by Sarah Zettel
I sat on a comfortable sofa and clutched my reticule, which contained, among other things, what would ordinarily be a month’s supply of handkerchiefs.
My patron was not long in arriving. He carefully slid the doors shut behind him before making his bow. He had restored himself to his customary magnificence, from gilded buckles to sparkling rings to full-bottomed wig.
“How are you, Peggy, my dear?” he inquired as I stood to make my curtsy.
“Better, thank you.”
“Please sit, please sit.” Mr. Tinderflint gestured toward the sofa. “You’re pale. You should not be up yet. I’ve instructed my man to make up some chocolate, as I know you don’t care for tea . . .” His words trailed away. “Has something new happened?”
“No, not new. I . . .” I coughed into my handkerchief. Why was I even here? What did this matter? Surely now that the Sandfords could no longer trouble me, I could just set about being happy.
Mr. Tinderflint also coughed. “As you know by now, Her Royal Highness has been fully informed—yes, fully—as to the names of all those responsible for uncovering the assassination plot. She has been fulsome in her praise of you, and she expressed to me privately—yes, quite privately—that she hopes you will choose eventually to return to the palace. Apparently Princess Anne misses you terribly.”
“As does Lady Portland, I’m sure,” I murmured. “Is there any word of the Oglethorpes?”
“They appear to have abandoned their house at Godalming for the time being. Most likely they have gone abroad to join the rest of the family in Paris.” He paused. “You did magnificently, Peggy. I could not have hoped for half so much when we set out on this path together.”
I dropped my gaze, my emotions a tangled knot inside me. I could still change my mind and remain silent. I could simply choose not to know and continue to behave as if my family consisted of Father and Olivia and—perhaps one day in the very distant future, if all went unexpectedly well—Matthew.
But it would not last and I knew that. Secrets rotted certainty. Sooner or later, they would break through.
I reached into my reticule. I pulled out the gold chain and locket and the signet ring, and laid them on the coffee table. Mr. Tinderflint looked at them. His face betrayed not the smallest sign of upset.
“I found these in your room above the Cocoa Tree,” I said. “We . . . I . . . searched it. I confess to that, and I am not sorry.”
Mr. Tinderflint gently touched the locket with the tips of his fingers. “I wondered if you might,” he breathed. “I did not know whether to hope you had, or had not. I know . . . I know I should have spoken to you before, but the truth of the matter is, I did not know how to begin.”
“When did you become lovers?”
Mr. Tinderflint’s head jerked up with a great quivering of chins. “Lovers? Oh, dear heavens, Peggy, Peggy, no, no! No, never . . . that is to say, no—Elizabeth, your mother, was not my lover!”
All my anger reared up inside me. I meant to begin shouting at him, to say I would no longer tolerate his lies. I had done too much, suffered and dared too much, for him to treat me like his child protégé any longer.
“My love was your grandmother.”
My jaw dropped.
Fortunately, Mr. Tinderflint wasn’t looking at me at that moment. He had taken the ring and locket into his hands and was turning them over, slowly and carefully.
“You’ve only met your grandfather’s second wife, of course,” he said. “The first Mrs. Pierpont was a very different woman. She . . .” Memory dimmed Mr. Tinderflint’s gaze and softened his voice. “They made a very poor match, and I was, you may imagine, much younger and, shall we say, a far different figure of a man.” He shifted his weight. The chair creaked in answer. “We met at court. She was already married to Pierpont, who was clearly her inferior in every way, and she was very unhappy. I was rather enthralled with the idea of an intrigue with such a woman and . . .” He paused again and closed his hand around the locket. “Peggy, I should have told you. I wanted to tell you. But there were so many dangers and so much I might yet have to do that could fall upon your head. I wanted to preserve that last measure of distance between us.”
The paralysis caused by his words was complete. Even my tongue refused to move. He was babbling, falling into his habit of embellishment and repetition. He’d never say what was necessary, and I could no longer stand the delays. “There was a child. That’s why Uncle Pierpont hated my mother, even though she was his older sister. He found out somehow she was illegitimate.”
