Page 44 of The Duke
Markham wasn’t here for her.
“How couldIpossibly punish aduke?” Celine said, somewhat disingenuously.
“Whatever it is you hold over her,” Markham said, “I want it.”
She let confusion cross her face and said, flustered, “Can the ties of loyalty and love be given over? I have no more hold over the duke than that.”
Markham smirked, like she understood the performance for what it was, and said, “I’ll give you thirty thousand pounds for it. That’s half your dowry again.”
She was starting to understand,reallyunderstand, that Markham wasn’t here for her, but for the duke. That if all Celine wanted was to see the duke ruined, she couldn’t ask for a better instrument than the brute before her who had sniffed out something wrong, something that didn’t make sense, and run it to ground. A mad bastard who would take the letter from Celine and use it to deal the duke as devastating a blow as possible. All those nights Celine had dreamed of it, hatred writhing in her stomach, keeping her warm…
Last week, it might have swayed her. But she had other dreams now. Other hearths.
She thought of Lady Pecke calling for tea because she had seen something peaky in Celine’s face. She thought of Lord Burnley asking the footman to move a screen in order to make her more comfortable.
These were good things, and she wanted them. More than she wanted revenge.
“Thirty thousand pounds?” she said, letting herself sound as frightened as she was. “Is that what a maidenhead goes for in London?”
Markham smirked again, though this time the expressionwasn’t without irritation. “I can be patient,” she said in her cinders-and-ashes voice. “And when you are ready to be a rich woman, all you need to do is cross the street. It’s as simple as that.”
Celine had seen Wroth House on the other side of the Strand, grey and forbidding.
Markham stood, and despite herself, Celine flinched away from the immense height and size of the Wroth bastard.
Markham looked around the room and snorted. “You really are living like a Howard, aren’t you? So pampered and prissy, you’d dissolve at the first drop of rain.” The singular, dark eye fixed on her. “Don’t grow too used to it, Miss Genet. It wouldn’t be good for you.”
Then she opened the sash window, and without a farewell, she dropped herself out of it. Celine never heard her land.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Are you quite well, Miss Genet?”
Celine came to and saw that she’d been pulling a fruit bun apart on her plate. She had promised herself she would consume every last drop of this world, and yet she had no appetite. Her stomach felt full of heartbeats, fast and slow. She looked up at the duke’s secretary, Mr. Shaw, with his flyaway, greying hair and dark, kind eyes. They sat cosily together around a corner of the breakfast table.
“Quite well. I slept badly, that is all.”
“Look here,” Mr. Shaw said, folding his newspaper and sliding it over to her. “You’re in the paper.”
He tapped his finger at a certain paragraph. She dragged the tiny print into focus.Miss G—— was seen yesterday observing the Sunday service at St. Mary le Strand, in the pew of the D—— of H——. Upon the conclusion of the service, she was escorted from the church by Lord B——, who is known to attend St. George’s, Hanover Square, in the usual course of events.
She was in the society pages! And her name linked to Lord Burnley’s.
She tried to feel glad, but it was difficult. She kept seeing the flash of Markham’s knife. She felt like Markham was still outside her window, still falling.
“Your spectacles haven’t arrived yet?” Mr. Shaw asked sympathetically.
She dredged up a real smile. “Not yet. To the great disappointment of Lady Florence Morton.” The young woman had apparentlybeen sincere in her wish to become friends and had been writing to Celine daily.
Mr. Shaw finished his tea in a huge gulp, staining his cravat. When Celine made to ring for a fresh one, he waved her off. “Already late to meet the duke in Westminster,” he said, then delicately clamped his teeth over a piece of toast as he shrugged into his jacket.
After he had gone, Celine felt more oppressed than before.
She made her way through the house. Its austere spaces were undisturbed. There was no awareness of having been invaded. Domestic staff went about their usual work, the tall vases were full of fresh flowers, and somewhere, a window was open, letting in the sounds from the river.
She went through to her sitting room and lifted the sash window, then put her knee on the window seat and leaned half out, peering down. The magnolia trees were beginning to bloom, the bright blossoms springing whole from bare, winter branches. There was no body sprawled at the bottom of the wall.
She slumped back into the seat and stared out, unseeing.
