Catherine needs to stop Mother before she starts to open the door to eavesdrop more effectively. Catherine reaches outfor Mother’s elbow and the door slams open. Catherine yanks Mother back just in time for Lady Tisend to barrel into the cramped room, Rosalie right behind her.
Catherine and Mother stumble backward. Rosalie pushes her mother into the center of the room, then spins and gives the door a good shove. Catherine hears the squeak of the wood against the tiled doorstep.
It’s firmly stuck into place, just like it was when she got trapped at the first ball of the season. Success.
... Of course, she didn’t imagine success would look quite like this.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rosalie
Mother’s still practically hyperventilating with rage over Mr.Dean snubbing them in the tearoom. Mrs.Pine looks halfway between hysterical laughter and hysterics, and Catherine’s... in just her shift and petticoat.
“What happened?” Rosalie asks.
“Amalie threw wine on me,” Catherine says simply.
“Shethrewit on you?” Mrs.Pine nearly shouts.
Rosalie just stares at Catherine. Catherine shrugs. “It worked, didn’t it?”
Rosalie can’t help but laugh a little. “Devious.”
“She certainly thought so,” Catherine says, running her hand down her stays, a beautiful white set now stained with red.
Momentarily distracted, Rosalie doesn’t notice Mother moving behind her to try to open the door until the handle rattles.
“Why won’t it move?” Mother mutters, tugging frantically.
“Did you plan this?” Mrs.Pine asks Catherine. “This—with the wine, and the door, andher?”
Catherine looks to Rosalie, who can feel her mother boring a hole in her back. Seems like it’s now or never.
“Open this door, right now,” Mother demands.
Rosalie meets Catherine’s eyes, taking strength in the fact that they’re in this together. “No.”
Mother moves to face her, glaring, and Rosalie takes a stepback. Catherine goes with her until they’re standing there staring at their mothers, reluctantly shoulder to shoulder, angry and trapped in the water closet with them.
Rosalie musters every imperious impulse she’s ever had. “You are not leaving this water closet until you end this feud. Catherine and I won’t play along anymore.”
Mother’s eyes widen, her nostrils flaring. “Open the door, now.”
“It’s time Mrs.Pine understands what happened, and why.”
She keeps herself tall despite the ice in her mother’s eyes, her body screaming at her to cower, to run. But she can’t. She has to do this. For Catherine, for Mrs.Pine, for herself.
“You have no right,” Mother hisses.
Rosalie stares at her mother, willing her to make the choice herself. Willing her to see reason. “Doesn’t she deserve to know?” Mother’s jaw tightens. “Don’t you want to tell her? Apologize?”
“Whatever rosy image you have concocted in your head about what happened twenty-five years ago, Lady Rosalie, you are severely mistaken if you think it could be waved away with an insincere apology,” Mrs.Pine says, her voice biting. “Your mother’s actions were unforgivable, and I won’t stand here and listen to you defend whatever you’ve been told. Catherine, open that door, right now.”
“It wasn’t unforgivable, Mama,” Catherine says, her voice shaking. “You just don’t know the whole story.”
“You told her?” Mother exclaims, horror and shock and betrayal on her face.
“I had to,” Rosalie says. “I couldn’t let Catherine end up married to Mr.Dean when she can’t stand him just to protect our family.”
