Page 96 of The Duke
The painted figures on the walls of the narrow room had been completely obscured by flesh-and-blood people, and the ancient wooden ceiling seemed to groan and swell in the humidity. The House of Lords was private about its business to a degree that frustrated the Commons and the public, jealously guarding the rights restored to it as recently as 1660. Today, it seemed nothing had been able to keep the public from spectating.
“Miss Genet did this,” Shaw said. “Well, and me. She convinced me we should foment public interest in the bill and make it an object of public ridicule. I’m an idiot. She wanted an audience for whatever’s about to happen.”
So Kate’s humiliation and defeat was to be as public as possible. If Celine had felt a fraction, waking alone in Paris, of what she had felt this morning, it was still less than Kate deserved.
She pushed her way indiscriminately through the crowd and passed into the Lords Chamber lobby, where the crush intensified.
The debate was already underway and though the public hadn’t yet grown raucous, it generated a hum through which it was difficult to make out what was being said on the floor. She prepared herself to hear the worst moments of her life under discussion. As she came closer, the compelling tones of the speaker grew clearer.
“I received my title through my mother, Lord Royston before me, whose opinions shaped the laws of our kingdom legislated in this House. Whether by mother, grandmother, or great-grandmothermany generations removed, most of the dignities held in this room have been thus passed down.”Hear, hear!
Royce hadn’t attended Parliament since she took her seat seven years ago and yet, improbably, it was Royce who was speaking. She was repudiating the Inheritance Bill in the strongest terms and the sentiment of the chamber seemed to be with her. It wouldn’t make a whit of difference once Lord Wroth read the letter aloud, but Kate was moved all the same.
“Lord Wroth wishes to unstitch the fabric of our kingdom,” Royce continued. “He wishes to unmake My Lords’ mothers and grandmothers.”Hiss.“The metal from which our nation was forged he wishes to smelt into coins and take into his own purse.”Hiss.“This bill is a piece of personal point-scoring disguised—poorly—as a matter of national interest. Not in my name.”Hear, hear!
Kate had won through the crowd and could see Royce now, who alone in the benches was standing. Royce looked like she’d slept in her clothes last night, if she’d slept at all. Within the asymmetrical frame of her long, dark hair, her face was pallid. And yet in the way she held herself, and in her passionate, extemporaneous speech—better than the speech Kate had been supposed to give, which Shaw had laboured over—was the ghost of the great statesman she could have been.
It struck Kate painfully that Royce was going to lose everything today as well. The marquessate that had been the final gift from her beloved mother; her last claims to respectability and any sort of standing in society. For twenty years, Royce had outrun the destructive effects of Kate’s actions, but it seemed Royce wasn’t to be spared in the end.
Royce turned and saw her.
“My Lords, may I extend a heartfelt welcome to my noble cousin the Duke of Howard”—Hear, hear!—“whose dignity, we suspect, is the true object of the bill we are debating in this place today. A dignity our noble friend Lord Wroth is prepared to rend the fabric of society to snatch away, My Lords.”Hiss.
Royce, Kate thought,you gorgeous wreck.
She looked around the chamber: the high, gloomy windows that made one feel as if aboard a ship when it rained; the gold-framed red cloth behind the throne that was always less clean than it should be; the huge tapestries with their fanciful depiction of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. She had sold her soul to belong in this chamber with its traditions and buffoonery and its rare moments of valour. It was the last time she would belong.
Lord Seaton had long ago chosen the social sphere over the political, but she was present today, sitting in haughty splendour. Lord Brooke was present, and Lord Luxcombe, and Lord Isley. To a woman they looked serious; their very existence was the substance of this debate. None of them knew yet that it was their last day as well. She was sorrier than she knew how to say.
She sought and found Lord Wroth, who stood.
“Do we welcome her into this chamber, My Lords?” Lord Wroth said. “I do not.” And then he spoke the resounding words: “Kate Howard is a traitor and a murderer.”
Kate thought maybe she had been waiting her whole life to hear them said aloud.
Royce went white, then red, and then lunged at Lord Wroth. It took five peers to restrain and hold her. Lord Wroth didn’t so much as look Royce’s way. His expression was grave and stern, the true patriarch.
“See,” he said, “how her cuffs are soaked with blood.”
Kate resisted the schoolgirl impulse to tuck her hands behind her back.
The public spectators seemed almost to be holding their breath, straining to hear every word. Lord Seaton had blanched, understanding as no one else yet could. Many of the sitting members had come to their feet, including the reverend primate, huge in black-and-white vestments, who said, “These are incredible accusations! We must ask that you explain yourself further and produce some proof to support your claim. We shall not take false accusations lightly, My Lord.”
“I thank my reverend friend for his words of caution,” Lord Wroth said with a half bow. “And now I produce my proof.”
From his inner breast pocket, he took that letter, which Kate could identify on sight: Bastien’s name and direction on the front, in her stark hand. The seal on the back with the visibleH.
Dear Bastien,she had written.I have a great joke in mind, and I need your help. I need you to be my actor in France…A great joke. She had written those callous, stupid words, and Lord Wroth was going to read them aloud.
“First and most damning is this letter, written in the Duke of Howard’s own hand, a collusion with the French army on the eve of war. In consequence, Anne Howard and her family died, thus clearing the way for Kate Howard to succeed to the title.”
She braced herself. She would survive this. She hoped she would survive it. She needed to if she was going to satisfy herself Celine was alive, and safe, and had everything she needed.
“Second is the woman you see there.” He pointed to a young, sour-looking woman on a chair that must have been brought in specially. “Her name is Louise Durant, a prostitute lately of Paris. She will confirm to My Lords that Celine Genet, whom the Duke of Howard has insinuated into the highest levels of society, is herself nothing but a common prostitute with ties to the revolutionary elements in France.”
A swell of noise moved through the spectators.
Louise!Kate stared at the young woman, trying to see what had made Celine so desperate to find her. She could see nothing remarkable. But Celine had asked Kate for this one thing, and Kate had failed her. Lord Wroth had found Louise instead. And would use her.
