Page 16

The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force.

—Mary Wollstonecraft

Scanning the guests at the ball as Rafi and I danced again, I saw my father’s pleased expression. Viscount Hollis was also present, and the sight of him made my blood boil. I wanted to kick the man in the shins for suppressing his nephew’s innate and incomparable talent.

Rafi had finished the painting of me, and true to form, I had been shocked at the beauty, texture, and depth of the final composition. I could hardly believe that I was the same girl lying back on that chaise longue. He had captured my soul, it seemed, from the dreamy expression in my eyes to the stubborn tilt of my chin, and the relaxed nature of my limbs, as though every inch of them had felt safe to be slack and soft. Even the half-eaten pear had taken on a life of its own, the white insides gently discoloring as if my attention had been stolen elsewhere by something much more enticing. It was incongruous to me that a painter could glean so much, but Rafi had, and for the first time in a very long time, I felt seen.

“What are you thinking?” Rafi asked. “I can see the gears in that brain of yours running a mile a minute.”

“Just how terrible a painter you are and what a categorical waste of time that sitting was,” I teased. His eyes lit with gray fire, that sultry smirk tipping one side of his lips upward.

“So hard to please.”

I lifted a cool brow. “Only for some. There’s a secret, you see, to win my eternal affections.”

“And what is that?” he asked and twirled me with effortless grace before bringing me back into his body with a quick, breathless snap. “Being an excellent dance partner?”

For a heightened moment, every part of my front had brushed every part of his before settling the requisite distance apart. Or perhaps that had been Rafi. One glance at him staring at me with a wicked expression confirmed my suspicions. He’d done that on purpose!

Not that I was complaining.

Any excuse to touch him seemed to be my desire these days. And it seemed as though he enjoyed it as much as I did. Being with Rafi was a delicious kind of torture. I saw glimpses of his true self while he painted, and yet I’d only scratched the surface. I wanted to decode the mystery that was Rafi Nasser, peel him apart layer by intricate layer until all his secrets were mine.

“No,” I told him, relishing the flex of his fingers at my waist and the five heated points of contact. “But I will admit that it’s definitely an advantage.”

“Someone who laughs at your jokes, then?”

“I am rather funny.” I wrinkled my nose as we crossed forearms and spun around each other. “But no. Try again.”

He let out a sigh. “I give up. This is much too difficult.”

“One simple challenge and he folds like a wheat stalk in the wind. One small trial of the mind and he concedes at the smallest resistance. No stamina at all.”

“Must you be so vexing?” he demanded, though there was no heat in his voice, only lighthearted amusement. “And, Firefly, make no bones about it, I have stamina.”

My blood heating at the riposte, I pursed my lips. “You know, I’ve heard talk about you, all boasts and so very little action.”

A bark of wicked laughter left him, and I felt almost giddy with delight, despite being much too audacious with my innuendo. “Is that a fact?” His hands punctuated those words with a tightened grip on my waist, pulling me indecently closer into his hips.

“You are abominable, sir,” I said with mild outrage as I breathlessly reinstated the requisite twelve inches between us, though inside I was slowly incinerating.

“What?” he asked with mock innocence, but I was rather used to that too-guileless expression of his that promised untold mischief.

I glowered at him. “You know exactly what. My brother is here somewhere.”

On the next turn, I caught sight of Ela exiting the refreshments room, and she stopped in her tracks to stare before glancing behind her, presumably for her fiancé. My stomach swooped uneasily. Rafi and I were playing with fire by not telling him, and we weren’t exactly subtle with multiple dances. While my parents might be accepting of our courtship, Keston was an unknown.

He was protective of me, even with his mates. That was part of the reason I was reluctant to tell him. I didn’t want to come between him and Rafi, but I also didn’t want him to forbid us from seeing each other. I refused to choose.

“We should talk to Keston,” I said with a gulp.

Rafi nodded. “I think so, too.”

It bothered me the way people saw Rafi, even my brother. Though I’d witnessed his shameless flirting myself in the past, I couldn’t think back to the last time he’d actively solicited the attention of other ladies. At least, not since…me.

