Because then, the only Tremontaine power left would be the duchess. And now Kaab knew her greatest secret.
“Our world is but one of many,” she heard the duke say, urgently. “Our star is but one of countless millions. We are grains of sand on a beach, and each grain is a constellation . . .”
Rafe hushed him.
Kaab replaced the locket where it had been, closed the chest and the panel, and walked over to the window by the desk. The rain had stopped, at last, and the clouds had cleared. The hour was late enough that the morning star was just skimming the horizon. Kaab had to leave. The duchess would return at any moment.
“My family or my friends,” Kaab whispered to the sky. The stars were silent. They had no need to give her an answer that was already in her heart.
Episode Twelve:
A Tale of Two Ladies
Malinda Lo
Seventeen Years Earlier
Lullingstone House, a ramshackle stone manor situated a ten-minute walk from the insignificant and often extremely muddy village of Lullingstone, was hardly a place suited for a noble young lady destined to marry a duke—or so Lady Diane Roehaven often thought. At sixteen years old, she was vividly conscious of her station in life: orphaned as a child and the last of the Roehaven line; raised by the Hemmynges, a minor noble family related to her grandfather’s cousin; destined by birth, if not fortune, to make a distinguished match. Her destiny had come true when a messenger from the City arrived with the news that she had been chosen to wed a distant relation who was the heir to their sprawling, ancient family.
“Tremontaine,” she whispered as she gazed at herself in the black-speckled mirror hanging in her small, plainly furnished dressing room. She would become the Duchess Tremontaine, and she would never again return to this godsforsaken pile of gloomy stone and crumbling plaster. She couldn’t wait to leave. “Louisa!” she called sharply. “I wish to try on my blue silk gown again. Bring it to me!”
In the far corner of the dressing room, a slight, silent figure rose from where she had been sitting on a wooden stool, needle flashing through a nightdress she was sewing for Diane. “Yes, my lady,” Louisa said.
Diane examined her reflection, turning her face this way and that. She had pale white skin, unblemished but for a tiny mole on her left cheek, a small, round chin, and a nose that she deemed perfectly shaped. But Diane believed her most striking characteristic was her eyes: well proportioned, delicately lashed, and as blue as the sapphire in her mother’s ring, which she always wore on her right hand. She preferred to wear blue to bring out her eye color, which was why she had chosen the blue silk—specially sent to Lullingstone by her future husband’s mother as a gift—for the gown she intended to wear on the day she would first meet him.
“I shall also require a blue ribbon in my hair, Louisa.”
“That will make your eyes look beautiful, my lady,” Louisa said promptly. “Would you like me to find a ribbon first, or would you like to put on the gown?”
“The gown first.”
Louisa carefully took the gown off the mannequin where she had draped it in order to finish the last stitching and carried it across the room. The dress had a beautiful bodice embroidered in yellow thread that gave the impression of gold at a fraction of the cost, and it had taken Louisa and a local seamstress weeks to sew. Sometimes, late at night after Diane had gone to sleep, Louisa tried the dress on herself, tempted by a desire to be the lady instead of the maid, at least for a moment. She had relished the secret thrill she felt as she peered at her reflection in the dimly lit glass, holding herself taller, imagining what it would be like if she were the one betrothed to the duke. Indeed, it had not been difficult to imagine at all, for she had been Diane’s constant shadow for the last two years, waiting nearby silently as Diane took her lessons in etiquette or dancing or correspondence. Louisa had practiced her own curtsies and dance steps alone in the dark dressing room, enjoying the feel of her mistress’s skirts draping luxuriously over her legs.
Now, as she helped Diane into the dress, Louisa judged that it looked better on herself. There was something pinched and avaricious about Diane’s face that made the dress look ill-suited, like a crown on a beggar woman. Louisa was struck with a pang of jealousy as Diane examined herself approvingly in the mirror.
“Bring me my jewels,” Diane ordered. “This gown is incomplete without them.”
