As Kaab sat on one of the two matching sofas, Diane took a seat across from her, observing the two-seasons-old cut of her gown and the common style of her hair, twisted efficiently but without sophistication into a knot pinned by . . . Was that a penknife? How odd. The last time Diane had seen her had been at the Swan Ball, when Kaab had been heavily weighed down with gold bracelets and earrings in a thoroughly ostentatious display of wealth. Truth be told, Diane had found the elaborate costume delightful—much more interesting than this drab little conventional dress. The gown’s severe respectability made Diane suspicious, for she knew it could not reflect the woman inside it.
“What a lovely dress,” Diane said warmly. “That is a beautiful color on you. I think I had a dress that color a few seasons ago.”
Kaab smirked. “I’m sure the dress looked much better on you, Duchess.”
Diane caught the smirk but inclined her head graciously. The game was on, then. “You are too kind. I trust that your uncle and aunt are well?”
“Very well, thank you.” After a brief pause, Kaab asked, “And how is your husband?”
For a moment Diane wondered if Kaab knew—but no. It was only a courtesy to inquire about the duke. “He is a little under the weather,” Diane murmured, and decided to change the subject. “To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure of your visit?”
“I have heard an interesting tale about your arrival in this City.”
“Oh, that old story?” Diane said dismissively. “It is a tragedy I prefer to put behind me.” She shuddered delicately, as she had done countless times in the past to silence those who wished to revisit the drama of her journey from Lullingstone House.
“I can imagine why. It must have been terrifying. And it had to have been life changing too, to deal with such violence at a young age. You were only sixteen, is that right?”
Diane’s face revealed nothing, but her gut clenched involuntarily at the memory. She pushed it aside ruthlessly. That time was over. What was Ixkaab Balam after? People always dropped the subject when she objected to talking about it, but Kaab didn’t seem to have gotten the message. “I don’t speak of those times anymore,” Diane said. “As you can imagine, they are not pleasant memories. Tell me, is there something of concern to you or your family regarding our agreement over the chocolate?”
Kaab’s hands rustled in the folds of her skirts. She adjusted her seat on the couch as if her stays were giving her trouble. “No,” Kaab said firmly. “This is not about the agreement with my family. Did you know there’s a tale about the highwayman who attacked your coach? His name was Rupert Hawke. Like that rhyme they say: ‘Rupert Hawke, Gentleman Robber, steals your money but spares your daughter.’”
The sound of the horrible doggerel spoken in Kaab’s Kinwiinik accent was so startling that Diane froze momentarily in disbelief. This was an affront to her dignity.
Kaab continued relentlessly: “Did you know that in the tale about Rupert Hawke, the attack on your coach is mentioned? In fact, the story is that he killed the driver and the footmen, but he spared two girls. One was the lady who was to become the Duchess Tremontaine. The other was her maid. But only one girl reached the City.”
A dreadful apprehension rose within the duchess about Kaab’s purpose here today. “The highwayman killed my maid,” Diane said stiffly. “It is as simple as that. I was there!”
Kaab’s face twisted into a grim smile. “So was Rupert Hawke. And he was proud of the fact that he never killed women. What happened to your maid?”
Diane felt as if she had taken the wrong turn in a maze, and Kaab’s slyly insinuating tone both frightened and infuriated her. “Why would you believe the word of a confirmed criminal over my own?” Diane demanded. She was the Duchess Tremontaine. This girl had no right to challenge her.
Kaab gave her a cool look that Diane recognized as the expression of someone who was entirely confident that she had the upper hand. Diane should know; she had delivered that same glance countless times in her life. Being the recipient of it was a rather unnerving experience.
Kaab said: “You seem to think we are still playing at being ladies, as if I should take a hint from you to retreat. You are wrong, Duchess. This is not the game you think it is. You should listen to what I have to say. I don’t play the game your way. If only your swordsman, Reynald, had understood that, he might be alive today. But he chose to underestimate me, which only made it easier for me to kill him.”
Diane gasped. This girl had killed her swordsman? Diane had never heard of a woman who was able to kill a trained swordsman. If Kaab had truly killed Reynald—well, that was quite something.
