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As Beatrice ran, she could practically see Diana’s face in her mind. Could practically hear her dreamy voice. She had no idea how her husband had betrayed her, that he was a killer.

Or did she?

If Diana had found out the truth…if she had learned of Oliver’s murder…

There is little which goes on there that I am not privyto.

The woman had a dreamlike air about her.

She seemed detached from the world, almost floating above it.

Yet there was a sharpness behind that wistful exterior.

Diana knew that Beatrice had been investigating.

She insisted upon Percival’s innocence. And she had defied the NAGS by letting the artists into the masquerade that very evening.

They had never determined, Beatrice thought with a chill, exactly who sent the threatening notes that Walter, Cecil, and Horace had received. Now she had a guess.

Beatrice rounded a sail and Diana’s tall frame came into view. Her silver hair floated around her head in the sea breeze, wild tendrils framing her face. She stood next to Horace, both of them staring out at the water.

Beatrice thought she should grab Diana, get her away from her murderous husband.

But she had a hunch that Mrs. Vane was not the one in danger now.

“Mr. Vane!” Beatrice yelled, still running as fast as she could to reach the couple. “Step away at once—for your own safety!”

If Diana knew the truth, if she had been blackmailing her husband and his friends, she would have no plans to escape with Horace. She had always meant to hold him accountable.

They were a deadly pair.

“Oh, Beatrice, you are so dramatic,” Horace said with a laugh, watching Beatrice race toward them, as if he did not have a care in the world.

“A pity that art is dead in Sweetbriar—you might have made a fair playwright yourself. My dear,” he said to Diana, “you may want to look away. This bloom is the root of our problems—and I am going to take care of the thorny issue, once and for all.”

But Diana did not look away. She stared at Horace, fixing him with a piercing glare.

“I always thought that puns were the lowest form of wit,” she told him.

With that, she pulled the hat pin from her hair and raked it across his chest. Horace’s eyes went wide as the sharp tip pierced his flesh. He pressed his fingers to the blood that welled from the wound, in apparent disbelief, and then extended his arms toward his wife.

For a moment it seemed Diana was reaching back to embrace him—

But instead of taking his hands, she shoved him hard. He toppled off the boat, hitting the water with a stomach-churning crack . And then he sank into its depths, the Thames consuming his body.

Horace Vane had died and come back to life, and now he was gone forever.

Finally, Beatrice reached the edge of the ship. She was panting hard. Everything had moved so quickly. Now, time stood still.

As she approached Diana, something crunched under her boot. Beatrice looked down to see the glass-encased sweetbriar. It had fallen from Horace’s pocket, and now the rose was free from the frame.

“You were the blackmailer, all along,” Beatrice said, looking from the flower to Diana, who still faced the water.

“Yes,” Diana said, not turning around.

“You found out about Oliver,” Beatrice said, taking careful steps forward. Slow, now, after her sprint seconds before.

“When he first disappeared, I was heartbroken. I was certain he had left me,” Diana replied, staring into the water.

“And Horace swooped in. He said he loved me. I was so vulnerable…. I agreed to marry him. He had money and a good name. He made a case for himself. I thought we would have an agreeable life together. I never suspected the truth, back then.”

Finally, she turned toward Beatrice. With her silver hair swirling in the breeze and her catlike features illuminated by moonlight, she looked like one of the Rose’s statues. A vengeful goddess, Beatrice thought with a shiver. Horace had been evil, but Diana was something else entirely.

“Do you know how I found out that Oliver was dead?” Diana asked, her voice soft. “How I realized what my husband had done?”

Beatrice raked through everything she knew about the Rose. About Diana and her husband’s indulgence.

To Diana’s face, Horace had appeared the picture of support. He had assured her that he loved the arts. He had attended the opera with her. But in private, he had used the NAGS—and his inner circle—to sabotage the culture his wife adored.

There was only one time that Beatrice had seen Horace openly defy Diana. Only one time that Beatrice could recall when he had said “no” to her face.

Mrs. Vane suggested the dipping pool, Cecil Nightingale had said, but Mr. Vane refused. The rose garden was part of the building’s original construction…. One cannot simply change tradition.

“The pool,” Beatrice said finally.

