Page 16 of The Last Crimes of Peregrine Hind
“What’s the purpose of this kingdom?” Peregrine asked.
Sandy scoffed. “What’s the purpose of any kingdom? To continue to exist, of course.”
Peregrine tucked his arm behind his head, the better to look at Sandy, and the gesture was so casual, so familiar and cozy, that Sandy’s chest gave an unexpected squeeze.
“I know what you’re really asking, though,” Sandy continued, “and the Second Kingdom has no political ambitions, no designs for more wealth or power—or at least, it’s not supposed to. It’s supposed to be a place where people associate freely for pleasure alone. That is our raison d’être, in fact. No law but pleasure. No limit but acquiescence. No rule but secrecy.”
“This sounds like a world tailored for you.”
“Or I for it,” Sandy murmured, recalling not the opulent parties in the star-chambered ballroom, but instead, the fickle attentions of his parents, his father’s cold smile.
“You were raised for it, then?” Peregrine asked. “To live in this secret world?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Sandy had barely existed to his parents—even Reginald the heir had barely existed to them—because their mother lived for the Second Kingdom and its delights, and their father cared only for his manipulations and schemes. But Sandy had existed more than enough to his godparents, the gentle Foscourts, who’d practically adopted him. He’d spent every moment he could at Kelstone with them and their daughter Juliana, and when he was old enough, it was from them that he learned how the Second Kingdom should be. How it used to be before his father took over.
And then Reginald after him.
“There’s more than living in the Second Kingdom for a Dartham, you see. The Duke of Jarrell is the head. The ruler.”
“Reginald,” Peregrine said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, Reginald. He is the duke, and so the Second Kingdom is his. Fortunately, the Kingdom’s members are all over the island, and there are plenty of revels held where he’s not present. And so, I spend my time in London whenever I can help it, only returning when it would cause a scandal for me not to.”
Sandy didn’t mention that he’d all but fled to London once his education had been finished, desperate to leave behind the messy, poisonous atmosphere his parents had created and which Reginald had perpetuated. Sandy had thought that in London—and at court, no less—he’d find more people like the Foscourts, who were unbound from convention, but friendly and steady too. He could almost laugh at the absurdity of that younger Sandy if it didn’t make him so depressed to remember it.
“But . . . ?” Peregrine prompted.
“How do you know there’s a but?”
Peregrine just looked at him, and Sandy gave a sigh. “Yes, fine. There is a but. I stay away and partake mainly of the Kingdom’s pleasures outside of my brother’s purview, but sometimes I feel so restless and unhappy that I can’t stand it. And sometimes that restlessness feels like homesickness.”
“You miss Far Hope.”
“I don’t miss Far Hope as it is,” Sandy clarified. “It’s almost like I’m homesick for a Far Hope that doesn’t exist. For the Far Hope that lives only in my mind.”
“Why doesn’t it exist?” Peregrine asked, sounding genuinely curious. “What’s the difference between the kingdom where there’s no law but pleasure and the kingdom in your mind?”
“What else?” Sandy responded. “Who else? Reginald. He is a shadow that covers everything.”
Peregrine seemed to think about how he wanted to phrase his next question. “You say there’s no limit in the Second Kingdom but acquiescence. Has he violated that limit?”
“Among the members? No, not that I know of. But with Reginald, anyone who isn’t a member of the Second Kingdom, or fantastically wealthy, isn’t a person to him and doesn’t merit a limit.”
There had been a relation of Reginald’s wife who’d come to stay after her father’s death, a girl who came with a profitable mill and water rights—so long as she was married off to someone willing to cede those rights to Reginald in exchange for a well-connected bride. The relation, Lydia, hadn’t wanted the marriage, had fought against it until the duchess had locked her in her room to keep her from running. She’d run anyway. Sandy had been at Oxford at the time, and so he’d only heard the tale from the servants once he’d returned for that year’s Michaelmas.
No, there’d been no limit of acquiescence for Lydia. Nor concern after she’d fled. Only spittle-flecked tirades about what Reginald would do if he ever caught her, and the occasional gloating over the mill, which had stayed in Reginald and Judith’s ownership after the girl’s disappearance.
Then there were the enclosures, which he’d only learned of last year—again from the servants. Sandy very much doubted the farmers and cottagers around Far Hope had acquiesced to having their livelihoods taken away.
“The Kingdom is supposed to be about pleasure above all—a place where vice is celebrated. But good vice, do you understand? Openness instead of narrowness. Liberality instead of restriction. But Reginald only sees the Kingdom as another way to increase his wealth and his power. He can’t be as ruthless with the members as he is with everyone else, but it doesn’t stop him from finding other ways to achieve his end of getting ever and ever richer. His machinations taint everything in the Kingdom.”
“And the other people in the Kingdom? Do they feel the same as you? Is there no way to . . . remove him from his role?”
Sandy cocked an eyebrow. “What are you, a Leveller? No, he is the duke, and the duke is the head of the kingdom. It’s always been that way.”
“Perhaps it could be a new way.” Peregrine studied him. “Except you mentioned earlier that you didn’t want to be the duke. I take that to mean you don’t want to be the ruler of the Second Kingdom either?”
Sandy didn’t answer at first, his mind flashing through the responsibilities, the burdens, the poisoned wells big and small that Reginald left everywhere he went. And as Sandy cataloged the work Reginald’s successor would have to do, he idly ran his palm over his captor’s lightly furred chest and stomach. Peregrine had a tall, broad frame, but despite his powerful shoulders and thighs, there was a spareness to him to spoke of a life without rest or luxury, and Sandy wondered again what had set him on this path, why he’d chosen this desperate vocation.
