They all knew who “she” was. The girl who worethe beautiful blue dress. They all missed Catherine, too. She had fit in so happily at The Grand Palace on the Thames.
“I wonder if we’ll learn what happens next,” Delilah mused.
It was a fair question. Interestingly, the newspaper had printed an actual retraction of the spiteful gossip about the dress. This was unprecedented.
And not one scrap of gossip about Lord Kirke had been printed since.
Dominic’s speech resonated throughout London, and the House of Lords—through all of England, eventually—for weeks thereafter. (It would, in time, be printed in history books.)
He did not yet know whether its echoes were felt in Northumberland. He did know it sometimes took weeks for the papers to arrive in the outer reaches of the countryside. And he didn’t know if it would do anything to influence the immediate vote for limiting the working hours for children.
But in its immediate aftermath, he felt spent and almost peaceful. He had done what he felt he could. In light of this, he would accept his fate, whenever it was revealed to him.
Meanwhile, it bought him a measure of goodwill that manifested in surprising ways. He received invitations to events he had not anticipated. Cricket matches. Family dinners at colleagues’ homes. More donkey races.
He went. He liked all of them much better than balls.
It brought him a fresh measure of resentment, too, because his political foes felt both reluctantly moved and sympathetic, and also foiled. As thoughhe’d revealed yet another new weapon. He remained, as ever, the candidate they probably could never beat. Rowley looked like quite a fool for even considering a run against him.
And astonishingly, Farquar had sent to him an abject written apology for punching him in the face and for his underhanded dealings with Marie-Claude, and had made an enormous donation to an orphanage. Farquar clearly loved his wife. Even odious people could love and be loved, Dominic thought wryly.
But Farquar still owned his damned mill, however, staffed with children.
Dominic had assured him he would never,everstop attempting to end this.
And then he received a letter he would cherish for the rest of his life:
Dear Lord Kirke,
I do not know yet what to call you. I contemplated Father Kirke, but it is the name of our very pious and judgmental vicar in Yorkshire and from what I understand the two of you have little in common. I hope you will forgive me if “Father” does not quite roll off the quill pen easily.
I should like to thank you for the books. I likedRob Royvery much.The Ghost in the Atticis a trifle confusing, as the peril awaiting the heroine would seem to be in the title. I look forward to discovering how it ends. Mr. Miles Redmond has had an envious life, and I am enjoying his adventures, too.
I read your speech in the newspaper. Mysecret place is beneath an oak tree one mile from the home in which I grew up. I hope one day to visit your place in Wales.
I hope this letter finds you well, which is perhaps how I should have begun it. I am well.
Leo Jenkins Atwell (Kirke)
Sardonic and funny, polite and articulate, grateful and vulnerable.
That is indeed my boy, he thought, with a lump in his throat. God help the lad.
While all of London was introduced to the softer side of Kirke, some people in London had been reintroduced to... another side.
“While I’m conscious that a certain benefit to both of us occurs when my name appears in any capacity in your newspaper, whether the mention is flattering or not,” he said very pleasantly to Mr. Barnes,The Timespublisher, over drinks at White’s, “I have decided to sue you into oblivion over the latest item. The public does not take kindly to the cavalier destruction of a young woman’s reputation.”
Barnes took this in thoughtfully and stared back at Kirke. He had an admirable game face.
Finally, he decided to adopt a wounded expression. “I thought we were friends, Kirke.”
Kirke sighed heavily and tilted his head in a “come now, do better” gesture.
He waited in silence until Barnes was a little sweaty with nerves, then idly added, “I might be inclined to be more charitable if you tell me the source of the gossip.”
Shortly thereafter, a retraction was printed. And every merchant in the ton ceased extending credit tothe Hackworths, who had always lived on the teetering edge of ruin. Their furniture and carriage were repossessed, and two months later, their town house was seized by the bank. For Kirke had amassed plenty of credit in the form of support and goodwill of his own with merchants of the ton, and one subtle suggestion to a carriage maker about the likelihood of him ever recovering his money from the Hackworths spread to the others.
And as the builders steadily put his home back together, he stared at his hotel ceiling at night, and surrendered to, glutted on, in fact, the constant dull ache in his heart. Because that was all he currently had of Catherine.
