Left alone with the butler, I let him scoop Lucy up into his arms, but I kept a firm hold on her shoulder as we mounted the stairs, for my own reassurance. Her face was still worryingly pale. “She needs rest,” I said, “and—”
“Aha!” The sitting room door burst open. Maria Wingate grinned at me with pure, venomous satisfaction. “I told you I heard voices, Mama,” she said over her shoulder. “They’re home—and they were trying to sneak upstairs without notice.”
I sneered at her. “We were hardly—”
Mrs. Wingate’s bellow cut me off before I could even get started. “Bring them inside. Now!”
Maria gestured me into the sitting room with a smirk. I gritted my teeth and stalked past her, leaving the butler to carry Lucy after me.
“Lucy is ill and unconscious,” I announced, before anyone else in the room could say anything. “She needs to be put to bed.”
She looked like the heroine of a proper romance now, held limp in the butler’s arms with her blond hair loose and trailing below her. It should have been an affecting sight.
Mrs. Wingate’s face had already been flushed with temper. Now she looked like a kettle brought to boiling point. “And she has been carried like this all through the streets of Bath, for anyone to see her?”
“Not … exactly,” I said. It was probably best not to expand on that point.
I looked past Mrs. Wingate. Stepmama sat on the neighboring couch, her own color high and her face pinched. Papa sat beside her, shoulders bowed, while Charles sprawled at the end of the couch, eyes glazed. For once, I actually hoped he was hungover. It was the least that he deserved, after what his foolishness had brought about.
Angeline, though, was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t likely that she would have been allowed to quietly hide in our room while the temper storms raged, nor was it like her to even try—which meant she still hadn’t come home after the fiasco with Mr. Carlyle. A thread of worry tugged at me. Angeline on her own for hours, distraught … if it had been anyone else, I might have found the idea piteous. Instead, it was terrifying.
I shoved it aside to deal with later. I had quite enough to cope with already.
“Katherine,” Stepmama began in her most ominous tone, “the very moment you have seen Miss Lucy safely settled in her bed—”
But before she could continue, Mrs. Wingate said, “‘Not exactly’? What, pray, is that meant to signify? And what exactly have the two of you wicked, shameless girls been doing for the past two hours since you disappeared in broad daylight, in front of the entire Pump Room?”
“And in front of the other bathers,” Maria added. She sat down, straight-backed, on the couch beside her mother, her eyes alight with malice. “Not to mention everyone who’s heard about it since then. The gossip has been positively—”
“Yes, thank you, Miss Wingate,” Stepmama said crisply. “I am certain we all know what the gossip has been like. You needn’t—”
“Maria is quite correct,” said Mrs. Wingate. “Indeed, I can only wish I had taken her advice when we first read your letter, Cousin Margaret. But I had no expectation of just how much trouble your stepdaughters might cause …”
“Now, Cousin Caroline—”
“… nor, indeed, that any young ladies could have been brought up so improperly, so indecently—”
“I beg your pardon!” Stepmama stiffened.
“And so you should beg my pardon. Mine and particularly my daughters’! When I think what a corrupting influence was allowed into my own house—into the very bosom of my family—”
Papa closed his eyes. Stepmama said, “Corrupting?”
I wondered whether, if I backed out very slowly and quietly, anyone would notice me leave.
Unfortunately, the butler, with Lucy draped across his arms, was filling the entire doorway.
“‘Corrupting’ is what I said, and ‘corrupting’ is what I meant. From the very moment your stepdaughters entered this house—”
“And which of my stepdaughters was the one to ruin the breakfast room this morning in a magical tantrum?” Stepmama shot the words out like bullets. “Which of my stepdaughters was the one to throw the entire King’s Bath into scandalous magical uproar, in full view of the Pump Room?”
“That has happened only since your stepdaughters arrived! My Lucy would never have dreamed of behaving in such a way before she came under their degrading influence.”
“And don’t forget, Mama,” Maria inserted, “what Miss Stephenson was doing in the Baths with Viscount Scarwood, quite shamelessly, in front of any observers who cared to watch her!”
