by Anna Cowan
‘I still think you should confide the particulars of your plan to me,’ Lydia said, pouting slightly. ‘I don’t wish to insult you, Katherine, but staying away from him doesn’t seem the most intelligent way to begin.’
‘He braved your husband to ask after me, didn’t he?’
Lydia huffed, and was about to reply – Kit was sure it would be outright rude – when their mother entered.
‘Ah, girls,’ she said. ‘I slept dreadfully last night. We didn’t get home until four at least – it was four, wasn’t it, Lydia?’
‘I believe it was a quarter after,’ said Lydia sweetly, then rolled her eyes at Kit when their mother swooned into a chair at the table and accepted a cup from Soames.
It was something she had been indulging ever since she’d seen her new quarters at BenRuin House, decorated in delicate blue silk. She had the luxury now to truly give in to her invalid impulses. Kit reminded herself over and over that this was Ma’s way of expressing blissful happiness.
‘And such rich food, though of course I wouldn’t dream of telling Prudence such a thing. I told you girls she and I were great friends before I married, didn’t I?’
‘You did, Ma,’ Kit said. Blissful happiness.
Lydia said, ‘By which you mean great rivals, of course.’ She and Ma shared a smirk, and Ma inclined her head graciously over her cup.
Lord, they were a pair.
‘Lady Marmotte attacked him again,’ Lydia said, out of nowhere, and Kit gripped the edge of the table.
‘What did that bitch do?’
‘Katherine!’ said her mother, suddenly upright and appalled.
‘She’s after Jude,’ said Kit, completely unapologetic. ‘So I’ll say whatever the damn hell I please.’
Ma narrowed her eyes at Kit. Then she shrugged, lay back against her chair and began to complain of a headache.
Lydia finished shovelling eggs into her mouth and swallowed. ‘He was talking to Liverpool and Lady Louisa, and Kit, my God, you have no idea how painful it is to watch him trying to be polite.’
Kit felt too sick to speak.
‘It’s as if he’s speaking a foreign language, and nobody knows what to make of him. He disgraced himself badly with that Marmotte business, and when he disappeared afterwards, he left the field open for Lady Marmotte to foster the public’s bad opinion of him. If Liverpool hadn’t shown such obvious favour, I don’t reckon any respectable aristo would have spoken to him the entire night. The fact that he won’t give up the Dandies hardly helps. Though I’d have to murder him, of course, if he dared. So that’s all right.’
‘Lydia,’ Kit said, like the snip of sharp scissors through cloth. ‘What . . . did . . . she . . . do?’
‘Right. Sorry. Well he was doing fairly well with Lady Louisa. You know when he relaxes a little he’s about the most charming man on the face of the planet. Then that woman walked up to him with the accountant by her side, wearing all black as though her marriage was something to be mourned. She’s still invited to all the best parties, because she’s managed to lay the blame for her divorce squarely on Darlington and I think she owns about a fifth of the country’s debt, so one can’t afford to remember the part she played in it all. There’s her July card party, too, of course. The fortunes of powerful people depend upon an invitation.’
If Jude wasn’t threatened, Kit thought, it was possible she and her sister would cheer Lady Marmotte on for not letting those men she’d gone to bed with kick her out of society.
But Jude was threatened.
‘And of course, all the hostesses have been praying for the kind of scene Lady Marmotte played out so perfectly last night. Her dress had a train about a mile long so everyone had to move out of her way and pay attention. She told him to his face that he was the devil in human form – that he’s the reason this country’s going to hell, the picture of apathetic hedonism. And the whole time that graceless accountant stood by her side saying nothing at all and looking like a miserable git. God, Kit, the look on Darlington’s face. I swear I almost petted him on the spot, which would have been a disaster. He never would have cared before – he would have smiled like a charming idiot and said that he had been told once he could teach the devil a thing or two about tying a perfect cravat. Then he would have taken his time and when it suited him he would have decimated her without ever laying a finger on her or even speaking to her again. But he’s trying so hard to be good, and to do things the way other people do things. He traded away his reputation in exchange for Lord Marmotte’s vote, and now he hasn’t a spare inch to manoeuvre. If he lashed out at her he’d confirm every bad thing she says about him. But every second he lets her be she gains more ground.’
