The Gilded Cage

by Lucinda Gray

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  Special Thanks to Melissa Albert

  PROLOGUE

  I HEFT THE GUN to my shoulder, feeling its familiar weight and the heat of the metal through my dress. Sighting along the barrel, I curl my finger around the trigger. The world shrinks around my target as I breathe in.

  Exhaling, I squeeze.

  An explosion of sound, and the tin can twenty yards away topples from its perch.

  “Told you so, George,” I mutter, letting the stock fall to rest on a fence post. The horses in the field alongside me swish their tails, slapping insects from their flanks. The gunshot stilled the relentless cicada hum for a moment; with a hot ticking, it begins again. I reach a hand up to wipe the sweat from my neck.

  A shimmering heat haze rises along the rutted track leading from our farm to town, and as I reload the muzzle, squinting at the remaining row of cans, a plume of dust swirls up and takes shape. It’s a moment before I recognize the motion as that of an approaching rider.

  I smile, making a dash at my hair and dress, slapping the worst of the grime from my skirts. I hadn’t thought to see Connor today. But even as I smooth my hair, I realize that it isn’t him. The horse is the same shade of chestnut as Connor’s mare, but the rider has none of his ease in the saddle.

  My stomach turns over. I remember the last time George and I welcomed a stranger to our farm: a doctor who charged too much, who told us nothing could be done. I fight back a rising tide of dread. If George has been hurt … But no, if anything’s happened, the news wouldn’t come from town.

  I hold the rifle in both hands, across my body so the rider can see it. He’s wearing a jacket and breeches of pale gray, reddened with dust and nicer by far than what my brother wears on Sundays. His hair is pale under his hat, and the beginnings of an unpromising mustache grace his lip. The jacket, store-bought by the look of it, slumps damply about his slight form, and a slender leather case rests over the front of the saddle. If he’s armed, I can’t see his gun.

  As he approaches, he throws up a hand. “Young lady! Hold your fire!” Grinning at me, he reins in the horse with a dusty flourish.

  I tip the gun so that its muzzle points to the ground and move toward the steaming horse. “You’re far from town,” I say to the stranger.

  He dismounts, his leather shoes hitting the packed earth with a thump. I’m no longer afraid, just curious—this fellow couldn’t best a city girl in a fight, much less a farm girl with a rifle. Bowing slightly, he offers his hand. His nails are perfect, clean crescents.

  “Good afternoon, miss. I apologize for arriving with no prior notice, but I wasn’t sure how to announce myself ahead of time.” He gestures around, as if to underscore the lack of a postbox. “My name is Herman DeLaney. I’m a solicitor with Cryer and Thompson, and I’ve come to you from New York City.”

  He says this with a satisfied air that I’d take more seriously from a larger man.

  “I’m Katherine Randolph,” I say. “And I come from right here.” I hold my dirt- and oil-smeared hand out partway, waiting to see whether he’ll take it. After a moment’s hesitation, he does.

  As I tie his mount to the hitching post, he runs his eyes over our house. I see it as he does: sun-bleached boards, dilapidated but well kept. A sagging porch, though freshly swept. And lovely painted flowers winding up from the house’s baseboards—our flower beds haven’t thrived in the heat, but my brother’s artistic talents produce blooms far lovelier than anything I could have grown.

  I call the man’s attention back from the flowering boards. “Mr. DeLaney, I must ask. For what purpose have you traveled all the way from New York?”

  He turns toward me, a slight smile flickering about his mouth. “Is George Randolph at home?”

  “My brother has gone to look at a stallion in Paulstown.” I remember that this man is not from these parts, and amend myself. “That’s ten miles away. He should be back by evening. You’re welcome, of course, to return tomorrow.”

  The man just smiles and removes his hat, wiping his forehead with a cornflower-blue handkerchief he produces from inside his dusty coat.

  “If it’s all right with you, Miss Randolph, I believe I’ll wait.” He sits back on the hitching post with a sigh. “I have something very important to discuss with Mr. Randolph.”

  “Something so important that it can’t wait one day?”

  He leans forward, his toes just touching the ground. “Indeed.” He taps his leather case with a manicured finger. “Pardon me for being forward, but I believe I am about to change your fortunes.”

  I feel a confused thrill at his words. What could this beanpole of a city man be carrying that would support his claim? “My brother won’t return until well after sundown, sir—and it’s far too hot to be left in anticipation.”

  He laughs at my words, settling himself more comfortably on his post. “Perhaps you’re right. You are a Randolph, after all. Let’s start with this: Have you ever wished to see England?”

  CHAPTER 1

  “ARMS UP, DEAR.”

  I lift my arms over my head.

  “Good,” says Cousin Grace. “You’ll make no move more sudden than that, and it seems your bosom will stay in place.”