At that moment the door opened, and Tilson entered bearing a silver tray laden with a chocolate pot, cups, cream, sugar, and the Kinwiinik spices that Kaab’s uncle had given to Diane. He placed the tray on the low table between the two sofas, and asked, “Do you require anything more, madam?”
“No, thank you,” Diane said. The footman bowed and departed. When Diane and Kaab were alone again, Diane said angrily, “You killed my swordsman?”
Kaab had the indecency to look proud. “I did. He was trying to kill me.”
Diane considered Kaab. She held herself with an athletic grace that Diane now guessed was due to her sword-fighting skills, and she seemed altogether too relaxed. “Why are you here?” Diane asked warily. She did not make a move to serve Kaab any chocolate, and Kaab did not give the tray a second glance. The time for false pleasantries was long over.
“I believe that Rupert Hawke did leave two girls alive,” Kaab said, “but only one of them finished the journey to the City.”
Diane’s fingers clenched in her lap. “Obviously. It was me.”
“But who are you?” Kaab asked. Without waiting for an answer, Kaab removed a folded letter from a pocket in her unfashionable gown and held it in her right hand. “Let me tell you what I believe really happened. Seventeen years ago, Rupert Hawke attacked a coach traveling south from Lullingstone. He killed the men, but he made it a point of honor never to kill women. The coach carried two of them: Lady Diane Roehaven, who was to marry the Duke Tremontaine, and Lady Roehaven’s maid. The two girls could have been sisters, except for the difference in their eye color. Lady Roehaven’s eyes were blue, while Louisa’s eyes were gray.”
Diane found it difficult to breathe, as if a lump of something hot and bitter had lodged in the back of her throat. “That is a lie,” she choked out. “My eyes are gray, not blue.”
Kaab gave her a knowing smile. “They are indeed. But let me continue with my story. Rupert Hawke took everything from the coach, including a locket that contained a miniature portrait of Lady Roehaven, but he did not kill the girls. A few days later, however, only one girl arrived in the City. She was in bad shape, with the dress on her back her only possession, but she knew all the details of Lady Diane Roehaven’s life, so she had to be Diane.”
The duchess remembered the panic and desperation inside herself the day she had knocked on the great, glossy door of Tremontaine House. In her weary, bedraggled state, she had almost gone to the servants’ entrance, but she was to be the duchess. She entered through the front.
“The duke married this girl, who said her name was Diane. For seventeen years, the Duchess Tremontaine lived on the Hill. She became well known for her sophistication and her beauty. Years passed, and the people of the City stopped talking about the tragedy that had befallen her on her journey. She thought everyone had forgotten. But one day, not so many months ago, Rupert Hawke’s son, Ben, appeared on her doorstep—your doorstep—with the same locket that contained the picture of Diane Roehaven.”
The night that Ben Hawke had talked his way into Tremontaine House was a night the duchess had no desire to remember. The sight of that locket, gone for so many years she had almost forgotten it existed, had been like a knife in her gut. She had known instantly that no one could ever be allowed to see it.
“Ben was not a law-abiding man,” Kaab said. “He was the son of a highwayman,
and a Riversider. He intended to blackmail you, but he underestimated you. Many people underestimate you, don’t they? Just as they underestimate me.”
The duchess’s mouth drew into a thin line. She said nothing.
Kaab seemed to find her speechlessness a fitting response and nodded. “Ben was murdered by your swordsman shortly after he brought the locket here, because he had to be silenced. No one could know that you were never the Lady Diane Roehaven. You were her maid.”
At last, Kaab gave the letter in her hand to the duchess, who took it with numb fingers. It was dated seventeen years ago at Lullingstone House, and it confirmed the marriage agreement between Lady Diane Roehaven and the future Duke Tremontaine. Diane was described as “a delicate, pretty girl with blond hair and sapphire-blue eyes,” and in order to assure the duke that his son’s bride was who she said she was, she would arrive bearing both this letter and a locket containing her picture. The letter was signed by Lord Nathaniel Hemmynge.