Diane’s jewels consisted of a single parure: a sapphire-and-pearl necklace, matching earrings, and the ring that Diane was already wearing. Louisa brought the small velvet-lined box out of the wardrobe and fastened the necklace around Diane’s neck. Diane was heir to other family jewels, but those were kept in trust until her wedding in the City. Here at Lullingstone, they had to make do with the few trinkets that Diane had inherited from her mother, a situation that Diane often complained about. Today she seemed content, though, and as Louisa worked a wide sky-blue ribbon into her hair, Diane preened in front of her mirror. “I will be a beautiful bride, don’t you think?” she said.
“Indeed, my lady. Very beautiful.” Louisa, standing slightly behind and to the right of Diane, could see herself in the speckled glass as well. They were dressed very differently—Louisa wore a faded green dress that had been a castoff of the Lullingstone housekeeper’s—but they could have been sisters. They were of the same height and build, and both had blond hair, though Louisa’s eyes were not blue, but the gray of winter skies over Lullingstone. When Louisa had first been hired on as Diane’s maid, she had overheard Lady Ernestine, Lord Hemmynge’s widowed aunt, commenting caustically that Diane must have selected Louisa because Diane was vain enough to choose a servant in her own image, but Diane had never seemed to notice their likeness.
Diane frowned at her reflection and moved a bit closer, studying something at her waist. “A thread is loose here. The embroidery is unraveling! Louisa, look at this!”
A wave of irritation rolled through Louisa, but she stepped forward and asked, “Where, my lady?”
“Right here. Don’t you see it? You must have made a mistake or caught it on something when you brought it over here. Your hands have been so rough lately—you must be careful when you touch my things or you’ll ruin all of them.”
Louisa was fairly certain she had done no such thing. She prided herself on keeping her hands smooth despite the fact that she was a maid, but she had learned that countering Diane’s claims would only lead to a sound beating at the hands of the housekeeper or, worse, the steward. She swallowed her retort and said, “Let me help you take it off, and I’ll fix it.”
“All right. But be careful—I don’t want anything more to happen to it.”
“I’ll be careful, my lady.”
“Oh, wait—what are you doing with the skirt? Hang it over the armchair; don’t let it trail on the floor. Who knows when Mrs. Gibbs last cleaned it. This place is a mess. When I’m a duchess, my home will be spotless. You’ll be able to eat off the floor.”
“Of course, my lady.”
“Not that anyone would eat off the floor at Tremontaine House. Goodness! Take care with that petticoat—I don’t want you rumpling it.”
“The petticoat will be covered, my lady.”
“Every layer must be perfect, Louisa. Don’t shirk your duties. After all, my husband is likely to see it eventually.” Diane giggled.
Louisa began to remove the pearl pins from Diane’s bodice, which was rather difficult to do while Diane worked herself into a froth over the thought of her future husband.
“God save me if he helps me out of my gown on our wedding night and the petticoats are wrinkled!”
Louisa did not point out that her husband would not be assisting Diane to undress; that was Louisa’s job, to present Diane in her wedding-night finery—which was what she had been working on when Diane called her over to play dress-up.
“Oh, I hope he’s not horribly ugly,” Diane continued. “My uncle says that Lord William is only a few years older than I am, but th
at doesn’t mean his face will be pleasing to me. Do you think he will be ugly?”
“I’m sure that Lord William is a handsome man,” Louisa said tonelessly. “Any man in your family can only ever be handsome.”
“I hope you’re right. But how could you know? You’re only a country girl.”
Louisa tried to stifle her frustration—Diane was wriggling like a fish caught on a line—but sometimes Diane was simply too insufferable for words. It would be so easy to allow the pin between her fingers to slip a tiny bit, right there—
“Ouch! Watch what you’re doing! You’re poking me full of holes! You can be so clumsy! If you didn’t have such a fine hand with the embroidery, you wouldn’t be fit to be a lady’s maid.”
