“It’s fine,” she says, like she knows it’s not. She rises and then leans in the doorway, like there’s more she wants to say.
Marion pokes her head in and rests her chin on top of Faith’s head. “Is she saying thank you for both of us?”
“Both of you?” I ask.
“Very subtle, darling.” Faith rolls her eyes and closes the door behind her.
We awake the next morning to a fresh newspaper laid out at the foot of each of our beds. In big block letters is the headlineLORD TRUMMER’S ONLY DAUGHTER, DEAD AT EIGHTEEN. BODY PULLED FROM THE THAMES THIS MORNING AT DAWN.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“No,” I whisper. I turn to Olive, who looks stricken, her face parchment white as she stares down at the paper. On each newspaper is a number written in the corner. Mine is emblazoned with a bold 1, though what I did to win, I don’t understand.
Someone is weeping across the hall. I race to Marion and Faith’s room to find Emmy in tears and Marion holding Faith in her arms.
“She killed her?” Emmy asks.
“All because of a stable boy?” Faith adds.
Greer wouldn’t have done this, so it must have been the queen, punishing us for disrespect just like she promised she would.
“We can’t let this go on—” I manage through my tight throat.
Without another word I race across the dew-damp lawn on my bare feet and in my nightdress.
My lungs scream as I climb the stairs to Emmett’s room two at a time. But the physical pain is nothing compared to my breaking heart.
I burst through the painting on the wall and find him tying his cravat in the mirror.
He jumps as I barrel in. “Ivy?”
For a moment I say nothing. I just stand there, trying to catch my breath, and end up sobbing instead. Big, hiccupping, body-racking sobs. Emmett races across the room and catches me in his arms before my knees hit the carpet.
“She killed her—” I gasp. My tears leave splotches all over his freshly pressed shirt. “She killed her.”
“What? What are you talking about? Breathe, please.” He lowers me to the edge of his bed. “Put your head between your legs, it will help.” He gently guides me into the position, but Pig keeps trying to climb on my lap, making it near impossible. Emmett scoops the tiny dog under one arm and with his free hand, he brushes the tears from my cheeks.
“That’s it.” He takes a deep breath. “Just breathe.”
“The—” I mean to say the queen’s lesson, but it’s as if my tongue has suddenly inflated and I’m choking on it. In my panic, I’ve forgotten I cannot tell him outright. I’m going to have to be clever about this.
Wait.“Get Faith,” I demand.
“What?”
“Just do it.”
Fifteen minutes later, Emmett comes back through the tunnels, Faith beside him. She’s still wrapped in her dressing gown, her eyes made an electric blue by the ring of red around them.
I stare pointedly at her. “She said we couldn’t talk to anyone else about her lessons, but she said nothing about speaking to each other.” I’m angry that it took me this long to put it together.
“What?” Emmett mutters, confused.
“Faith,” I begin. “I desperately want to tell Emmett about the private lessons the queen has been giving us.”
Her eyes light up as realization dawns on her. “Yes, of course. We’ve been so stupid.”
I tell Faith everything I want to tell Emmett, while he listens silently behind us. I go through lesson by lesson, the maze, the etiquette class, the tea party, the way we’ve been ranked and wounded. Emmett looks as if he might be sick as I recall the way she showed up at the cottage and threated to kill us if we stopped cooperating. Faith chimes in occasionally with her own details. Finally, we reach the subject of Greer. Faith was clever enough to bring the newspaper along with her. She drops it on Emmett’s lap.
