Page 104 of Ladies in Hating
Cat felt a queer pang at the duke’s words. It was just a house, after all. And yet she could not help but think that it deserved better, somehow, than to be a means to an end, a deed transferred.
Even broken things deserved to be cared for.
But it was not her house. It was not her decision. She caught her breath and waited for Jem’s next words.
“No,” he said again, and relief was a thrill up Cat’s spine. He looked around the oratory—the strange doors, the altar, the arrow-pierced Saint Sebastian statue, bats still fluttering about its midsection. “No. I think I should like to keep it.”
Cat breathed out, a shaky sigh.
Fawkes’s throat worked very briefly before he spoke. “It’s only twenty miles or so to our country estate. You could—stay there.” His gaze went to Cat. “Both of you. You would always be welcome there. I would like very much to come to know you.”
Somehow, there were tears sliding down Cat’s face, catching on the corners of her mouth.
Jem put his arm around her. He was so much taller than she was, and she scarcely knew when it had happened. His chin cleared the top of her head as he turned back to Fawkes. “Tonight, I’d like to stay here. I’d like to spend some time at Renwick with my sister, before—” He paused. There was worry in his face, but hope, too, cautious and growing. “Before we come to your estate. But we will come, Oliver. I swear it.”
Fawkes placed a broad hand on Jem’s shoulder and squeezed once, hard, before he let go.
Percy, who’d been silently stroking Bacon’s ears during theconversation, looked faintly alarmed. “Are you quite certain you want to stay here? You did hear Fawkes going on about the ghost and the demon?” He tilted his head. “Or perhaps the ghost is the demon? The details were a bit muddled.”
Jem laughed, just a little, and some of the tension seemed to break.
“We’ll be all right,” Cat said. “This is not my first introduction to the ghost. I suspect…” She hesitated, but then plunged on. If they thought her mad, so be it. “I have long suspected that she is on our side. Georgie—”
She’d turned back to Georgiana, meaning to invite her to stay the night with them. But the words trailed off as she caught sight of Georgiana—pale and bone-weary, her shoulders pinned back as though bracing for a blow.
“Are you all right?” Cat said. She lifted one hand toward Georgiana and then paused, hesitating. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Georgiana said, and Cat did not know which question she meant to answer. “I’m…” Her gaze danced away from Cat’s, back, then away again to fix on Percy. “We should go. Mother and Noor will be wondering what’s happened.”
The hell with hesitation. “You can stay,” Cat said. “You may stay here with us.”
“Not—not now,” Georgiana said, and her voice sounded odd, not quite cool and composed, but not quite fractured either. “You will want your privacy tonight. I will—” Her hand crept up to her breastbone and fastened in a fist, as if holding herself together by force of will. “I will come back in the morning. I will speak to you then.”
She did not wait for an answer. She turned away, and Percy followed, and Cat watched the place where Georgiana had been for long moments after she vanished.
Chapter 33
The estate in Wiltshire I bequeath to my daughter Luna Clarinda, to do with what she wishes. It has always been Luna’s house.
—from the last will and testament of Nathaniel Renwick, dated 1758
Georgiana did not return until late afternoon.
Her hands were shaking as she pushed open the gardener’s door. She felt—
Numb, mostly. As though she were moving through water, her ears muffled and lungs unable to find air.
She had not been able to feel things properly since the previous day—since Fawkes’s words in the oratory.There was no trace of Patience or the child he’d fathered. You were gone from Wiltshire as though you’d never been.
Her father had done that. Alistair Cleeve was the reason Jem had never had the chance to meet his own father. Alistair Cleevewas the reason the Laceys had lived in poverty—was the reason for so much of their pain.
It felt as though the old earl had reached out from the grave to close his fist about Georgiana’s heart. He would never stop—he would never fade completely from her memories. Always, as long as they were together, this would be between her and Cat—what Georgiana’s father had done.
Cat was waiting in the rose garden. She stood still and upright, her old familiar wool cloak wrapped around her shoulders, and her face turned up to the wintry sun. There were roses everywhere—ivory and deep pink and crimson so dark it almost looked black. Despite the season—despite the chill in the air—still they bloomed.
“I’m sorry I was not here in the morning,” Georgiana said. Years of practice—almost a decade—and she still did not quite have control of her voice.
Cat’s eyes flew open. “Georgiana.” She moved to cross the black-and-white terrace, her fingers brushing the heavy weight of vines along the wall. But she stopped just before she reached Georgiana. Her palm stayed against the brick.