“Tell me something,” I asked him. “Why the pretense to always be someone you’re not? Or make people believe you’re one way?”

That mask of his immediately descended, his playfulness vanishing. “Who says it’s false?”

“I do,” I replied, staring him down.

“Very well, be relentlessly annoying,” he said. “It’s quite easy. People don’t expect much from you other than a laugh and a good time.”

“But you’re so much more than that.”

“I’m glad you think so, Miss I-Must-Fix-Everyone, but I like my life the way it is.” Something about the way he said it made me look up at him. Really look at him, past that ever-present smirk, past the sardonic expression, past the cavalier lilt in his voice.

“Do you, though? Do you like hiding what you love? Who you truly are?” I whispered. “Rafi, you’re so talented. People would love your art, if you only cared to let them see. Isn’t that what art is about? Sharing it with others?”

He eyed me, brow arching. “Is that what you’re doing? Sharing your music?”

“That’s different.”

“It’s really not.”

Rafi wasn’t wrong; I was just not ready. My music was intensely personal. Daughters of dukes weren’t composers, at least not in England. Only a few years ago, I’d read about a German princess, Amalie of Saxony, who composed operas to Italian libretti, and she had given me hope. But my kind of music was beyond what was considered acceptable, even for nonaristocratic male composers. It was too different…too bold.

I’d let Rafi hear it because he’d shared his passion with me. I’d shared it with Miss Perkins and the other girls because there was a circle of understood trust, especially given the nature of Miss Perkins’s unconventional instruction.

But everyone else? The ton ? My papa ?

No, thank you.

I cleared my throat as the last strains of music ended. “Fine, your point is valid. Escort me to my friends, if you please.”

“Tell me what the secret to your affection is first.”

I should have known he wouldn’t let that go so easily. Raising my brows at the overt command in his tone, I whirled out of his arms and glanced over my shoulder as I strolled insouciantly away. “If you truly want to know, I’ve no doubt you’ll discover it on your own. You’re a determined fellow. Thank you for the dance, Mr. Nasser.”

My heart unexpectedly buoyant, I walked over to where Lalita and Greer stood. “Well, that looked cozy,” the latter said with a lascivious smile. “So, things are progressing between the two of you?”

Lalita wrinkled her nose with a perplexed expression. “I still can’t see it. Rafi Nasser, the worst rogue in London, settling down?”

“He’s not like that,” I said too quickly, making both of their inquisitive stares converge on me. They didn’t know him…or that the whole rake thing was a performance. It was easy to keep people at arm’s length and from probing too deeply when they thought you a frivolous, charming scoundrel. “Where’s Nori?” I asked.

“She’s dancing with Blythe,” Greer replied. “Those two have been as thick as thieves, like you and Mr. Nasser. The Lady Knights are falling apart,” she grumbled theatrically. “We haven’t attempted a proper heist in weeks or done anything to horrify and smash the patriarchy.”

“We are not falling apart,” I said, though guilt sluiced through me at the fact that apart from the failed incident at Viscount Hollis’s residence, I’d been spending more time with Rafi and neglecting my friends. Or the Lady Knights.

“I heard that Bellevue is going up for auction in a month,” Lalita said. “The whole building block, including Little Hands and Welton.”

I gasped in shock. “Since when?”

Greer growled through her teeth. “Since the piece-of-horseshit owner realized that Sister Mary was suddenly able to pay their bills and he wasn’t going to oust them naturally for the sale. So he raised the rent by an exorbitant amount and initiated legal proceedings to get a writ of possession.”

I frowned. “What’s that?”

Lalita’s face tightened. “According to Nori, her father said it’s a legal document that would give the landowner rights to the property.”

My stomach dipped. I recalled the conversation I’d overheard under Viscount Hollis’s window. Was that what Atkins had done? Had he and the viscount made some sort of legal threat while convincing the owner to increase the rent to make it unaffordable? They had no grounds for eviction, but clearly, they’d found a loophole.