Stepmama said, “I should infinitely prefer to have a daughter with easily moved feelings—even when they do lay her open to the wiles of a hardened rake—than a daughter with so little proper affection for her own sister that she would take malicious delight in her public ruin!”
Maria’s gasp sounded like a scream.
Mrs. Wingate puffed herself up like a frog and said, “I beg your pardon!”
“And indeed you should,” said Stepmama. “But far more than that, you should beg my stepdaughters’ pardon for trying to blame your own daughter’s misbehavior on them. They have shown her nothing but kindness and friendship ever since their arrival—in shocking contrast, I may say, to her own sister’s attitude!”
“How dare you!” Maria put one hand to her thin chest. It was too late, I thought, for her to pretend to have a heart there, but she certainly had a temper, which was making her expression look nearly demonic.
“Can you deny what we both saw in the bath this morning?” said Mrs. Wingate. “Miss Katherine approached Lucy, and they disappeared together!”
Stepmama’s voice steeled. “I saw exactly what happened. My Katherine was brave enough, unlike any of the nattering gossips around her, to approach Lucy even in the midst of Lucy’s disgraceful magical display. She paid for that bravery by being swept away with Lucy by that magic—but she has now managed to return your daughter safely to the bosom of her remarkably unloving family, despite all the dangers she must have gone through on the way. And is this your thanks to her?”
I blinked. Was that truly how Stepmama had seen it? Perhaps I’d been lucky after all. If she truly believed—
Oh. Stepmama shot me a look I recognized all too well. Later, was the message it promised me.
Well, it was a good story she was telling Mrs. Wingate, anyway.
Mrs. Wingate said, “I don’t know about that. All I can say is, none of this ever happened before your stepdaughters arrived.”
“Perhaps no one ever paid Miss Lucy any attention before,” Stepmama said, and gave a poisonously sweet smile. “It certainly says interesting things about her own upbringing that all this would come out now, does it not?”
“Well—well—well—!” Mrs. Wingate huffed for breath, her head shaking from side to side.
“Mama, you mustn’t listen!” said Maria. “Mama—!”
The sitting room door opened behind the butler. “Pardon me, madam,” a footman said. He held a silver salver in his hand, with a creamy calling card delicately balanced atop it. From the expression of pale fear on his face, he might as well have been stepping onto a battlefield.
“James!” Mrs. Wingate swung around to aim the full force of her cannons at him. “How many times must you be told? Miss Wingate and I are not at home!”
“I know, madam,” the footman said, looking pained. “Indeed, I have turned away several callers for you both already. But this caller came for Mrs. Stephenson—and for her daughters, as well.”
“For—?” Mrs. Wingate shook away the message like gibberish. “What are you talking about? Which caller? Who?”
“Lady Fotherington, madam,” the footman said.
Twenty-One
“Lady Fotherington?” Mrs. Wingate repeated. She blinked rapidly. “Why—Lady Fotherington? Here? At my house?”
I didn’t know why she was having such a hard time believing it. Everything else had gone
wrong lately—why not this, too? I believed it absolutely, and it petrified me. At least Stepmama’s expression revealed every ounce of the real horror of the situation. She moistened her lips, her gaze darting wildly around the room, as if searching for escape routes.
“I—but—we could hardly—that is—”
“Not at home!” I supplied. My own voice came out as a squeak. I wanted to see Lady Fotherington even less than Stepmama did. This soon after my supposed pacification, there was only one reason why Lady Fotherington would pay a call: to satisfy herself that the procedure had been successful … and to gloat over it intolerably.
Stepmama seized on my suggestion, her face brightening. “But of course, we must ask dear Lady Fotherington to return another time,” she said. “We are none of us at home to visitors today, after such trials and tribulations this morning. Cousin Caroline, I would never ask you to suffer through—”
“Don’t be absurd!” Mrs. Wingate’s face was suffused with a glow I’d never seen there before. “Lady Fotherington herself! How could we turn her away? Especially …” She bestowed a smile of warm approval on me as I stood frozen by the door. “As dear Katherine’s godmama, she is practically family herself, is she not?”
