Page 47

“We made each other a promise. Wherever one went, the other would follow. And if aught came between us, we would fight to find our way back.”

—Grace Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, in correspondence to Charity

T he windows were too high and too dirty to see much through the brownish-yellow scum on them.

Standing on the marchioness’s back in her stocking feet, Charity scrubbed and scrubbed with a square of the linen she had torn from her shift.

But all that she really managed to do was smear the greasy mess around.

“I can make out nothing except daylight and hedgerow,” Charity grumbled, still feeling close to a frustrated panic.

“Press your mind to work, Duchess,” Selina told her tartly. “Even that much tells us something . We are in the country. We can’t be too far from London’s borders. We may be able to discern what we are likely to encounter when we decide to escape through that bloody coal chute.”

Giving a convulsive shudder, Charity nodded, gritting her teeth and hoping that would not be their path. She recognised the command in Selina’s voice for what it was—a bannister railing between her and her terrors, with an order to step away from the edge of it.

“You sound very much like him when you talk to me in that manner,” Charity muttered. Letting herself be baited, sinking into such idle banter, was more comfortable than letting her thoughts wander too far or the silence stretch.

“Peregrine?” the marchioness chuckled throatily. “Who do you think I have been acting the part of, trying to keep you engaged and productively vexed?”

Charity let out a small snort. “He doesn’t vex me.” The words sounded like a lie, even to her own ears.

“You should want him to. What is the best sort of marriage, anyway, except for finding the one person you want to nettle for the rest of their life?”

“You have a peculiar notion of love matches, Lady Normanby.”

“How odd. I do not recall ever saying love was what made the best sort of marriage,” she replied mildly. “If one does not find a partner an interesting challenge, what is the point?”

Charity huffed again, scrubbing harder at the window. “And what does that even mean, ‘productively vexed?’ It sounds like something one would find in a book of medicine.”

“You can very well guess, as it has been your motivation to indulge in this most unladylike conduct all morning. And if you are more interested in talking than looking, perhaps it is your turn to be the footstool.”

“I am looking! I just can’t help but think about how ridiculous we must appear. Can you imagine what the papers would print if they could see us like this?”

“Perry will laugh himself silly, and my maid will faint once she sees my clothes. No hint of a word better otherwise come near the broadsheets, or anyone else, Duchess. Else I will add to the bounty on your head. So for now, look harder.”

“There is so little to see,” Charity squabbled back. “The shadows I can make out are slanting towards us. We look to the west.”

“That is something. Get off of me, then,” Selina groaned.

She rose up on her knees once Charity had both feet on the floor, and Charity pulled her to her feet from there.

Charity then poured a trickle of their remaining, stale drinking water into the woman’s tar-black hands, and Selina scoured as best as she could with the straw and another piece of fabric ripped from Charity’s shift.

“It will have to do,” Selina said grimly, looking down from her grimy hands to the sorry state of her shift, which was as black as coal in large patches. “I’ve changed my mind. I will have my maid burn these instead. They should catch fire nicely, don’t you think?”

“I think you were wise to take your dress off,” Charity said obliquely, playing maid and helping Lady Normanby back into the gown, now that their explorations were complete.

Lady Normanby had offered to be the one to check the coal chute, and Charity had been only too glad to let her.

She had flipped their only bucket in order to peer into the chute, rather high off the floor.

But she still needed Charity to provide her a boost with her hands to successfully get inside.

In addition to being a cramped space, the coal chute was steeply angled, and slippery.

And filthy, Charity thought to herself.

“No reason to let Bellrose know what we were about,” Selina said quietly. “It’s best I do it because he’s already upset with me for being dirty.”

“He wants you to be dirty so he can relish humiliating you for it.”

“I know,” she murmured. “But there is no sense in him haranguing you for it as well.”

Not that Godfrey Bellrose had thus far deigned to notice.

He hadn’t emptied their chamber pot or brought more water.

It was amazing how quickly Charity was resigning herself to their squalid state.

And the marchioness need have no fear of her breathing a single word about it because she also didn’t want to see her name associated with a headline like Pearls Before Swine?

