silently admonished herself and decided to keep quiet for the rest of the journey. She didn’t want to give him any hope that she could polish up into a decent wife; she had to tread a fine line between incompetence and being minimally polite, so he would advocate a replacement.
A tap on the roof of the carriage indicated they were soon to arrive. William pulled on his gloves and recovered his cane from the holder in the door.
Like a good Iris wife, Cathy was already covered by gloves reaching up to her shoulders and a cape over the top. For the tenth time that day she silently cursed Lord Iris.
They turned a sharp corner and an impressive neo-classical building came into view, welcome after the void of the Nether.
“Here we are.” William smiled broadly. “The beginning of a new life.”
She pretended to fuss over a glove to cover up her inability to be falsely enthusiastic. The carriage door was opened and he got out first to help her out onto the cobbles.
Cathy looked up at the columns of the pedimented portico, trying to place where she’d seen the building before.
“You recognise it?” He took her hand, something she still found irritating. Why did he have to touch her all the time?
“It’s familiar,” she said. “But I can’t work out why.”
“We walked past here yesterday. I confess I had the driver bring us round a different way, to keep the park a surprise.”
“This is Lancaster House?”
“It is indeed.”
Cathy spun around to see gardens and then behind them the trees of Upper St James’s Park, known as Green Park in Mundanus. So that was why Will had chattered about it so much the day before, explaining that both St James’s Park and Green Park were reflected in the Nether. The famous Londinium park was the envy of Aquae Sulis and their new home overlooked it. “Is the whole building ours?”
He laughed. “Yes, all of it. Of course, residents of Londinium hold keys to the park gates, but there are few properties that have such a fine view over it, not to mention private gardens reflected in the Nether. Let’s explore, shall we?”
“We don’t need a house this big,” she whispered as she reluctantly took his arm.
“On the contrary, this property is fit for a King. Or should I say a Duke and Duchess? Even Queen Victoria called it a palace.”
She looked away, feeling like somebody had dropped her into the wrong life. The house was magnificent, too magnificent for her to live there; its grandeur made her feel all the more inferior and ill-suited for the life William was steering her into.
He led her towards the entrance. A butler was waiting with a handful of servants in a line. He stepped forward and bowed.
“Welcome to your new home Mr Reticulata-Iris. Ma’am,” he said, with a slight bow to her. “My name is Shaw and I’ve been personally overseeing the renovations. I give my word that all traces of the previous owner have been removed.”
“Thank you,” William said. “May I see your credentials?”
The butler extended his left arm, palm upwards and pulled back the sle
eve of his jacket and the shirt cuff. William inspected something Cathy couldn’t see from her angle and then nodded.
“The items sent from Aquae Sulis have been unpacked. Of course, should our choice of master bedroom and personal suites be erroneous we’ll move your belongings post haste. Would you like me to give you a brief tour and show you to your study?”
“Please do,” William said, his right hand folded over Cathy’s, holding it tightly tucked into the crook of his left arm. “My wife and I are eager to get settled right away.”
Am I? she thought, but didn’t say. Just as her father had always spoken for her, now her husband felt he could do the same. Don’t make a fuss, she thought, pressing her tongue into the roof of her mouth lest some acerbic comment fly out before she realised. Just wait for the right moment and then act.
They were escorted into the entrance hall and both of them stopped to take in its grandeur. Cathy’s eyes swept up the gilded staircase to the lantern-design roof two storeys above. The cavernous gilded space was breathtaking and she could imagine how much more dramatic the effect would be in the anchor property with sunlight to make the gold leaf glow. The butler waited patiently and then showed them the ballroom, the green room and the dining room.
“In Mundanus this part of the anchor property is used for state visits and can be hired privately,” the butler said. “The building is closed to the public. I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a dossier of relevant information and an evaluation of mundane security for the anchor property.”
“Thank you,” William replied.
“As you can see, alterations to the décor have been minimal in these rooms as they’re simply reflected from the anchor property and not heavily adapted to an individual family line,” the butler continued. “However, the lesser rooms have had to be stripped more thoroughly and await your choice of redecoration.”
There was the smell of iris flowers. They liked their vases full of blooms just like any of the Great Families. It was strange to see the delicate blue petals instead of blousy red poppies everywhere. It added to Cathy’s sense of dislocation.