  I don’t see how my bosom has any choice. It and the rest of me are bound fast in a mercilessly tight concoction of cream satin. I keep catching glances of myself in the mirror, and each time the girl I see looks a little less like me. My black curls are pinned up in an elaborate style that leaves my neck bare. I’d almost forgotten the mole in the hollow of my left clavicle. Shimmering white gloves wrap my arms to the elbow, reflecting the glow of the strand of pearls that clings to my throat. Katherine the farm girl is in there somewhere, beneath the finery—I see her in the obstinate jawline, a touch too wide, in the dark gray eyes that can’t hide their boredom. Grace surveys my bare arms with satisfaction—though the taut lines of my muscles are still visible, they’re slackening from disuse. There are no buckets to heave up from the well here, and someone else chops the firewood.

  What would Connor think if he could see me now?

  “Arms back down,” Grace murmurs as Elsie, our dressing maid, fusses with another hairpin. If I don’t turn my head too quickly, her work might just survive the evening ahead.

  Grace suddenly shrieks, and Stella scurries out from under her skirts, yapping. “I don’t understand, Katherine dear, why you insist on keeping that mutt in your room!”

  “Because I love her with all my heart.” And because you can trust animals, I think but don’t say. There’s nothing fake about a dog. “Besides, she’s very fond of you,” I add sweetly.

  “Well, the feeling is one-sided. She’s got hairs all over my dress.”

  Elsie flutters over to tend to my cousin’s skirts, and I manage a crouch, tickling Stella under her chin. She was a gift from George the day after we arrived in England, and I adore her—she’s the only one here even less polished than I am.
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  I walk to the window and tug aside the thick brocade curtain. The estate sprawls out in the dimming February twilight, a wintry tapestry of browns and faded greens. Over its horizon, to the south, is the quarry that once supplied stone to build the house and many others in the area. It fell into disuse some ten years ago, according to George. At the bottom of the smooth lawns, the lake lies black and still, and the trees beyond carpet the valley in a great swath. The forest of Walthingham, planted two hundred years ago, covers several hundred acres. I hold a hand to the chilly glass, listening to the evening song drifting from the aviary.

  There’s movement at the forest’s edge, something darting from trunk to trunk.

  “Someone’s in the trees,” I say, pointing to the spot.

  Grace comes to my side, but when I look again the thing has gone. “I can’t see anything,” she says.

  “I’m sure.…”

  “Just a deer,” she says. “They come sometimes to the lake to drink.”

  “I think it was a man,” I say, staring until my eyes blur and sting, and I have to blink.

  In the glass, Grace’s reflection flinches. Then two shapes emerge from the trees on the long driveway leading to the house—carriages. “Your guests!” says Grace, her voice light. “We haven’t long.”

  My guests. Cold seeps into my fingertips from the windowpane, and my ghostly, black-eyed reflection stares back at me mockingly. I turn away.

  Grace looks me up and down. “Don’t furrow your brow. You’ll perform just perfectly.”

  I don’t want to perform at all, thank you very much, I think. I’m not a traveling show.

  Grace must mistake my strained smile for nerves. “You’ve done wonderfully over the past four weeks, Katherine. You’ll be a sensation!”

  Has it been only four weeks since we arrived here? America, and Connor, seem to belong to another lifetime. I feel a swell of guilt, not for being here, but for starting to forget.

  “Thank you,” I say. “For everything you’ve done for me.”

  Grace stands up and adjusts her skirts. She is wearing lace as well, but it is dyed a rich scarlet, and cut higher to her neck. Though she asks me to treat her like a sister, she is technically the same generation as my father—his cousin, in fact. She acts very much like a maiden aunt, steering me patiently through the convoluted channels of English society.

  “I have enjoyed every moment,” she says. “Now, I must go speak with Mrs. Whiting. Just relax and enjoy the night—we’ve been over everything that’s important. Come along, Elsie.”

  She sweeps from the room, followed by the serving girl, and I’m alone.

  Everything that’s important. She means the rules, I suppose, the ones she’s spent a month drilling into me. The rules for eating, the rules for dancing, the rules for talking. The way to dress, to curtsy, to be an English “lady” rather than a girl from a farm in Virginia. The rules for snaring a husband, that’s what they add up to.

  It’s a wonder these people can walk in a straight line with so many rules in their heads—but, of course, there are rules for walking, too.

  I practice now, stepping toward the mirror, placing one foot in front of the other, trying to maintain perfect alignment from toe to heel. It’s harder than it looks, like crossing the slippery log over the creek toward Miller’s Pond. All that was at stake back then was a soaking in muddy water.

  It’s been three months since Herman DeLaney, the lawyer from the city, did indeed change our fortunes. His firm, Cryer and Thompson, took care of all the details—getting us to New York, finding a berth on the St. Elizabeth. George and I were simply swept along. I still blush to think of DeLaney’s face when I asked how it was all being paid for. “By you, of course, Miss Randolph,” he’d said with a grin.

  I don’t think either of us really threw much of a backward glance at Miller’s Pond or the life we were leaving behind. Edward and Lila saw us off with tears, and there were vain promises that we would see them again. But after that, we let the current carry us away. During the monthlong wait in New York, I was too busy wandering the streets in awe to think properly about how life was changing. I think the reality began to dawn for both of us during the wretched twenty-eight days we were tossed around on the crossing. The only moment of levity on the whole voyage was when we toasted the New Year with a bottle of wine given to us by Herman. He’d scribbled a note on the label—May you have a prosperous 1821.