Louisa did not allow herself to look up at her mistress. Between her fingers the pin quivered. She had drawn blood, and a drop of it had marked the edge of the bodice.
“You’re staining my gown! What have you done? My blue dress is ruined!”
Diane’s screeching was followed by rapid footsteps approaching the door, and a moment later the housekeeper threw it open, demanding, “What’s all this ruckus about? Is everything all right, my lady?”
“Louisa’s a clumsy oaf,” Diane snapped. “She pricked me with the pin and look—look! The dress is ruined and I’m wounded!”
The housekeeper came to examine the tiny dot of red on the gown’s bodice. Louisa stuffed the offending pin into the cherry-red pincushion, which made her wonder if it was cherry red for a reason. The better to hide the bloodstains? The thought amused her, and she barely heard the lecture that Mrs. Gibbs was raining down upon her.
“. . . surely Louisa will clean this right away,” Mrs. Gibbs said to Diane.
“She’d better, or I’ll find a new maid!”
Louisa knew that the idea of finding a replacement for her struck dread into Mrs. Gibbs’s heart; Diane was a persnickety girl, and they were due to depart for the City within the week. There was no time to find a replacement.
“Louisa, clean this immediately,” Mrs. Gibbs ordered, giving her a dark look.
“Yes, Mrs. Gibbs,” Louisa said, trying not to smirk. She might only be able to prick her mistress with a pin, but she had still drawn blood, and it felt as much like a triumph as winning a duel must feel to a swordsman.
“Take care you don’t dirty the gown in the wash room,” Diane sniped.
Still clutching the cherry-red pincushion, Louisa squeezed it until the needles and pins bit into her hand like tiny, pointed teeth. She said, “I will do my best, my lady.”
The Present Day
The Duchess Tremontaine received Wickfield, the steward of Highcombe House, in her husband’s library, where she had opened the windows to the warm and rather humid summer air. She had taken the seat behind William’s leather-topped desk, and she gestured for the steward to sit across from her.
Wickfield was a wiry man with salt-and-pepper hair and a face that had been weathered by a lifetime of seasons in the country. He had inherited the position from his father, and his father from his father, and so on through generations of service to the Tremontaine family. Diane considered Wickfield to be one of Tremontaine’s most loyal servants, which was why she had summoned him for this particular duty. He clearly would have preferred to remain in the country, for he looked distinctly uncomfortable as he twisted his cap between his hands, glancing nervously around the luxuriously appointed room. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead and darkened the fabric of his collar.
The duchess said, “I have called you to the City to entrust you with a task that must remain private. I need you to prepare Highcombe for the duke. He has been unwell, and I feel that a proper rest in the country will restore him.”
Wickfield looked alarmed. “The duke? Of course, I’ll do anything I can to make Highcombe comfortable for him. He was such a sprightly boy. . . . I taught him to play Conkers! He is very ill?”
Diane leaned forward a tiny bit so that he would feel as if she trusted him with a secret and graced him with a sad smile. “I’m afraid so. His illness is of a delicate nature. I will not speak of it in detail, but suffice it to say that he is easily confused, and not himself these days.” Diane had already heard that gossip about the duke’s illness had begun to spread among servants on the Hill. It was only a matter of time before everyone on the Hill was whispering about it behind their fans, but by then William would be at Highcombe, far from anyone’s prying eyes.
“I am sorry to hear it, my lady,” Wickfield said. “I’m sure that some time in the country will put him to rights.”
“Indeed, I do hope so. You understand, I’m sure, that it is of utmost importance that the duke be given the strictest privacy in which to recover. He is not to be bothered by any guests. If any of our friends journey to Highcombe to visit him, I’m afraid they must be turned away. Do you understand?”
“Absolutely, my lady,” the steward said, nodding vigorously. “The duke needs his rest and is not to be disturbed by anyone.”
Diane placed her pale, soft hand on her heart as a sign of gratitude, knowing that the gesture brought Wickfield’s gaze directly to her bosom. “I knew you would understand. Thank you.”
