“Are you embarrassed of me?”
Gloom creeps inside as the sun is devoured by a blanket of clouds. The room loses a few degrees of warmth, and I fold my arms around my waist to hide how my fingers tremble. What cold breathes through the opened windows is no match for the inferno of guilt inside me, one I’ve lit myself. It burns once I read the flash of hurt and anger in her eyes.
Heeled boots scratch against the carpet in the centre as she moves towards me. I turn once she’s close, and she untangles my arms, taking my hands in hers. “How dare you ask me that?”
I dare honesty. “Sometimes it feels that way, Gran. Whenever Winifred is involved inanything, you get so careful and give me rules I can’t break.”
With a voice full of defensive outrage, she tightens her hold on my hands. “Listen to me carefully; your mother may as well have been carried in my womb—that’s how dearly I loved her, and I’ll fight anyone, including you, who says otherwise. Do you hear me? She gave me you and Luciana.” Her voice shatters on my sister’s name. “My granddaughters, my blood. Both of you are part of me. Part of Sheffolk. How could you think—even for a moment—that I could ever be ashamed of you?”
“Then why does it feel like you’re telling me to hide the parts my mother gave me?”
“You mistake caution for shame, beloved girl.” She dips her head, her throat making a croaking noise as she wrestles with everything she wants to say. “Winifred’s spite is legendary, and next week Saturday shewillbe watching you,ruthlessly. If I could erase her cruelty, I’d do it in a heartbeat. She’s been in your life so rarely I can count her visits on one hand, and that should tell you everything: she appears when she smells advantage. The SRS want to see us falter; they build fear in our name, and Winifred will pose herself as the safer option for Sheffolk. I won’t let her teeth sink into you.”
The world tightens, cinches around my throat, and tilts sideways the instant I see fear ghost her face. Last time I saw Winifred, I was ten. She hurt me in the drawing room with nothing but her smile, her hand closing around my wrist as she complimented how ‘civilised’ I sounded for my age. Her nails dug into my skin until it felt raw.
Old people can besofucking mean.
In front of other noblewomen, she made a great big show of straightening my collar, wiping at my thick brows and mumbling what a pity it was that my father’s genes didn’t win. The women tittered and praised her for her worldly knowledge and her eagerness to discipline, but I stood there flayed, heart heavy with a shame I didn’t yet have a name for. All I knew was that the shape of the first letter was a barbed W, and it ended somewhere deep and unpronounceable.
Later, I could call it by her name.
I tried not to cry until Pascoe found me in the basement close to the records vault, hidden under Mr Weekes’s desk while he napped. I told Pascoe, and Pascoe told Gran, obviously, who then probably complained to Nanna. That’s one thing I’ve always loved about her; Nanna never played the game the same way they did, andthank Godfor it. At least, that was back when she was still herself, before the forgetting set in. She must’ve said something truly nuclear to Winifred, because the woman never came back.
“Do you think it’ll ever end?”
The voice that leaves me sounds all too much like eight-year-old Francesca, who once hugged her Aunt Winifred, only to be pinched on the back so hard it bruised.
Gran pulls me to her chest, and when her hand slides under my braid, right next to my spine where Winifred once hurt me, I almost lose my composure.
“Yes, because wewilloutlast her,” she whispers against the crown of my head. “Your mother’s bloodisSheffolk blood; her legacy is the one I choose and honour.” A kiss dances over my skin, and I feel her lips tremble. “When I say ‘be careful’, I don’t mean ‘be less’. You’re intelligent enough to know the difference, so bite back.”
She releases a long breath before letting me go, and for a second, she stands so utterly still. Her hands run over invisible creases in her woollen dress, as though she can iron her composure back into place. It makes me smile.
The look she gives me is half challenge and half affection; then she says, “I’ll leave you to it, then. You better bully that prince into confessing the monarchy’s best-kept secrets. I’ll have nothing less than treason, Francesca.”
I snort, tears prickling at the corner of my eyes. “Soon enough, you’ll stop thinking he’s some poor, unsuspecting thing. One conversation, that’s all it takes, I promise.”
She picks up on the hidden suggestion in my teasing. “Perhaps you and I ought to step into the ring with the prince. Who first? The duchess or her heir?”
“You, certainly. I’d pay to watch that go down. Besides, I’ve already tried and ended up walking away with more questions than answers.” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling too hard. “Plus, I’m almost certain he lets me think I’ve won our verbal sparring.”
Gran swipes her clutch from the dresser and swings open the door. “Coward,” the word bleeds through a pretty smile.
“Realist,” I correct. “Go on, then. We’ll see which Sheffolk woman he truly fears.”
The snort that leaves her is utterly improper, a sound I’ve only ever heard behind closed doors. A heartbeat later, and she’s gone, footsteps disappearing down the corridor. I’m left alone in my room, and my hand instantly lifts to the locket. For once, thequiet feels cheerful, and the ghosts bound to this castle feel more like conspirators in a game.
Etiquette condemns it, but I still cross to the decanter and pour the wine, raising a silent toast: may my beloved Aunt Winifred encounter a small catastrophe and be neatly removed come my birthday. The wine burns on its way down, landing in an empty stomach, and the ghosts stir, amused by my audacity. I pour another glass and toast to them.
For good measure.
24
DEAD GIRL BREATHING
FRANCESCA
I’m halfway to the main drawing room when a flurry of staff members rush past me, hunched over trolleys in caricature-like imitations of Pascoe. The numerous slices of cake give away the plan for the day, and I swallow down a groan because obviously Gran didn’t tell me. She knows how I detest cake tasting.