Both lapsed into the silence of thought again, which had been happening more and more frequently as the day wore on and desperation began to chink away at confidence.

It didn’t help that they were both exhausted and hungry.

And rest was difficult with Godfrey Bellrose stomping around on the floor upstairs, but not coming down.

It would be only a matter of time. The coward was clearly building up his confidence.

“What is on your mind, Duchess?” Selina asked her.

Despite how closely Selina had told her she should be keeping all secrets, they had been exchanging the smallest of confidences all day. It was like an affirmation.

“I was wondering if you regretted your choice to join the Order,” Charity said wryly. When phrased as a musing and not a direct question, Selina seemed to answer more readily.

“No, I don’t regret it,” the marchioness said. “In my mind, a game like this has always been the only game worth playing. Given the chance, I would choose it again and again.”

Playing with people, her mother hissed, which made Charity want to roll her eyes. All the ton games were played with people, just some were better done than others .

Not merely playing with people, Mama . Playing a game where the stakes mean something.

Or where the game made a difference to other people, and not just one’s own standing. Selina had played the game to try to steer England, to be sure. But she had also used her power to protect Perry.

Such power—to help and protect oneself and others—seemed like the only power really worth grasping.

“What about you, Duchess? Have you regrets about getting mixed up in this?”

Charity picked at her dress. “Oddly enough, no. But perhaps that is because I am not sure I could have avoided the trouble in the end. It was bound to find me sooner or later, like a letter addressed to me.”

“The trouble by the name of Marian Fitzroy, you mean. I suppose that’s a fair point. I would say the fight between you would practically be fate, except I have some idea of the effort her choices require.”

A cramp twisted Charity’s stomach, the words about fate reminding her painfully of the words Peregrine hurled on the balcony. You, not fate.

With everything that had happened over the years, it would have been easy for the Cresswell and Fitzroy families to part. To let Charity alone. But Marian had steered herself ever deliberately towards an inevitable collision. Peregrine had been right; most people chose the hells that they lived in.

Just as she was choosing her hell now, wandering those memories of their one night’s grace. The expression he wore when he looked at her was like a mirror of what she was feeling inside.

This is the opposite of productive vexation, she said acerbically to herself, twisting her hands together. But oh, she missed Peregrine so fiercely. And wasn’t that the most ironic thing, that all she could think about was seeing him once more? To know that he was safe?

With nothing else to do, they caught snatches of sleep and waited for the evening, the safest time to attempt escape. But as the light began to wane, Bellrose finally found his courage.

The women sat up as they heard him descend the stair. At the door, the lock rattled. A pause. Then the hinges groaned.

Godfrey Bellrose threw the door open and sneered at them, his nose twitching at the scent. “I could get used to seeing you like this, Marchioness. Scrabbling in the muck that should be your place.”

Selina tilted her chin. “If I am soiled with dirt, Bellrose, it is only because of my association with you. Hardly the behaviour of a man who would aspire to be a gentleman. But if my current lack of cleanliness repels you, then I am doubly happy for it.”

Bellrose let out a snarl and struck her. Not hard, but fast. Charity gasped, but Selina made no sound. She only turned her head back, ignoring the trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth, and waited for Bellrose to speak.

“How dare you speak to me like a fishwife, whore.”

Charity did not know how Selina could stand there so impassively. But the marchioness did. And then finally, just as Bellrose looked like he was prepared to explode into violence, Selina bowed her head. “My apologies, Mr Bellrose.”

His attack was frightening, but Bellrose’s response to her capitulation was worse. The marchioness was right. He was a small man who relied on brutality to make himself feel masculine. And a display of meekness was like victory.

But it was a short-lived one. Satisfied he had cowed Selina, his eyes turned towards Charity. “Does the duchess have more respect for her betters than the marchioness, I wonder?”

Charity goggled that this mean, untitled little nobody would consider himself better than a duchess simply because he was a man. Bellrose interpreted her surprise as the barest hint of defiance, and that caused him to round on her.