“Can he do that?” I asked.

“No idea,” Greer said.

God, an auction! We would never be able to pull together the kind of money required to buy an entire property housing a school, church, and attached orphanage. I racked my brain, trying to come up with a solution, but nothing came to mind. Nothing short of robbing a bank. But that was a far step from pilfering our friends’ bottomless pockets or fleecing a selfish, undeserving peer to serve the poor.

Could Rafi help us? He was wealthy enough to buy it single-handedly, but why would he? It wasn’t his problem. Maybe there was a way we could get our friends together and collectively come up with a solution. But we’d need a plan soon, or everything we’d risked life and limb for would be in vain.

“I bet Sarah could help,” Lalita said, and I swung around, convinced I’d heard her incorrectly.

“Sarah…Peabody?” Greer scoffed as I pierced Lalita with a sharp frown.

Her brown cheeks went ruddy while she chewed her lip, avoiding both our stares. A sour feeling spread in my stomach. “I might have told her about the Lady Knights and what we fight for.”

“Lalita!” Greer and I said in unison.

“What?” she said defensively. “She wants to be a part of it. Aren’t we always saying that the more help we have, the better it is?” Her expression went mutinous. “And besides, why does Nori get to have Blythe, but I can’t have Sarah? Everyone’s paired off but me. It’s not fair.”

“No one has anyone, Lalita, and we’re hardly paired off,” Greer said with a sniff. “Nori and Blythe are, well, that’s not any of our business. But we have always been in this together. Blythe saved our skins at the gaming hell. She saw us and chose to help us at risk to her own safety and reputation. She didn’t have to do that. She could have left Zia and me high and dry, and then where would we be?”

“Sarah can be trusted!” Lalita insisted. “You don’t know her.”

I couldn’t control the slight sneer that distorted my lips, though my heart ached as if I’d been punched right in the chest. I kept my fingers balled into fists so I didn’t rub at the intangible bruise there. “And you do?”

Brown eyes bored into mine, my friend’s face falling like she, too, could feel whatever the widening gap between us was. “I do now. More than you do anyway.”

Ouch. My mother had always told me that I couldn’t control other people’s actions; I could only control my own. I would not take responsibility for Lalita’s choices, but I could acknowledge that I’d been too wrapped up in other things to notice that my friend had been pulling away.

“Lalita, you know that we have to make collective decisions when it comes to the Lady Knights,” I said carefully. “You were the one who wanted to trial Blythe in the first place, and she only volunteered for the last outing because you were unwell.” I tried not to let my skepticism regarding her purported illness show. “It puts everyone in danger if what we are doing gets out. People would not understand.”

Her lips set into a recalcitrant line. “I told you. Sarah’s on our side.”

“Sarah Peabody doesn’t care about anyone but herself,” Greer said. “Or she pretends that she does so everyone thinks she’s a pious little do-gooder, when the truth is, she’d never stick her neck out for anyone. When put to the test, her word is weak. If it had been her instead of Blythe, we would have been up the creek without a paddle.”

Lalita’s face crumbled, but she jutted her chin. “You don’t know that.”

Greer didn’t. I didn’t. But there was a saying that if a person showed you who they were, it would be in your best interests to believe them. Sarah Peabody hadn’t earned my trust, and she might have convinced Lalita that her heart was in the right place, but my friend had always been too quick to believe in the best of people. Her soft heart would always be her undoing, but it was also one of the things I loved about her.

“Fine,” I said gently. “We’ll discuss it with Nori and figure it out.”

Greer’s expression read as incredulous, but the relief on Lalita’s face hit me hard. Worry and guilt twined within me. Had the fact that I’d been focused on my own problems pushed Lalita in Sarah’s direction? I hadn’t forced her to make that choice, but that didn’t mean I was entirely blameless. Friendship took effort and communication, and if either of those two failed, someone was bound to get hurt.