“Precisely,” Diana said, and her eyes met Beatrice’s. “I wanted to install it, and Horace refused, which was very uncharacteristic of him. He was always so nice …yet he protested. Vehemently. He claimed we must keep up tradition by preserving the Rose as it was. I might have believed him….”

“But the garden was not part of the original design,” Beatrice finished.

Diana nodded. Beatrice remembered Drake’s words: One must always study the blueprints…the rose garden…was added about twenty years ago.

“It was built around the same time that Oliver went missing. [*] I began to suspect what might be buried underneath the roses.” Her voice broke, but she composed herself and continued, her story like a stream that could not be stopped now that she had begun.

“Tensions were mounting between the NAGS and artists. Horace claimed he supported my viewpoints, but by then I doubted everything he said.” She faced Beatrice, who stood next to her now.

“I had to determine his guilt once and for all. He never did anything without his closest confidants—Walter and Cecil—so I sent notes to all three of them. Confess, or die. Whatever they had done, I thought, would come to the surface, whether it was murder of the arts or just pure murder. All I asked for was the truth,” she said, her dark eyes glimmering.

“I never thought it would lead to all of this.”

She uncurled her fingers and let the blood-soaked hat pin drop to the ship’s floor.

“?‘And when I look upon my hand, I’ll know / The promise that we made those years ago,’?” she murmured, twisting her garnet ring around her finger.

For the first time, Beatrice felt touched by poetry. The couplet was unremarkable, but to Diana, clearly, it meant the world.

The woman had married the man she was meant to, based on her rank and wealth—and look what had become of it. The NAGS claimed they were doing what was best for everyone by promoting their hierarchy, yet in the end they all had lost.

There was still chaos on the ship. Crew members raced to put out the fire, assessing the damage done by the fireworks. The flames had singed the canvas sails, and they were being forced to bring the packet back to port.

A piece of sail, still fiery, floated down on the breeze. Beatrice reached up and caughtit.

“Finally—a light,” Diana said. She took a cigar from her reticule and put it between her lips.

Wordlessly, Beatrice held the flame to the end of it, setting Diana’s cigar ablaze.

“I tried,” Diana murmured, between drags of her cigar.

“I always believed in Percival. In all of them. They have the ability to change our society for the better.”

“That’s why you let the artists into the masquerade,” Beatrice said quietly. “One last act of defiance.”

“Haven’t you learned anything from the Figaro franchise, Miss Steele?” Diana said, raising one eyebrow. “There’s never a last act . Another sequel is always in the works. I will surrender myself,” she assured her, “but it’s not the end. Not yet.”

As the ship changed direction, there was the sound of more popping—this time in the distance.

Beatrice and Diana turned toward the direction of Sweetbriar to see fireworks exploding above the pleasure gardens.

In spite of everything, the masquerade had gone on, and the shimmering sparkles showered overhead, their glimmer reflected in the Thames.

Though the night seemed all-consuming, the sun would rise again.

Beatrice would have to get home to change.

After all, Elle and Lavinia would be expecting her at tea, and she could hardly show up in her current ensemble.

Another firework exploded in a shower of gold. Diana offered Beatrice the cigar, but she shook her head.

“Good choice. Once you start down that path…” Diana trailed off, taking a long drag.

In a way, Beatrice thought, Diana had been the perfect gentlewoman—yet she had still been cornered.

Manipulated. Lied to. If this was the best that ladies could hope for, why play a role in the show at all?

And how much worse would it all be for someone without Diana’s circumstances?

At least the patroness had attempted to use the power she did have to advocate for such people.

This bit, Beatrice could not help but admire. The murdering bit, not so much…

“You are smart, Miss Steele,” Diana said as the ship brushed against shore.

Crew members scrambled to drop anchor and tie the boat to iron poles, fireworks still crackling in the distance.

“I can see you have a future as a detective. But if you think you have seen the worst of London, think again. My husband was merely the warm-up. There is true evil waiting in the wings. You must ask yourself: Are you prepared?”

As the crew members reconstructed the gangway, connecting the ship to shore once more, Beatrice considered Diana’s words.

“No,” she said. “But still, I will face it.”

Skip Notes

* Strangely, this was also when many began to witness the one-handed “Specter of Sweetbriar,” reciting sad poems about a lost love.