Page 43

God setteth the solitary in families:

he bringeth out those which are bound with chains:

but the rebellious dwell in a dry land.

I n her dreams, Charity was trapped in the belly of a carriage that was alive.

The walls expanded and contracted, like the bellows of lungs.

The velvet curtains fluttered, trying to keep out the light.

And Peregrine was sitting on the seat across from her, his face pale except for the dark hand-shaped bruises that slid upwards from beneath his cravat to mark his face, like dappled shadows.

“You are late,” the Queen said beside her, and Charity jerked her head that way, finding Her Majesty dressed in mourning blacks. “They have already opened the door.”

The carriage door? Charity reached for the handle, but her fingers began to turn to dust, floating away. Her legs were twisted in something, and the inability to move made the old familiar terror grip her fiercely, sparking nausea. She couldn’t breathe—she was going to choke?—

Horror struck her hard, wrenching her stomach, and in a sickening haze, Charity wrenched herself to semi-consciousness, trying to turn her head to vomit.

A chamber pot appeared beside her, and hands helped lift her upright enough that she could disgorge the last of the laudanum-laced drink from her belly without being sick on herself.

The sickness gripped her, leaving no room for anything but gasping breaths between the violent spasms of her stomach. But she could not take advantage of it, because in those brief moments of reprieve, the little bit of air she took in rushed right back out as she sobbed.

Because she was back in Lady Fitzroy’s grasp. She was back, trapped, in the little house, uncertain of the time or the place, dizzy and lost because they kept forcing her to drink more laudanum to keep her quiet.

This time, no one would come looking. Roland was far away and in love with Grace. And Perry?—

The world greyed at the edges, and the terror melted into confused despair as she tried to pull her fractured senses back into order. Was Peregrine alive? Or dead? He had been dead in the carriage. But now… now she couldn’t remember whether or not that was real.

Charity began to list forward, too wrung out to keep herself upright on her trembling arms, and the chamber pot vanished. Her bones had been hollowed out and filled with cold water, and her mouth tasted like death.

She lay there on the stone, weak, confused, and shivering, trying to throw off the final effects of the drug. The light hurt. Someone was rubbing her back, she realised, and she turned her head, squinting to make out a familiar face that looked very, very different .

“Selina?” Charity asked her in a raspy voice, shocked. Then a terrible sense of betrayal clenched her now, as she wondered if this kidnapping had been orchestrated by the marchioness.

The raven-haired woman frowned down at her, holding Charity’s face in her hands as she studied Charity’s eyes. “He gave you too much. It is a good thing you purged some of it.”

“You kidnapped me!” Charity demanded, and Selina’s face shuttered, her shoulders hunching in abject misery.

“You’re still confused. I didn’t kidnap you, Duchess,” she informed Charity. “And if you think I did, well… then I suppose that confirms my fear that no one was even aware I have been missing.”

Charity put a hand to the side of her head, now angry about her muddled state. Nothing was making any sense. “I don’t understand!”

A sigh. “I know. Be easy, Your Grace. If you are awake now, the rest of the dose will wear off soon, and then things will become much clearer.”

The marchioness brought her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, and Charity rolled over, eventually finding enough strength to pull herself up against the nearby filthy wall.

Her vision wavered. Patches of darkness crawled like a living thing along the walls and floor, spreading like ink, and Charity whimpered, cringing back from them, disoriented. “Where are we?”

“A cellar in a little house, Your Grace,” Selina told her patiently, reciting facts in a steady voice to keep Charity moored as the delusions and the drug wore off.

“I would guess that we are not too far from London. It was still daylight when you were brought in, and it has been dark for a few hours now. You have been asleep for a long time.”

Charity nodded, eyes shut, trying to hold tight to that.

And then she began to take in the details around her, even though her eyes ached fiercely and watered in pain despite the dim light.

She was sitting on a patchy layer of straw that was far too skimpy to protect her from the damp dirt of the stone floor.

The only windows in this place were small, near the ceiling, too high and too small for a person to fit through.

Selina’s elegant black hair was plaited in a simple braid, tied with what looked like a scrap of linen torn from her shift. Her dress was badly wrinkled, and stained in places with black smudges and sweat.