Kit’s fingers clenched uselessly around the table. And he had asked for her.
Lydia made it about a hundred times worse when she said, ‘I expect he’s trying to deserve you, Kit. You and that bloody title.’
There was a soft knock, and they all looked up to see Tom smiling in the doorway.
‘Thomas!’ Lydia said, and threw herself at him, kissing him energetically on both cheeks. Ever since Tom had let her buy him a whole new wardrobe Lydia had been treating him like a giant pet. ‘Come and have sausages.’
‘No thanks, sis. Kit and I’ll need to get a push on. Ready?’ Tom asked, looking at her.
It was . . . uncanny, the difference two weeks had made in Tom. His coat was an eye-watering yellow, his waistcoat tight and purple. His trousers were wide-legged and pleated, his cravat spotted. It took some getting used to. Tom had started smiling in ways that were as shocking and bright as his coat. He was taking a little getting used to as well.
Crispin appeared behind him and smiled apologetically at Kit.
‘I tried to talk him out of the coat,’ he said, and looked at Tom as though he didn’t mind the coat one bit.
It had not been comfortable, making herself understand that their friendship wasn’t just friendship. Making herself think about it, and not shy away, until the thought almost bored her. They were never overt in public, but their things were unavoidably intertwined in Crispin’s rooms – Tom’s books shoved onto the shelves amongst his, Crispin’s paring knife sitting beside Tom’s pencils on the desk. And there was such quiet luminosity in the way they looked and spoke to each other, that Kit could not question that she saw love. Not love in the abstract, but love as two real people felt it for each other.
The two of them had a tendency to make each other giggle, but they were all business once they climbed into the carriage.
‘My brother, Percy, had this sent over to me this morning,’ Crispin said, and pulled a pamphlet from his pocket.
It was simple and to the point. ‘Oh, God,’ she said, and looked up at her brother. Oh, God. How dare they? How dare anyone look at her Tom and think this?
‘But your father,’ she said to Crispin. ‘He disapproved publicly the last time a man was hanged for sodomy. How could anyone . . . how could someone speculate on what is private – and print such gaudy, harmful —’
‘Hush, Kit,’ said Tom. ‘We only thought you should know, because the pamphleteer isn’t really attacking us – it’s Darlington’s blood he wants. We don’t think anything will come of it.’
‘Lady Marmotte.’
Crispin shook his head. ‘She’ll likely send whoever wrote it a full brace of pheasants, but even she wouldn’t dare my father’s displeasure to this extent. She still needs him to vote in favour of the accountant.’
‘What did —’ Kit swallowed. ‘What did Jude do, when he saw it?’
‘Whatever you can think up,’ Crispin said, and his smile made her feel the tiniest bit better, ‘he did worse. Had one of the Dandies in tears. I had to explain to him that the boy thought we’d displeased him, so that he’d stop. Ridiculous man.’
Kit had directions in her pocket from a broker who believed he had traced one of her mother’s pieces of pawned jewellery to a shop just off Bond Street. She wrapped her fingers around
it, and made herself concentrate on the very real crackle of the cheap paper.
She could not go directly to Jude. She had to follow the side path that brought her to shops where she looked sceptically at the men and women who tried to charge her a fortune for pieces she didn’t recognise. She was running out of time.
She stepped out of the carriage when it stopped in a narrow street and checked the address against the shop. It had a narrow façade with a dusty window display and a dark wood door. No bell sounded when they stepped inside – only the wretched scrape of the door against the floorboards. There was a pale crescent etched into the boards, as though the door shaved off a fine layer every time it opened. Furniture was piled up to the gloomy ceiling – chandeliers hung from chair legs, their crystals obscured by dust and cobwebs. Kit took a couple of steps further into the shop and a gruesome Indian statue loomed out from between an upright sofa and a desk.