“Well …” Stepmama’s voice strained to cracking point. “That is—in a manner of speaking …”
“Nonsense.” Mrs. Wingate nodded briskly, all of her fury apparently vanquished by the miracle of Lady Fotherington’s approach. “Your scruples do you credit, Cousin Margaret, but they are far too fine in this case. James, see Lady Fotherington up immediately, and order our best refreshments. And Palmer”—for the first time, she seemed to notice the butler still standing with Lucy in his arms, looking rather more worn than he had ten minutes earlier—“for heaven’s sake, don’t just stand there! Carry Miss Lucy up to bed. Quickly! We don’t want Lady Fotherington tripping over her.”
“Yes, madam.”
Palmer carried Lucy out, followed by Papa, who moved across the room and out the door with the silent speed and determination of a hunted animal. He was gone before Stepmama could utter the faintest sound of protest. Charles looked after him with open admiration.
There was nothing in the world I would have liked more than to follow Papa’s example, but I squared my shoulders and stayed where I was. Lady Fotherington had come to see me, after all, and I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of thinking me too afraid to meet her.
“Come, Miss Katherine,” Mrs. Wingate said, in a warmer tone than I’d ever heard her use before. She patted the seat on the couch beside her, forcing Maria to move aside. “We wouldn’t like your godmama to think you weren’t being offered the best in our house, would we?”
I smiled weakly and obeyed. Maria’s face pursed up like a prune as I sat down between her and her mother. She sniffed pointedly and looked away.
Stepmama leaned over and said in an urgent whisper, “Cousin Caroline, I think perhaps it would be best if we make no reference to Lady Fotherington’s godmotherly relation to Katherine during her visit. We have never liked to presume upon the relationship, or—”
“Lady Fotherington!” the footman announced as he opened the door.
Mrs. Wingate had made no answer to Stepmama’s plea … but Maria stiffened like a hunting dog who’d just caught the trail of a fascinating new scent. Her eyes gleamed with interest and speculation.
I gritted my teeth and prepared to endure whatever came of it.
“My dear Lady Fotherington!” As Lady Fotherington swept into the room, resplendent in a deep green walking dress that positively reeked of high fashion, Mrs. Wingate rose to her feet, beaming. “How delighted I am to welcome you to my home. I do apologize for your long wait—”
“No need for apologies, Mrs.—ah, Mrs. Wingate, yes, of course.” Lady Fotherington’s smile was all condescension, but her gaze had gone straight to me, piercingly eager. “I understand perfectly.”
I stiffened my spine and sat as straight as Stepmama had ever ordered, chin held high. I refused to drop my gaze.
Her green eyes narrowed. Cutting straight across a stream of welcoming speech from Mrs. Wingate, she said, “But is Miss Katherine truly well enough for company? The stories I’ve heard about this morning …”
Curses. I ought to be limp and fainting, I supposed … or even babbling inanely if the procedure had damaged my mind, as I was sure she’d hoped it would. Well, the devil take all that. I wasn’t about to give her such satisfaction. Not everyone’s mind was damaged by pacification, and I was dashed if I would pretend to be helpless just to make her happy.
I said, as clearly and coldly as I could, “I have lost nothing that mattered to me.”
“Hmm.” Lady Fotherington swept up her skirts and took a seat in the winged armchair across from our couch without taking her eyes off me for an instant.
“Mattered?” Mrs. Wingate let out a nervous titter as she sank back down onto our couch. “Why, I don’t know what Miss Katherine could be referring to. She did not lose anything this morning that I know of. But Lady Fotherington, you need not fear for her. I do not know what you may have heard—you know how gossips are, and how far their stories stretch any semblance of truth or even reasonable probability. You mustn’t trust to any mad stories of—of nonsense such as … well …”
She trailed to a stop as another footman entered the room, bearing a tray of refreshments. Perhaps she couldn’t think of any polite euphemisms for scandalous acts of magic in broad daylight—especially when they’d been carried out by her own daughter. Instead, she busied herself in making and pouring the tea, with a strained smile on her face.
