“I’m not the one who killed him.”
The words hang heavy in the air.
“What do you mean you’re not the one who killed him?”
I turn to face my uncle, thinking it might be easier than looking at my sister. “I mean, I was too late. Harold MacVeigh took his life. He will be the candidate for the Scotan province.”
Alex’s face pales, his blue eyes bright against the starkness of his face. “Harold MacVeigh?”
I nod, watching out of the corner of my eye as Dom sinks into a rickety chair. Her eyes have clouded over, and her shoulders hunch like she can no longer hold herself upright.
I did this. I did this to my sister, to my uncle, to my people.
And for what? A few hours in the arms of a woman who sees me as nothing more than a job. Nothing more than a quick way to earn some coin and advance her position.
I know I should tell them the whole truth, how Lady Caterine cost me the one chance I had to salvage everything. But I can’t make myself say the words. Not yet, anyway. It hurts just to think them; I don’t know how I will ever be able to give them voice.
Alex’s brow furrows as he parses out all the information and its implications. “Why would Harold do that?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. But from what I can gather, I think the real person behind it is his new wife, a Lady M.”
“Does she have some sort of political aspirations?” Alex crosses the room, his fists clenched at his side.
“I don’t think anyone really knows. Cate—Lady Caterine—only knew that she and Harold recently married and apparently her funds helped save the club from closing.” Her name tastes bitter on my tongue and yet I have the urge to seek her out. Seek the comfort I know only being in her arms can bring me.
Alex catches my slip on her name, raising a single eyebrow, but he doesn’t mention it. “Lady M doesn’t give us much to go on.” He begins pacing around the small perimeter of the room. “This isn’t the way things were supposed to go,” he mutters under his breath. “Who could have sent her?”
“You think another province is trying to sabotage our candidate? Is there anything in the decree to stop that sort of thing?”
Alex shakes his head. “I don’t think so. But that isn’t what happened here anyway. If Harold is the one who committed the act, then Harold is the candidate. There can’t be any more killing at this point. Unless…” His eyes cloud over.
Dom and I exchange a look.
“Unless what?” I ask when Alex doesn’t bother to finish his sentence.
Alex sighs, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “There is something I need to tell you both. You’re not going to like it, but I ask that you listen to what I have to say before making any judgments.”
Dom grimaces. “Not a very comforting precursor there, Uncle.”
“I know.” Alex gestures for me to sit.
I lower myself carefully onto one of the wooden crates acting as chairs around the dining table. “Whatever you have to say, say it, Alex.”
“For the past year, I have been working with the Uprising.”
The declaration seems to have weight, clouding the already dank atmosphere.
I fear I must have been hit in the head at some point during the preceding hours, because certainly my uncle did not just say what I think he said. Certainly there is no way he, a man I have relied on for my whole life, just admitted the deepest betrayal like it’s nothing.
Dom recovers her wits first. “Why would you do that?”
Alex leans against the old wooden table, shifting his weight so the whole thing doesn’t collapse under him. “It became clear to me early on in the Uprising that this revolution was going to be different. The man in charge is too smart, too tactical for it to have been a failure. The reports we were receiving were bleak, and I knew there was a chance the fighting could have gone on for years, costing thousands of lives.”
“So you went behind our backs and gave the enemy our secrets?” My head spins, and I don’t know if it’s the result of my injuries or this news. Either way, I can’t get a handle on what’s being said.
“I did it to protect Scota and to protect you both.”
Dom gestures to my broken body. “It doesn’t appear you did a very good job of that.”