A few days later, we’d planned to meet in my carriage house to discuss the very matter and take a vote as to Sarah’s presence in the Lady Knights. My gut still churned at the thought of trusting her, but now the cat was well and truly out of the bag. If we didn’t let her in, we ran the risk of her ratting us out, and if we did, well then, we would be putting our trust—and reputations—into the hands of someone who hadn’t earned it.

“Good God,” I heard my father thunder just as I was making my way through the house to the back entrance. “What is the world coming to these days when young ladies disgrace themselves in such a vulgar manner? I knew that bloody school was a mistake!”

At the word school, my ears perked up, and I softly reversed my careful footsteps to the cracked door of my father’s study. Frowning, I peeked through the narrow sliver to see my parents studying the newssheets spread over his desk. My father’s mouth was pulled into a flat line, his blond brows drawn together, and my mother’s normally brown complexion was a pale, sallow hue. That alone was enough to make my stomach churn.

“Alexander, you don’t know that it’s the school,” she murmured, but her face belied her calm words. “It simply says that it’s a teacher in question.”

“One bad apple spoils—” he began, but she cut him off.

“Does not mean anything. The only way we can get to the bottom of it is to ask our daughter.”

Was Miss Perkins in trouble? My breath hitched, and I made to move away so I wasn’t in their immediate crosshairs but froze as my father’s palm slammed onto the surface of the desk. “Zenobia will not be exposed to a”—he glanced down at the papers—“?‘hysterical nervous condition and an imbalance of humors, causing young women to abandon all decorum.’ That’s what the reporters are calling it— hysteria. ”

I blinked. Viscount Hollis had used the same term when I’d eavesdropped on his conversation beneath his window. I knew what hysteria was, or at least that it was what the doctors named anything resembling bad, irrational behavior by girls, especially by well-heeled young women, who they claimed sought attention. I rolled my eyes. It was that kind of backward thinking that had led to the Lady Knights in the first place—a silent and secret but active protest of sorts against the idea that girls were somehow more fragile or less resilient than boys.

“It’s hardly hysteria,” my mother was saying.

My father let out a scoff. “Then what on earth would cause Hollis to make such a claim? It’s preposterous, is what it is. Fathers need to take a firm hand with their daughters.”

“Do they?” The duchess’s tone was mild, but her irritation was clear. “We have always encouraged ours to be an independent thinker. I would hardly expect Zenobia to be some prosaic copy of every other demure, obedient highborn girl.” She paused. “After all, you certainly did not marry one.”

A faint protest emerged before silence cut him off, followed by the rustling of clothing, and I strained to hear before belatedly realizing what the sudden quiet meant. My father was not a demonstrative man by nature, but I had caught my parents in more than one embrace over my childhood. Mama was his opposite, as hot as he was cold, and frequently had him loosening that rigid spine of his. Dear God, were they… kissing ? I fought back a gag— who needs to see that? —and backed away from the study.

I’d get my hands on those newssheets somehow.

I’d known that Viscount Hollis had to be involved. What had he done to poor Miss Perkins? Was he also trying to smear or discredit her?

I hurried through the kitchens to the mews outside and snagged my ever-loyal coachman. “Brennan, I need you to go to Viscount Hollis’s residence and deliver an urgent message to Mr. Nasser that I’m requesting his presence at once.” I leaned in. “Only Mr. Nasser, you understand.” When the boy nodded, I exhaled. “If he’s not there, check at White’s, but it is imperative that you find him.”

“Will do, milady,” Brennan said with a bob.

“And if you happen to see today’s newssheets in the servants’ quarters, will you bring them to me?”

He nodded. “Yes, milady.”

The slimy feeling in my belly spread like an oil slick on a wet surface as I hurried to the carriage house where my three friends would hopefully be waiting. None of this boded well for the future of Welton. With the unfortunate timing of Lalita’s confidence in Sarah, I found it hard to believe that this wouldn’t come back on us somehow. The Lady Knights would be accused of hysteria.

Turned out I didn’t have to ask Brennan to find today’s newssheets because Greer, her face uncharacteristically ashen, held a neatly rolled bundle when I burst through the carriage house door. “Welton,” she announced, hoisting it up, “is royally fluffed.”