Lady Fotherington only flicked her a quick, baffled glance as she accepted a cup of tea. “I rarely trust gossip, Mrs. Wingate.” Her gaze flicked back to me, her frown deepening. “But can you truly tell me that Miss Katherine has suffered no illness as a result? No weakness whatsoever, or—”
Stepmama’s face brightened with sudden inspiration. “Katherine has indeed been very weak since she arrived home from her ordeal,” she said, and rose from the couch, abandoning her own full teacup. “Indeed, for all her bravery in offering to stay, I know she truly ought to be in bed. Perhaps we should all—”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Wingate. “Cousin Margaret is too sensitive. You are perfectly well, are you not, Katherine?” She patted my arm with an artificial smile.
“Well …” I hesitated, torn. I knew the answer that would be sensible—but it fought against every instinct I had in Lady Fotherington’s presence. And yet … “I’m not very weak,” I muttered.
Lady Fotherington relaxed visibly. “I see,” she said. “How brave of Miss Katherine to pretend to better health than she truly has, merely to set me at my ease.” Her lips curved into the smile I hated most. “But truly, there is no need for pretense between us.”
“Indeed,” said Maria, with a bright, tinkling laugh, “how could there ever be pretense between Cousin Katherine and her own dear godmama?”
I froze. Stepmama fell back onto the couch with a stifled moan. Charles put one hand over his eyes and began to whistle softly under his breath.
For once, Lady Fotherington looked completely stunned. “I beg your pardon?”
“I think Katherine is looking very ill,” Stepmama announced. Even she knew it was a losing battle, though. Strained to the breaking point, her voice came out sounding cracked and fragile. “We do appreciate your visit, Lady Fotherington, but perhaps—”
“Her godmama,” Maria repeated. “That is why you came to enquire after Cousin Katherine, is it not? As part of your godmotherly duties to her?”
“Now, Maria.” Mrs. Wingate directed a chastising look at her oldest daughter as she took a pink tea cake from the tray. “We have already discussed this. I do apologize, Lady Fotherington. I know Cousin Margaret does not like to presume—”
“Does she not?” murmured Lady Fotherington. Her green eyes narrowed to jeweled slits as she looked from one face to another. “How utterly f
ascinating. And how is it, then, that you knew about this intimate relation between Miss Katherine and myself?”
“Well, of course, within the family …,” Mrs. Wingate began.
“Now I feel faint,” Stepmama moaned. She put one hand to her head. “Oh, please—”
But Maria was faster than either of them. “Why, Katherine announced it herself,” she said, and glowed with malicious pleasure. “The first day they arrived. She told us all about how important it was to you that she be treated with the highest status, as your own goddaughter. Because everyone knows Lady Fotherington’s goddaughter deserves only the best.”
“Maria!” Mrs. Wingate put one hand to her chest. “Never did I expect to hear you speak in such a vulgar manner—and in front of company, too! Lady Fotherington, I do apologize—”
“There is no need,” said Lady Fotherington. Her voice sounded like crystals chiming beautifully together. “No need for you or your daughter to apologize at all. Indeed, I am very sorry for both of you.”
“For us?” Mrs. Wingate ruffled like a hen, while Maria quivered happily beside me. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Hadn’t you realized yet?” Lady Fotherington shook her head slowly, a smile playing about her mouth. “Many, many people have been taken in before by Katherine and her family—but never before by the use of my name. I feel I may owe you some apologies for that, myself.”
“You,” I said, “owe us an apology first.” I met her jeweled green gaze and let all of my own contempt show in my stare. “You know exactly why I used your name—only a week after Elissa’s wedding. After what you did.”
“What? What!” Mrs. Wingate was visibly trembling. “I don’t understand! I don’t—”
“It’s quite simple, Mama,” Maria said. “Cousin Katherine is not Lady Fotherington’s goddaughter at all. I always suspected that anyone so obviously countrified and ill-bred could not have been raised under the aegis of a leader of fashion—and I was right!”
Renegade Magic Page 17