Page 9 of Ladies in Hating
“Stop what? Stop writing?” Cat could not do that. Her writing was everything—her job at the pie shop made up a bare fraction of her income now. Sheneededher books. She needed the money for their house and their food and for Jem’s damned cursed fragile future.
“No,” Georgiana said. “To stop stealing my ideas.”
There was a moment of choked silence as Cat absorbed the words and the insult therein. “Stealing your ideas?” she repeated numbly. “You think that I have—that I have been—”
She could not even complete the sentence.
Georgiana Cleeve thought that she, Cat, had beenstealingfrom her?
As though she could not come up with her own plots? As though she had not labored night after night, her head fuzzy with exhaustion and her lower lip chewed raw—as though she, a butler’s daughter, could not read and research andimaginesomething clever on her own?
And the fact that it had crossed her mind as well—the instantaneous flash of self-doubt, her constant, pernicious insecurity—caught like a wick inside her and started to burn.
She licked her lips. “Stealing your ideas,” she repeated flatly. “What a remarkably high opinion of yourself you seem to have, Lady Georgiana.”
Her Ladyship flinched ever so slightly, but set her jaw. “It is an objective truth that—”
“It is an objective truth,” Cat said, “that yourWitch Castlebook appearedaftermine. If one of us is lacking in originality, Lady Georgiana, have you considered the fact that it might be yourself?”
Georgiana reared back as if stung. “I had never even heard of your book when I wroteThe Witch Castle—”
“And you cannot imagine that the same was true for me?” She felt hot and off-balance as she stared into Georgiana’s exquisite, infuriating face. “No. Of course not. Has your fame gone to your head, or have you always imagined yourself to be the center of the universe?”
Georgiana’s lips compressed into a thin line, and her eyes were a very clear light blue in the morning sun. When she spoke, her voice was tight, her accent as polished and brittle as glass. “Your novels contain similarities to mine that cannot be explained by mere coincidence. Whatever you are doing to make that happen, I require you to stop.”
“Yourequireme?” Cat almost wanted to laugh. “I assure you, your ladyship, the days when you could require anything of me are long since passed.”
“Nevertheless—”
“No,” Cat said. “No.” She could be clipped too, and firm and poised and deliberate, even if her blood was pounding in her ears. “If similarities do exist—and you seem far more familiar with my novels than I am with yours—they are there by coincidence or by virtue of our shared pasts.”
“It is not possible—”
“No,” Cat said again, and—damnit. Her voice wobbled, just a touch, on the word.
What would happen to her, if Lady Georgiana took her accusations to the public? What danger could Georgiana’s aspersions pose to Cat’s career?
To Jem’s future?
Cat bit down hard on her lip. Shewould notlet that happen. “I have not read any of your books since well before I publishedThe Witch in the Castle,” she said, “and I do not intend to. If you are so concerned about your own uniqueness, perhaps you might spend your mornings in the production of original plots—not in hiding behind a shrub.”
“I am not—”
But Cat ignored her. “I have to go to work now. I assume you are vaguely familiar with the notion.” She jerked her head in a nod at Georgiana—she would rather chew off her arm than curtsy at this particular juncture—and then at Georgiana’s companion. Her voice, thank God, came out clear and cold. “I trust you will not trouble me on this matter again.”
Chapter 4
Cat Lacey. Catriona Lacey. Catriona Rose Lacey of Woodcote Hall.
—from the private journal of Georgiana Cleeve, written in 1812 and then hastily destroyed
Georgiana watched helplessly as Cat Lacey vanished around the corner, her hood thrown over her head and her body vibrating with outrage.
Georgiana felt as though she’d been struck in the head with a post. Or, no—she felt as though she’d been rapped upon the nose with a rolled-up paper, like a naughty dog. She felt scolded. She felt chastened. She felt—she felt—
Oh God. Oh dearGod.Lady Darling wasCat Lacey.
It both made sense and did not make sense. It explained some coincidences, to be sure—Augusta Quirkle’s name, for one, but also the village of Little Pucklechurch in both of their electricity books, and their matching droopy-mustached parsons this year. But their shared memories did not explain their near-identical titles nor theirsimilar plots. It did not explain bloody Alba Margherita, whom Georgiana had spent hours of time and pots of ink painfully renaming. There had been no Alba Margherita at Woodcote Hall.