The steward flushed slightly. “Anything for—for the duke, my lady.”
Diane gave him an appreciative smile. “How is your wife these days?” she said in tones of concern. “I heard she suffered from a bad bout of fever last winter. I trust she has returned to good health?”
Wickfield’s color deepened. “She has recovered, my lady. Thank you for asking after her.”
“Of course,” Diane said graciously. “I always keep abreast of how our people are doing. You’re part of Tremontaine, after all. Please tell her I am glad that she is well.”
“Th-thank you, my lady.”
Diane sat back in her husband’s chair, her hand curving over the armrest padded in dark green velvet. “The duke will be traveling to Highcombe at the end of the week along with a nurse I’ve hired to tend to his needs. I’d like you to accompany them, because the duke—it pains me to say this, but as you are such a trusted and faithful servant of our household—” The duchess cut herself off as if overcome with sudden emotion and took a quick breath.
“My lady, anything for you,” Wickfield said.
“Thank you, my dear Wickfield,” Diane said. “I do apologize; the duke’s illness has quite affected me. But with your assistance, I know he shall recover.”
Wickfield looked extremely flattered. “Only tell me what you need and I will do as you ask,” he said.
Diane met his gaze gravely. “You see, this nurse I’ve hired—she comes with the best possible references, but the duke is in such a state that I’m afraid he may not trust her. But you, an old family friend of his boyhood—he will surely trust you. I need you, Wickfield, to make sure that the duke takes his medicine every evening. It is a special tincture prepared by the best physicians at the University. The nurse, of course, shall prepare it for him every day, but if he refuses to take it, you must find a way to ensure that he takes his proper dose.” Diane looked as if she were on the verge of tears as she added, “Just the other day he refused to obey the orders of the physician who came to tend to him. I had to persuade him to take his medicine as if he were a child. It has come to that.”
“I understand, my lady. You need not worry; I will make sure the duke takes his medicine every day. You can rest assured I will do everything in my power to support his quick recovery.”
Diane graced him with a quavering smile. “I knew I could rely on you, Wickfield. You’ve set my heart at ease. And you’ll remember, of course, that the duke is to receive absolutely no visitors at Highcombe?”
“No visitors, my lady. I understand.”
“Thank you, Wickfield.”
After Wickfield left, Diane sat back in her husband’s chair and fanned herself crossly; she hated the humidity. She was certain that Wickfield would do as she asked without question, but the en
tire operation made her anxious. She had not yet decided if she would accompany William to Highcombe herself, to be sure he was settled in properly. However, she was needed in the City to ensure the smooth commencement of her agreement with the Balams. The thought of that family, particularly their unusual daughter, made her wonder again what had befallen Reynald and whether Duchamp had made any progress on hiring a replacement swordsman. She rang the bell to call for the steward. Nothing seemed to get done around here without her intervention.
Loaded down with an unwieldy canvas sack that made her sweat under its sliding weight, Kaab approached Tess’s building in Riverside with some trepidation. The last time they had parted, it had not been on the best of terms. Kaab had returned from her foray into Tremontaine House with details on the forged letter she required from Tess, and though Tess had agreed to take on the job, she had not been pleased with Kaab’s refusal to explain what she was up to. In fact, Tess seemed to view Kaab’s reticence as a personal insult rather than a sign of Kaab’s dedication to the service of her family. Reluctantly Kaab had concluded that it was time to end things with Tess, both because of Kaab’s duties and for Tess’s own safety. Kaab had done her best to keep Tess mostly in the dark, but due to the nature of her forgeries, she already knew more than she should. Today, Kaab would retrieve the last forged letter, and she would bring her time with Tess to a close. Logically, her plan made sense, but it didn’t make Kaab happy.
Vincent Applethorpe opened the door after Kaab rapped on it. He gave her a once-over and said, “By the look on your face, you’d rather be at the end of my sword than on this doorstep.”
Tremontaine Season 1 Saga Omnibus Page 50