The marchioness met Charity’s appraisal steadily, turning her head. Charity could see a blue-green smudge running across Selina’s cheek. The fading remnants of a bruise.

Then the meaning of the marchioness’s earlier words sank in. That confirms my fear that no one was even aware I have been missing.

Charity’s breath hitched again. “How long have you been here? How did you get here? The Queen said she put you under house arrest with General Billingham.”

Selina hitched her shoulder. “I don’t know. Four days? Maybe more?” She glanced up at the dirty windows that let in some light. “Suffice to say, when she decided to put me in Billingham’s care, that is when I learned who Peregrine’s mother managed to turn. A little too late for me.”

“Yes, we figured out Goldbourne as well,” Charity agreed. And then she halted, because Selina was giving her the queerest look. “What is it?”

“Billingham is one of Chandros’ creatures,” Selina said bluntly. “In the Tribune, Goldbourne’s sphere of influence is the banks. Mine is the lords and members of Parliament. Duke Chandros is our strategist. The one whose influence is with the military.”

Charity blinked, dizzy, feeling slow to comprehend this new information. “Chandros is the one who took you? ”

“For certain. Billingham stopped his carriage just outside of London and handed me over to some butcher like a sack of potatoes! The general would do no such thing unless he was instructed to, and only Chandros has the means of controlling Billingham so thoroughly. Chandros is the only reason that lump of flesh exists in his current role. What were you saying about Goldbourne?” Selina demanded in return.

Pressing her hand again to her stomach, Charity fought down a new wave of nausea. “Goldbourne and his bank have been the purse behind almost everything. The riot, Eldon, Sidmouth?—”

“What has happened to Viscount Sidmouth?” Selina interrupted, and Charity realised then that Queen Charlotte must have restricted information to the marchioness even before Billingham arranged for her disappearance.

The marchioness thrust her fingers into her hair, vexed.

“I have no idea what has been happening! This is utterly intolerable.”

Charity began explaining all that had happened since the marchioness had been taken into custody, laying out the pieces in order as best she could.

Her tongue and wits felt slow, but this exercise helped her create a new sense of order.

And it kept her from thinking about their situation.

As long as she didn’t have to think about what was happening to them, then she could keep herself from tilting into panic.

“So there was not one turncoat working for Marian Fitzroy, but two,” Selina said bitterly, when she began to tally up what Charity explained.

“The Order is well and truly rotten to the core, because our ideals were always meant to steer England towards prosperity. Not our own pockets. And we should have never espoused such conscienceless tactics such as those favoured by Marian.”

Grimacing, Charity didn’t voice her disagreement.

She felt some amount of sympathy for the marchioness’s disillusionment, but from where she stood, some of the differences between the Order and Marian Fitzroy were only a matter of degree.

“I wonder how long both Chandros and Goldbourne have been her lackeys,” she said instead.

“Impossible to say. Goldbourne could have been helping Perry’s mother conduct her illicit banking for at least twenty years.

If managing her empire is how he earned his wealth and power, he could have always been in her pocket, feeding our information back to her.

That would be very much like what I know of Marian.

Chandros… well, I would have thought that man had more spine.

But then again, he could have slipped into her thrall more slowly.

Goldbourne might have even recruited him to the cause.

I’ve never liked that sanctimonious little slug. ”

Charity mimicked Selina’s posture, bringing her knees to her chest, both for comfort and for warmth. They were being held in the small room of a basement—she could make it out now that the light wasn’t giving her head pains—and it was damp and cold.

“What do you think they’re going to do with us?” Charity asked next, trying to keep her breathing even. But Selina seemed to sense that Charity’s sense of calm was beginning to fracture again.

“Best not to think too much about it. Clearly, they have some purpose in mind,” Selina said, trying to find some point to reassure her on. “Killing me to prevent me from noticing the attacks happening on the Tory party and my allies would certainly have been easier than arranging this.”

“I cannot not think about it,” Charity snarled. “I worry, because Perry doesn’t know about Chandros.”

“ Don’t panic. Perry has a knack for cheating death that rivals a cat, Duchess.”