Nori snorted from where she sat slumped on a chair near the window. “I think you mean another f word.”

I glanced around the small space, but it was just the three of us. “Where’s Lalita?”

“Not here yet,” Greer said, and I could hear the note of misgiving in her voice. Was that another sign? The fact that Lalita wasn’t here? But before I could dwell on it any further, the door swung open and there she stood, her expression placid as though she wasn’t aware of what was happening.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, staring at us in turn.

Greer’s eyebrows rose. “You haven’t seen the newssheets?”

“No,” she said with a shake of her head as she removed her cloak. “I slept poorly and did not awaken as early as I normally do. What scandal has happened this time?”

“The newssheets are calling Miss Perkins a heretic, spreading hysteria among us girls,” Nori drawled from the corner. “Know anything about that, Lalita?” I sent a glare Nori’s way. There was no proof that Lalita was involved or had any role in what had been reported. She was innocent until proven guilty.

“Why would I?” she asked with a frown, amusement fading as she took a few seconds to read the somberness pervading the room.

“Apparently,” Greer said, shaking the newspapers, “Miss Perkins is being accused of hysteria, and people, led by Viscount Hollis, are pushing to shut Welton down because the school’s students are acting out in indecorous ways.”

“What?” Lalita’s eyes rounded in genuine shock that couldn’t be feigned. I knew my friend, and she wasn’t that great of an actress.

Greer opened up the newssheets over the table. My eyes caught on the word hysteria in bold caps in the headlines, and I fought the urge to roll them—trust some male reporter to start a furor that young ladies of the ton were going wild. I scanned the article, which seemed to be written to generate its own hysteria.

Viscount Hollis was, and I quote, “extremely concerned with what was being taught to society’s next generation of young ladies.” Pah, he was full of hot air…hot, gassy air. All that ogre cared about was removing Welton as an obstacle to his plans for razing the buildings for his gaming hell. My stomach fell at the paragraph that claimed a student at Welton had mentioned the existence of a secret, rather untoward book club under Miss Perkins.

Damnation. My fingers clenched at the betrayal. Who would have done such a thing?

“So, if it wasn’t any of us who talked to the reporters, then who was it? Do you think it could have been Blythe?” I asked, glancing at Nori.

Nori flew up, her creamy cheeks red with affront. “No, she would never betray us, even if she’s not officially one of the Lady Knights yet.”

“What about Sarah?” Greer demanded with a vicious glance to Lalita. “She knew about us, didn’t she?”

Lalita shook her head. “She wouldn’t do that, either.”

“And you know her so well?” Nori shot back.

“I do, actually,” Lalita ground out in rancor.

“Then can you prove she kept our secret?” Greer asked.

Lalita’s mouth fell open. “How would I know if Sarah said anything? She promised she wouldn’t. And besides, there’s no mention of the Lady Knights in the article, only a nameless book club. What about Petal? It could have been her, too.” She glared at us in turn. “If you’re going to accuse me of something, then do it.”

A still-furious Nori pointed at her. “We would be bloody brainless not to make the connection. Sarah Peabody hates us, and Zia in particular.”

“Are you calling me stupid?” Lalita demanded, though her voice shook as if she was on the verge of tears.

“If the shoe fits,” Nori snapped, fists curling as she stomped closer.

I lifted my hands and got in between them. “Enough! Arguing amongst ourselves serves no purpose, nor does pointing fingers. So, stop this right now. It’s not helping.” I cleared my throat. “I sent Brennan to fetch Rafi. He helped us that night at the underground fighting club, remember? Perhaps he’ll be able to shed some more light on this, and who his uncle’s sources are, and then we will address it in a rational, levelheaded fashion.”

Because despite society’s attempts to pigeonhole us, that was what we were: lucid, sensible, and clever. We would not fall into the trap of preconceived notions, and by God, we would not become the bedeviled, hysterical creatures society expected of us.

And we would save Miss Perkins, Beth, and our school, no matter what.