Page 37

Chapter 37

Kat

The trek to Vandermore Manor takes forever on foot. I would kill to have Bartholomew back. Or even just some random horse from the market who wouldn’t buck me off the moment I sat in its saddle. It’s also a feat to avoid the notice of the patrolling city guards, but I am getting better at it.

Between these two matters, it’s been well over an hour since I left—judging by the height of the quarter moon.

When I finally arrive, I slip around to the back, climb through the hedge, and reach the trellis I always used to sneak in and out for my raids.

This time, I stop at Agatha’s window. The room is dark and empty, as expected. I pry open the window with some effort, then slip inside. I expect the impact of my feet hitting the floorboards to jar my injury and send a bolt of pain shooting up through my body, but Rahk’s salve is working miracles, and I only feel a deadened ache.

“Maybe I should be stealing their medicines along with their slaves,” I mutter to myself in the darkness. I could make a fortune selling them to humans. Since I no longer have my own.

The only light comes from the stars outside. I’ll need a candle. I grab Agatha’s shawl from the back of her chair and stuff it under the door. Then I return to her desk, my hands gliding over the surface of the wood until I find a stubby candle and a match.

The quiet glow of the candle doesn’t illuminate much, just the span of her desk. It fights against the oppressive darkness of the room and fails miserably.

But all I need is the desk.

“There’s got to be something here,” I whisper under my breath. Everything is neatly arranged on the desk. There is a vase of trimmed roses from the front landscaping and a little picture frame with the busts of her two daughters. Of course there wouldn’t be one of me.

Not what I’m looking for.

I ease open the first drawer. Stacks of fresh parchment and unopened bottles of ink. I close it and open the next.

There are two rows of letters, organized upright so one can flip through them quickly. My pulse quickens. I begin sorting through them at once, reading the return addresses.

Baroness Cranswick

Mr. and Mrs. Hudson

Lady Hornbuckle

Miss Ingham

Lord Boreham

Lord Boreham

Lord Boreham

My fingers move faster than the blood pounding in my ears. I flip through the letters, counting the number of exchanges. Over two dozen.

I place a hand over my mouth. “This must be it. The proof has got to be here.”

I take one of the most recent letters and open it.

Dearest Mother,

Neither of us have time for pleasantries, so I shall skip them altogether. If that offends you, just insert the usual pleasantries here in your mind.

I do not like Lady Vandermore and I do not want to marry her. You and I have been over this many times, but perhaps with recent events it’ll finally stick in your head. Forty percent of her fortune, however significant it may be, is not enough to put up with all this will cost me. I have an established living. Josephine will never forgive me if I go through with this.

Unless, of course, you were to give me a more substantial cut of Lady Vandermore’s fortune. Seventy percent, at least. My sisters have their charms and shouldn’t have trouble finding men to marry them with ten percent of the fortune for each of their dowries. I do not see why, if we are to go to the vast trouble and great social embarrassment that comes with convincing Lady Vandermore to marry me, that so much of her fortune should be immediately given away to other men who marry into the family. As the heir of my late father’s estate, the bulk of the money should go to me to be passed down our line.

That is all I have to say on the matter. If you disagree, perhaps you should find a fourth husband and birth another son who might be more easily commanded to act outside his own interests.

Yours,

Malcolm

I stare in shock at the letter. Lord Boreham is Agatha’s son ? But—how is that possible? She had no other children besides Bridget and Edith. My father couldn’t have known of this son. He wouldn’t have married Agatha if she’d had a son. He wanted his fortune to go to me. He wouldn’t have risked it by marrying a woman with a son who could take precedence over me.

Lord Boreham and Agatha both hail from Commington.

Fourth husband.

My father wasn’t Agatha’s second husband. He was her third.

It all makes sense now: the obvious disinterest Lord Boreham had in me and yet the way he still made me an offer of marriage, Agatha’s obsession with me marrying him, Bridget calling him by his first name, my entire stepfamily being shocked and appalled at the idea of one of them marrying Boreham.

I press a hand to my roiling middle. So Agatha, for all her pretending as though she cared about me like a daughter—for all that she made me out to be the unreasonable one between us—really does despise me. And the girls, who at times I thought of as friends, also kept this secret from me. Even Edith, who acts like she cares about nothing but her lonely instruments.

Josephine must be Boreham’s mistress. Someone who stood to lose if he married.

Floorboards creak outside the door. I leap almost a foot in the air. I tuck the letter into my tunic, ease the drawer shut, race to pull away the shawl from the door, and then scramble out the window as quickly as I can.

Just as I close the window, the study door swings open. A candle enters, followed by the illuminated features of Agatha, drawn and pinched, her hair tucked in her nightcap.

As I cling to the lattice outside the window, I realize I’ve left out the matchbox. I hold still, not daring to even breathe, as she sits down at her desk. She freezes, then whirls around. Everything inside me jumps like a frightened cat, but I hold still.

Slowly, Agatha turns back to her desk.

I puff out a silent sigh of relief.

Inch by inch, I ease myself down from the lattice to the ground. It’s long after midnight before I return to Rahk’s estate, but the bedroom is as empty as I left it. I shut myself in the servant’s chamber and find sleep as elusive as ever.

I curl up in a ball and growl angrily at myself, “You’re not allowed to cry over this. You knew Agatha didn’t love you, and you knew Bridget and Edith didn’t either. This only proves what you’ve long suspected. So it’s good. This is good. No. Crying. ”

I smash away the one disobedient tear like it is a mosquito come for my blood.