The duchess remembered Lord Hemmynge well. He had been the master of Lullingstone House, and the duchess never forgot anyone who had changed her life. His decision to send Louisa with Diane to the City had altered everything. “Where did you get this?” the duchess asked, her mouth dry as the yellowed paper she held in her hand.
“It was with the girl’s jewelry, which Rupert Hawke stole. When he returned to the City and learned that only one girl seemed to have survived, he kept the letter along with the locket as—how do you say it? Oh, yes: insurance for the future. He kept them until he was dying, when he gave them to his son, Ben.”
Diane folded the letter but did not return it to Kaab, who was watching her closely. So it had come to this. Ben’s death had not solved the problem, and now this Kinwiinik woman was holding a knife to her throat in the form of a letter. Of course, a letter could be easily destroyed, but the information in it now lived in the mind of someone much more dangerous than a common Riverside blackmailer. Diane would not underestimate her again. She asked bluntly, “What do you want from me?”
“I know that you were the maid,” Kaab said. “What I don’t know is what happened to the real Diane Roehaven.”
Diane gave a short, bitter laugh, and said, “She was reborn.”
Seventeen Years Earlier
Louisa’s eyes opened. The moon was almost directly overhead and nearly full. Her head throbbed with pain, and she winced as she touched the tender lump on her temple.
The highwayman.
The memory of what had happened flooded her with terror, and she sat up so quickly she nearly fainted. For a moment the dark forest swam before her blinking eyes, the rustling leaves sounding like rushing water as the ground seemed to tip and sway. She tilted forward, her hands planting on the dirt road with a jolt that she felt all the way through her bones. A cool breeze tickled at her face, bringing with it the smell of earth and pine needles as well as the sick odor of blood and something much worse.
Her eyes finally focused. Directly in front of her, the coach’s shafts lay on the ground in the moonlight. The horses were gone. He had taken them, too, likely loaded down with all of Lady Roehaven’s possessions. Perched on one of the fallen shafts was a crow, its black eyes reflecting the moonlight in two tiny white dots. It seemed to be staring directly at her.
As a little girl, Louisa had been fascinated by crows. Sometimes they would roost upon the crumbling stone wall outside the penitent hospital. The crows always seemed to watch her, their hard bright eyes following her every step. The headmistress had shooed them away from her once, calling them ill omens, not safe to be lurking near a little girl. They flew off at once, but after the headmistress left, they returned. Louisa would watch them through the cracks of the shuttered dormitory window, mesmerized by the cutting points of their beaks and the light-swallowing black of their feathers. She hadn’t been so close to a crow in years, and in this whispering forest, with the scent of blood and viscera thick in the air, it seemed so clearly a portent—but a portent of what, she did not know.
Louisa began to crawl toward the bird. For a moment it simply watched her, but just before she came within an arm’s length it spread its wings and leaped into the air. It flew toward another lump on the ground, alighting nearby and lowering its beak toward something Louisa couldn’t quite see.
It took her a moment to understand. The crow was pecking at the eyes of the dead footman.
“No!” she cried, hastening toward the body instinctively. “Shoo!”
The bird cawed as if indignant and flew up to perch on top of the coach. Louisa was now on her hands and knees beside the footman, and she became aware of something long and hard poking at her wrist. She sat back on her heels and lifted her arm. It was her knitting needle. She pulled it out of her sleeve and stared at it. The ludicrousness of her improvised weapon became appallingly clear to her. What good would it have been? A thin ivory knitting needle, wielded against a much stronger man with a sword? She had been a fool.
With a furious cry, she threw the knitting needle aside. It clanked against an object on the ground nearby, and something about the sound made her look in its direction. There on the dirt road, in a patch of clear moonlight, was a knife.
The crow cawed again, its claws scratching as it shifted on the coach roof, and Louisa became keenly aware of how alone she was in this forest. There were wild creatures out there, hidden by the trees and the night, and she had nothing to defend herself with—not even her knitting needle. She scrambled to her feet and went to pick up the knife. It was a dagger, with a leather-wrapped hilt that was a little big for her grip. It had probably belonged to the footman.