  George had to explain to me five or six times what was in fact quite a simple, if improbable, stroke of luck. A grandfather we hadn’t even known had died. Thrown from his horse at the age of seventy, he had died instantly of a broken neck. And with our father, his direct descendant, dead, his fortune passed to us. Now, where we were from, wealth was a relative concept. Just about everyone we mixed with, Connor included, had little, though we all had enough. Maybe the McConnells, with eight horses and twenty acres, were doing a lot better than us. Herman DeLaney, with his handsome town house in Manhattan, was definitely well off.

  I didn’t know what real wealth was, of course.

  “What are you doing here, Katherine Randolph?” I whisper.

  At the sound of my voice, Stella looks up from beside the hearth, where a fire is stoked hot against the chill. In our old home, we had a single fireplace. This house has more than two dozen. But then, this bedroom is the size of our entire farmhouse. The bedding and walls are done up in dusty gold with warm red accents, and the carpet is a thick plush that I never tire of digging my toes into.

  But will it ever feel like a home? I feel like a plant brought in from a greenhouse, potted in strange soil. It’s not right, this place, this air. I feel like I’m withering.

  A gentle rapping pulls me from my reverie. I turn and see George framed in the doorway, and force a smile. Our elevation to the gentry looks effortless on him, as everything does. He wears a midnight-colored tailcoat, and a collar that drapes his neck in velvet. He used to wear rugged breeches and boots in all weather, but now he’s traded them for silk stockings and pointed leather shoes with shining buckles. He is only twenty, four years my senior, but his clothes give him a dignity befitting an older man.

  “My grubby George!” I say. “I didn’t truly believe the dirt could come all the way off.”

  He pulls a monstrous face at me. “Look who’s talking!”

  “It’s Grace and Elsie’s doing,” I say. “Don’t come too near or you’ll make me a mess again.”

  “Mother and Father would be so proud,” he says simply, and holds out his arm. I know he means well by saying such things, but I wish he wouldn’t mention our parents like that. It undermines my defenses, and threatens to make me teary. “Of you also,” I reply simply as we clasp arms. My hands look like someone else’s—the nails, once kept short by hard work and a hundred little accidents, have grown longer.

  “Oh, look,” I say, gripping his wrist, where a splotch of cerulean blue is dried onto his skin. “You’re letting us down.”

  “Blast,” he says under his breath. “I was doing the vista from the west window.”

  “I don’t see where the blue came in. These English skies seem to be gray most of the time.”

  He tries to tweak my nose, like he used to when we were small, but I duck out of the way as quick as my styled hair will let me. He knows I’m teasing—George’s paintings are something to behold, and at last he’s getting the recognition he deserves. Tomorrow we go to London to speak with a curator at the Royal Academy. They’ve seen the landscapes George painted back home, and already they’re talking about exhibiting his work.

  In the hallway we meet John, the under-footman, coming from the servants’ stairs with an armful of pressed linen. He moves aside and offers a shallow bow as we pass; for a moment, before I lower my gaze, his eyes catch on mine. I find it hard, sometimes, to meet his looks. His sun-paled hair is so like Connor’s, and from the back, with their broad shoulders and height, they could be mistaken for each other. But John does not shar
e Connor’s easy smile. He often looks sad, I think, when he doesn’t know he’s being watched.

  John’s was the first face I saw on English soil, waiting with my cousins the day we docked in Bristol. He’d carried my ancient blue trunk, weathered almost to whiteness, to the waiting carriage.

  Now I feel his eyes on my exposed throat, and I am sure I’m blushing. “My lord, my lady,” he murmurs. George nods a response. He’s adjusting better than I am, learning to treat the servants, as Grace instructed, like part of the furniture.

  George’s hand is tight on my arm as we reach the stairs—he’s more nervous than he’s letting on.

  “I may need to use that arm again after tonight,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” he replies. “It’s just—are you actually looking forward to this?”

  “This is our introduction to society,” I say. “Think of it like branding cattle. A sharp pain, then we belong.”

  “And then to the slaughterhouse?” says George.

  From below come the silvery sounds of the hired strings, and the low swell of voices. “They can’t scare us, George,” I say.

  “Can’t they?”

  “We may not be as fine,” I say. “But we’re far richer.”

  We stifle our laughter as we walk down the stairs, and I try my best not to tangle my feet in my dress. The butler, Carrick, is waiting at the doors to the ballroom. Cousin Henry Campion, Grace’s older brother, limps from the drawing room to the bottom of the stairs, smartly dressed in his dragoon’s uniform. Until we were identified as Randolphs by Crowne & Crowne, the family’s lawyers, he was custodian to Walthingham, and since our arrival he’s welcomed us with great kindness. I haven’t dared ask about his wound, but Elsie tells me he got it fighting in France, and that he nearly lost the leg to infection.

  “The young lord and lady are ready for their audience, I see,” he says. “Katherine, you look beautiful tonight! Mr. Carrick, if you wouldn’t mind.”