‘Ah, good morning,’ said a man, making his way through the heaps as easily as a sleepwalker crosses his bedroom. He was rather thin, rather young, and altogether neat and cheerful.
‘I’m Miss Sutherland,’ she said, and stuck out her hand. He shook it without hesitation.
‘Of course. Mr Travis told me to expect you. I very much hope this brooch is the piece you’ve been looking for. Careful now; if you follow in single file, I dare say we’ll all make it out alive.’
They followed him into a small office at the back of the shop. It was less cluttered, but Kit privately thought the shopkeeper was waging a losing war against the tide of furniture that had begun piling up in corners here, too. Most of the room was taken up by a glass-topped cabinet. The man opened it, and carefully pulled something out.
‘Here now,’ he said, and laid it on a scrap of velvet on top of the glass.
Kit and Tom reached out at the same moment. It was a small oval cameo, surrounded by an ornate lattice of cut citrine set in gold netting. Their mother had worn it on her breast every day, until the day Abe had sold it. It was pretty but not particularly valuable, outside of their family; it had been a gift from their grandmother, passed down to the Barton women. Ma had told Kit it would be hers some day.
‘This is it.’
The shopkeeper asked for ten times what it was worth. Kit paid. She was buying back her own history, and she couldn’t even begin to put a price on that.
She’d been very careful not to let Jude see her since she’d come to London. It had been hell, staying away from him, with that bruising kiss and the ripping sensation of him leaving still smarting in her. She had considered – more times than was sensible – simply marching up to his front door and demanding him. But certain things had become clear since she’d been in town, and forcing herself on him right now would only make his situation worse.
Against all reason, Albert Shrove’s claim to the Darlington title was gaining support. Neither he nor his solicitor – who was also Lady Marmotte’s solicitor – would say what evidence he had that was so compelling. Kit had seen Lady Marmotte at the museum one afternoon, and every line of her body had spoken smug confidence. She’d had to turn and leave, or risk public violence.
Jude, in what was either a stunning display of bravery or a particularly bad case of lunacy, had made a couple of informal speeches before Parliament. He was arguing for change, when change was neither popular nor comfortable. It was impossible to ignore Jude when he spoke directly, and he was making the most powerful men in the world feel bad.
And on top of everything else, society was trying very hard to wrap its head around the idea that the Duke of Darlington, whatever else he might be, was not a simpleton. Lydia and Tom reported condemnation from those who had finally been convinced of his intelligence and scathing gossip from those who believed he was finally losing his mind.
The Misadventures and Misplaced Grace of a Simple Man was enjoying an extended season at the theatre.
So Kit ruthlessly squashed the need she had to be near him right now, and made herself think, instead. She wrote letters until her hand ached and she feared she might need glasses. She wrote anonymous letters to the gossips and the newspapers. She wrote to the barest acquaintances, and every connection of Tom’s she could pry from him.
She wrote to her uncle and she wasn’t tentative. She spoke of their life in London in enough detail to assure him that they needed nothing material from him. She spoke of her mother – evoked those small, daily details she hoped would make Lord Barton remember his sister was a person he had once loved. She would have asked her mother to write herself, except she couldn’t bear to expose her to rejection. She enclosed the cameo brooch with the letter.
And then she asked Soames to find her the address of the Duke of Darlington’s seamstress.
‘My God, it’s brilliant, Kit!’ Lydia said, clutching Kit’s arm as they walked down Bond Street. ‘I’m going to have an outfit made just like it. And she was so delightfully French and snooty. You don’t mind if I copy your outfit, do you? Only it’s the most shocking thing I’ve ever seen, and we are sisters, you know, so maybe people will be even more impressed if we come in a pair. Don’t you think?’
Kit pulled her closer as the street grew particularly crowded and said, ‘Like a matched pair of horses. Of course you may have an outfit just like mine.’
‘And the way she talked about Darlington – Lord, I thought I would just about burst laughing.’
