Lady Mulberry shrieked, recoiling.
“Don’t you ever,” he growled, “ever put thatfilthy pigin the same breath as me again.”
He was shaking now. From the fury, from the utter insult of it all, from the image of Kitty’s face—Kitty’s face—stricken with horror, forced to stand beside that man, to touch him, to relive something she should never have had to live through in the first place.
“You think Grewin and I are equals?” he spat. “Is that what you believe?”
Lady Mulberry blinked, her chin beginning to lift. “He’s aperfectly respectable young man, Norman. His family is old blood. His mother is of an impeccable family. You cannot act as if he’s gutter garbage when he?—”
“He is gutter garbage!” Norman roared.
His voice echoed like thunder through the studio, rattling the framed sketches on the wall. He leaned over the desk that separated them, both fists slamming down hard enough to make the inkwell jump.
Lady Mulberry gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. Her eyes sparkled with tears—tears he no longer had patience for.
“You knowexactlywhat he did. You werethere.Youknew.” Norman’s voice cracked, not from weakness, but from the sheer force of trying not to scream himself hoarse. “You saw what it did to Kitty. You saw how she looked at him. And you?—”
He jabbed a finger at her, shaking with rage.
“—you still brought him into this house? You brought himinto the same room as her? What—was this some sort of test? A joke? A scheme? You knew she’d be the one forced to play the part. Youknew.”
“I didn’t know it would bethatpart!” Lady Mulberry cried, half rising in her seat before sinking back down again when he glared at her. “I didn’t think it would—Kitty is always so composed. I thought she could—couldhandle?—”
“You thought she couldhandleit?” Norman’s laugh was sharp, joyless. “My futurewife,the woman I shall marry to protect, toshield, and you thought—what? That she couldhandlestanding beside her tormentor while a room of strangers stared and clapped like trained seals?”
Lady Mulberry pressed a trembling hand to her forehead, the gesture too practiced. “It wasn’t like that. It was just a rehearsal. To...to fill your spot. A silly little performance. You’re making this far more dramatic than?—”
“No one fillsmyspot!” Norman snapped, slamming his hand down again. “You don’t get to decide what’s dramatic,Grandmother! Not when you didn’t evenaskfor my approval. Not when you went behind my back. I am the duke.”
“I didn’t think I needed to ask your permission to send out a dinner invitation,” she said, and her voice, for the first time, held a brittle edge.
Norman froze.
A cold, dangerous quiet settled between them.
He stepped around the desk slowly, his boots deliberate on the floor, every click a warning.
“You listen to me very carefully,” he said, voice now so quiet it could’ve cut glass. “If you ever—ever—do something like this again without speaking to me first, Iwillsend you to the dowry house.”
Lady Mulberry’s gasp was enormous, theatrical. She flew upright from the chair, her hands flailing to her sides like a startled bird.
“You wouldn’t!” she exclaimed, one hand to her chest. “You wouldn’t dare! Your Grace, you can’t! You’d exile me to that—that dusty tomb with those old crones and their sour porridge and hymn recitations?—!”
“Yes,” he said flatly. “I would.”
“But I’ve lived with you foryears—Iraisedyou?—!”
“You hovered and interfered. That’s not the same.”
She let out a strangled little wail and collapsed back into the chair, her shoulders shaking. “Oh, the cruelty! The injustice! I try to give this house a bit oflife,a littletwinkle,and for that I’m sent off to rot with the widows?”
Norman didn’t flinch.
“I’m not laughing, Lady Mulberry,” he said coldly. “You crossed a line. Kitty is not your pawn. She’s not your stage doll. And I swear to God, if you’re trying to sabotage this marriage?—”
“I’mnot!” Lady Mulberry snapped, then clapped a hand over her own mouth as if shocked at herself.
Her eyes met his, and for the first time in the whole evening, something like genuine remorse flickered there. It didn’t reach her mouth.