Mr. Tinderflint nodded. “Your mother, Elizabeth Amelia Pierpont, was my natural daughter by Elizabeth Margaret Pierpont. You, Peggy, are my granddaughter.”
I stood, slowly. I have no idea what expression showed upon my face, but I believe that I may have, for once in my life, successfully loomed. I can say with confidence, and some pride, that Mr. Tinderflint, who could kill a man with his bare hands and not flinch at the deed, shrank back.
“You knew when we met. You knew who I was.”
“Yes.” For a brief moment, I gained some slight, and most unmaidenly, satisfaction in the fact that he seemed genuinely afraid of what I might do next. “I would have spoken sooner . . . yes, yes, well, I might have spoken much sooner, but your mother asked me to keep the secret.”
I waited.
“She knew the scandal of her true birth would make things even more difficult for you,” he told me. “With your father gone, there were already rumors concerning your legitimacy.”
I knew about those. I had grown up hearing them. “And when she died? You left me in that house with a man you knew to be a traitor!” Left me in danger of Sandfords and Oglethorpes and every other overly ambitious Jacobite slinking about the streets.
“I did, and I did it for the very same reasons I kept my silence for so long. I truly, truly believed that after he lost his business the first time, your uncle was done with the Jacobites. Indeed, he might have been, were it not for the Sandfords and Oglethorpes insisting he take up their cause again.” Mr. Tinderflint made some effort to straighten himself. “That was why I sought you out. I heard the Old Fury meant to press the engagement. It was a step too far. I would have intervened even had . . . other necessities not made it convenient.”
“You knew I was your granddaughter when you decided to use me to flush out the palace conspirators. You sent me into danger, knowing!”
“Yes. I did. Just as I quite deliberately endangered Lady Francesca before you, and Elizabeth—my only daughter—before you both.” He lifted his eyes to mine, and both gaze and words were perfectly steady. “This is who I am, Peggy. This is what I have given my life over to. Perhaps you can understand now why I might have hesitated at taking on any part of the care of an eight-year-old child.”
I had no answer for this. Except, perhaps, one.
“Does my father know?”
“I don’t know. I never asked him, and Elizabeth never confided that point to me.”
“I’m going to tell him.”
“I would expect nothing less. You should perhaps do it before our dinner. I dislike having secrets around the table. It impedes the flow of good conversation.”
What was I to do? I’d come here with no plan, no genuine expectation. I sneezed. I wiped my nose. I stared at the fire. I waited for more outrage to arrive, or at least an appropriate storm of tears. I waited for something, anything.
Anything other than this obscure and not entirely comfortable sort of relief. After all, I had at last achieved my goal, hadn’t I? I knew the truth of myself and my family. No one could wield their secrets against me again. At least, not easily.
I looked up at the very fat, somewhat ridiculous, shrewd, dangerous, sad man in front of me. The man who was my friend, my patron, my chief goad and troublemaker, and my grandfather.
Who had almost gotten me, my cousin, and my father killed. Who played at kings and thrones and lied whenever he felt the need. Who set me loose to become a spy
and troublemaker in my own right. Who made it possible for me to meet Matthew and assorted lords, kings, and princesses, and to try my worth against the whole world.
And win.
Who was now watching me anxiously, waiting for whatever I might choose to say or do.
“I think,” I said slowly, “this is going to be a very interesting dinner party.”
Visit www.hmhco.com to find all of the books in the Palace of Spies series.
About the Author
SARAH ZETTEL, an award-winning science fiction, fantasy, romance, and mystery writer, is the author of the American Fairy trilogy as well as Peggy Fitzroy’s first two adventures, Palace of Spies and Dangerous Deceptions. She is married to a rocket scientist and has a cat named Buffy the Vermin Slayer.
Visit her at www.sarahzettel.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
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