Kit smiled and felt a sweet pang in her chest. Mme Soulier had not missed the Sutherland sisters’ avid curiosity about the Duke of Darlington. Kit was almost certain it was the reason she’d agreed to make Kit’s wardrobe, despite being retired. That and the way they’d shovelled compliments at her without shame – they had, after all, seen what wizardry she could perform with silk.
She had told them about the first time she met Jude. He had been only three and, she had said with great irony, she had mistaken him for a girl. He had been swathed chin to knees in white lace and brocade, and wore white stockings and delicate slippers. His hair had fallen long and black past his shoulders. ‘Spoilt little boy,’ she’d said, half affectionately. ‘He would look at me with those big blue eyes, as if he was starving, as though I hadn’t eyes in my head to see his family’s riches. Then he’d order me to pick him up – imperious as a little sultan – and Her Grace would send him from the room in embarrassment.’
Kit hurt with needing to put her arms around him. She’d had such a measly amount of time with him; it couldn’t even begin to make up for a lifetime’s neglect. Soon, she promised herself. Soon she could hold him again. Spend long lazy mornings holding him, never breaking contact once.
‘I can’t believe he ordered her to make him an Egyptian headdress,’ Lydia said, peering into a shop window at a riding outfit. ‘No, wait, I absolutely believe it. There really isn’t a single person on earth like him, is there?’
‘No,’ said Kit. ‘He is utterly unique.’ For a moment it scared her to think it in such bald terms. There was only one of him. No one else would ever do. If anything ever happened to him, nothing would be able to make up for the lack.
Lydia continued down the street, pulling Kit with her. ‘Quickly,’ she said. ‘James is meeting us up on the corner. I can’t wait to tell Mother all about your new wardrobe.’
Kit didn’t say, I will pay back all the money you have given me. They both knew she would either be able to pay it back, or she wouldn’t.
Kit bumped her shoulder against Lydia’s. ‘Oh, absolutely. If you want to ruin our ears for all eternity, go ahead and tell her.’
Lydia became all smooth, disdainful countess. Kit opened her mouth to tease her out of offence, but then she followed Lydia’s regal nod, and saw a clutch of women across the street.
‘Good afternoon,’ Lydia drawled, but made no move to begin a conversation.
The women returned her greeting, then looked at Kit with extreme disapproval. Kit had been as good as her word: she wouldn’t put herself into one of those dresses that became Ly
dia so well and herself so ill. She was wearing one of her old country dresses, with her worn velvet jacket.
Lydia held her close – ostentatiously so – and stared haughtily at the women across the street until they forced smiles to their lips, and continued walking.
It was quite sweet, really.
‘Ah, there’s James,’ Lydia said, and picked up her stride. He was tall and still in the shopping crowds.
They hurried up the hill towards him, holding each other close as they brushed past men in tall hats and ladies waving their gloves casually in conversation. The drivers on the street had taken up a cry against someone up ahead who’d driven carelessly and blocked the way. When they were almost within a distance to greet BenRuin the carriage beside them finally moved on.
The Duke of Darlington was standing on the pavement across the street.
For a brief moment before he had seen her, she was able to watch him, surrounded by his lads.
There he was. The only one of him in all the world.
Her heart attempted to break her chest.
Then she saw him look up, bored, and watched as he saw her for the first time in weeks, and changed completely. Something fell away from him and for a confused moment she thought, He shouldn’t do that in public. Anyone could look and know how he unwrapped himself for her, and how involuntary it was.
She only realised when a driver yelled at her that she’d stepped into the road. Her careful plans were important, but closing the distance between herself and Jude was vital. She needed to hold him, put her body between him and the eyes that were always on him, until he had composed himself again.
A hand closed around her arm and pulled her back.
She turned around, and found herself face-to-face with BenRuin’s chest.
‘Don’t let her go,’ BenRuin said to Lydia, shoving Kit at her. His voice was low, controlled, and Kit thought that if he’d shouted she would have been brave enough to disobey him.
Lydia gripped Kit and said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please just —’