She looked back at him from her new vantage point behind the coach. The moonlight was so strong that it cast shadows, and the footman’s body was half swallowed by one, but his upper half was lit up clearly. Too clearly. She saw the vicious wound that had split open his throat and the lake of blood that had pooled around him, and in horror she realized that she had crawled right through it. She held up her hands, and they were sticky with blood. The front of her dress, too, was stained dark, and the sight of the blood on her made her dizzy.
A sound behind her.
She spun around, holding the dagger in front of her in a terrified grip. There was nothing but the trees, and only ten feet away, another body: the coachman. She did not want to see how he had died.
The sound came again: a low moan.
She turned back to the footman, but he was dead; it could not be him. Beyond him, back where she had first woken up, she saw the dark shape that was Diane. Of course. Diane. She hurried back to her mistress’s prone body, avoiding the footman’s pool of blood and other unspeakable things. She knelt down beside Diane and put one bloodstained hand on the girl’s throat. She was still alive; she would surely wake up soon.
The thought of what would happen when Diane woke up filled Louisa with a swelling rage. The girl would be a terrified, simpering mess. She had absolutely no backbone; she would weep and shriek at every little noise in the forest, and Louisa would have to deal with her. She would have to find Diane food and drink; she would have to figure out how to get them to safety. Diane might assume that help was coming for them, but Louisa knew that they were on their own and at the mercy of whatever else came down this lonely road from the North. They would have to walk. They might be within a day’s drive of the City, but who knew how long it would take for them to make that journey on foot. The one thing Louisa was certain of was that Diane would complain every step of the way. And if they had any luck left and came to a village or an inn along the way, they had no money to hire another coach or pay for lodgings or even for food. The highwayman had taken it all. They would be forced to beg for charity. No, Louisa would be forced to beg for charity, and then she would have to give it all to Diane.
The girl did not deserve to be a duchess. She was a selfish, vain ninny whose ancestors might have been kings, but she’d clearly inherited none of their intelligence or bravery. Even the highwayma
n—a common criminal—had seen that Louisa was braver than Diane. Louisa would make a much better duchess than Diane. At least she knew how to keep her wits about her. She wished the highwayman had killed Diane, too.
The dagger trembled in Louisa’s hand as she glared down at the still unconscious form of her mistress. A monstrous thought came into Louisa’s mind, but it was so awful she would not let herself think it. The vicious anger that accompanied it, however, filled her with a not unwelcome pleasure. Her fingers tightened around the dagger. She glanced around herself at the deep, black shadows between the trees; the unmoving silhouette of the crow atop the coach; and only one body’s length away, the gaping jaw that had once been the coachman’s neck.
Louisa would make a much better duchess.
She had heard every one of Diane’s etiquette lessons. She knew how to address every duke and lord and lady in the City; she knew how to curtsy and how to dance with light, delicate steps, how to choose a menu for a banquet for fifty or an intimate ladies’ chocolate party, and how to simper behind a fan just as well as Diane did. It wasn’t fair for Diane to have been born into a noble family and for Louisa to have been born to paupers, to be forced to toil in service to a nitwit when she was a hundred times smarter, a thousand times more driven. None of it was fair, but that was why the highwayman took what he wanted when he wanted it. Perhaps Louisa should take what she wanted too.
Diane’s eyelids fluttered. She was almost awake.
Louisa’s skin prickled with heat, as if a fever was rising within her. The dagger was slippery in her sweaty palm, so she wrapped her other hand around the hilt to steady it. Diane’s throat was bare and vulnerable in the moonlight, which shone so invitingly over her skin, spotlighting the very place the blade should go.
The crow’s claws scratched again on the coach roof. The wind surged through the spring leaves like floodwater hurtling toward her. Louisa saw her life branching off from this moment like a sharp turn in the road. The path she was on led to a hard bed in a servant’s cell-like room, a life of obedience to a mistress she hated, and the misery of living it. This turn in the road flipped her fate on its head and gave her a title that was not her own, but should be.
Tremontaine Season 1 Saga Omnibus Page 53
