Radiant, Kirke had called her. In a voice gone helplessly soft.
Remembering it even now made her skin warm. And then her warm feelings crested into frustration and something like fury.
He had warned her there would be consequences for dancing with him. Had these consequences finally descended?
It just seemed to her that nastiness wasinefficient; it offended her sense of the practical. It was so unnecessary, when it was so much easier to be kind. And kindness wasnottantamount to weakness. Kindness just meant recognizing the humanity in the other person. But she also knew it was easier to be kind when you solidly knew yourself. When you weren’t buffeted by the whims of fashion, or dependent upon the approval of certain people. For this was what made one afraid and unsteady.
But perhaps this was more naivete on her part. Lord Kirke might have scoffed. His life was one of strategy, and he seemed to surf the vicissitudes of public mood like a gull.
He’d likely known from the first that she was destined to be crocodile food. One had to be born in the jungle to learn how to navigate it, it seemed.
She was no coward. She’d faced and survived difficult challenges, blood and illness and death among them. She had a healthy sense of competition, when it came to any sort of contest. She was unafraid of defending herself and perfectly willing to do it.
But this type of enemy was baffling and amorphous. It was like Lord Kirke’s argument concerning why Lord Bolt would be less prepared to fight a genie than a pirate: she simply didn’t understand, and couldn’t anticipate, her enemies’ powers. Andshe didn’t think she could fight them with the ones she possessed. She felt, at the moment, like an entirely different species than they were.
For these reasons, she was frightened. She could feel the consequences of potential ruination howling like an abyss inches from her feet.
And how she felt told her how thoroughly she had come to count on her popularity. It had become a substitute for happiness. A sort of inebriation.
She could now too well imagine the loneliness that would follow. Her stomach churned. The possible years of skulking in the shadows as a companion to her aunt. Her father’s disappointment and confusion when she returned home from a failed season. He would be hurt for her. She squeezed her eyes closed.
Perhaps she had indeed flown too close to the sun, and now she had only herself to blame.
Mrs. Pariseau, who was up before the birds the following morning, had gotten hold of her own copy ofThe Timesbefore Dot could bring it in to read to the maids.
And she rushed with it into the kitchen as if it were a fire needing putting out.
“The horror!” was the way she announced her presence. She slapped the newspaper down onto the table and pointed.
Delilah and Angelique, who were sitting at the table discussing the day’s menu with Helga, shot to their feet, hearts in their throats, and peered at the paragraph beneath Mrs. Pariseau’s finger.
As so often happens in London, we have discovered the once-assumed-angelic Miss Khas proven to have feet of clay—for we have it on good authority that she waltzed with an heir in an exquisite blue dress known to have been made especially for—you may wish to repair to your fainting couch before you read the next three words—Lord K’s mistress! It’s difficult not to draw the conclusion that “his mistress” and the allegedly angelic “Miss K” are one and the same.
Pass the smelling salts,s’il vous plaît. But what do we really know about the young lady, apart from her talent for bewitching? Don’t worry, gentlemen. If Lord K’s history is any indication, she’ll be free again soon enough!
The words seemed to pulse with casual evil before their eyes.
“Oh dear God. The blue dress!” Delilah finally breathed. “Miss Keating’s blue dress! Isthatwhat this is referencing?”
“It’s not true,” Mrs. Pariseau said stoutly and immediately. “What a steaming, hateful pile of balderdash. What a terrible thing to do to a young woman! And to Lord Kirke! I was with her! I was with her when she tried it on! She refused to take the dress at first and Madame Marceau insisted she would look beautiful in it, and she did. I imagine that all of the women of the ton were jealous when they saw her. Awful, awful people who would perpetuate such poison. Pure invention.”
She would get no argument from Angelique or Delilah about how awful the ton could be.
Angelique was pale with anger on Miss Keating’s behalf. “Why? Why must they do it? Whodoesthis sort of thing?”
They stood together in a certain wretched silence.
Delilah knew Angelique had once been devastated by a staggeringly unkind mention of her in the gossip sheets. She briefly covered Angelique’s hand with hers and Angelique shot her a grateful look.
“But... how on earth did that dress come to be, Mrs. Pariseau?” Delilah asked. “Who originally had it made?”
It had to be asked.
Mrs. Pariseau was quiet for a time.
“I’ve no clues at all. I’m inclined to believe precisely what Madame Marceau said,” she said slowly. “But I amconfidentthat our Miss Keating is entirely innocent in the matter. And that is all I’m willing to surmise. Miss Keating fell in love with a dress she never would have been able to afford, she looked lovely in it, and it was being offered to her for no price at all. Who among us could have resisted?”
They could not argue with this: it was easy to fall in love with a dress.
