Page 114 of Immortal Rose

A dark, horrified laugh welled in me, but it came out as a wrenching sob. I pressed my hand to my face, struggling to breathe, trying to steady the world around me.

Glenmoor hadn’t merely exposed me and named me as the poisoner in front of all of Albion; he had found a way to seize his power as regent before the King’s death.

“Oh my God,” I managed to say. “Oh my God.”

“If I know anything of you Albionians,” Mrs. Silver began from behind me, “it’s that a cup of tea will only help.”

“Excellent idea,” Mrs. Keyes agreed.

“I think we might be past the healing capacity of tea,” I said dazedly.

“You’re right,” Mrs. Keyes said. “Whisky, then.”

For the first time in my life, I longed for the numbing embrace of alcohol others could throw themselves into. Maybe it would be enough to drive out the persistent ice in my veins, to relax the knots in my stomach.

Mrs. Silver retrieved a bottle and three glasses, while Mrs. Keyes settled into the chair beside mine. Her raptor’s gaze pierced my despair, neither judging nor absolving.

“They’re lying.” My voice was a harsh scrape as panic set in. I needed her to believe me. I needed them all to believe me. “I didn’t poison him. There is a poison perfume in her journal, but . . .”

The duke’s words sliced through that thought, eviscerating it. I hope you’ll remember, as you rot away in your dank cell, this very moment . . .

“They’re going to arrest me,” I said suddenly. “They’re going to put me back in Fairgate. That’s why Foxcourt went to Parliament, to try to intervene.”

The calming, muted scents of the kitchen exploded in my nose. My body was doused with ice, then heat, then ice again, as I fought to slow my quickening breath. Out—I had to get out of here—

Mrs. Keyes took my arms firmly in hand, easing me forward so that my face was nearly pressed to my lap. “Simply breathe. It will pass, I promise you. Breathe.”

It was a fight, to be certain. Each gasp of air dragged in and out of me, threatening to tighten the invisible band about my lungs.

“Yes, like that,” Mrs. Keyes said, stroking a hand over the crown of my head. The touch was so maternal, so kindly meant, it sparked a fierce heat behind my eyes.

Mrs. Silver set three glasses of whisky down. She vanished again, only to return with the healing salve. Its medicinal scent burned my nose as she began to apply it to my darkening bruise. I only realized how badly the injury stung when the medicine finally dulled it.

I wanted to cry, to release some of the terrible pressure trapped inside of me, but no tears would come. There was only that suffocating bleakness I’d experienced the day I’d been pushed into the prison cell at Fairgate and the door had locked behind me.

I wasn’t a fool, but I’d never felt stupider in my life or more like a pathetic child. I’d known there was a chance my identity would be exposed before I had finished Immortal Rose, but somehow, I had never considered this—in being exposed, I would also be accused of being the poisoner.

There was no evidence of luck in my life, only stolen bits of fortune I’d been quick enough to snatch. This was why it was dangerous to hope for anything, to allow yourself to be drawn in by the promises and assurances of others. It was the lesson of every fairy story and all their terrible endings: fear the wish granted, for it is never the gift it seems.

But damn it all, I’d barely had a taste of that hope being fulfilled. Why couldn’t I have just had this? This one thing?

I sat up slowly, feeling the women’s hands fall away as I did. My breathing had finally steadied, but my thoughts were still jumbled, and my heart lay in tatters.

And, God, a new chill set in, biting down to my bones. He would see this, too. He would know about me, be able to find me.

With the Rosebourne fortune, I could have paid for protection against him. I could have tightly controlled the release of information about Mama, to spare her memory the humiliation of being painted as a woman of low morals. How could it be that a single article had ripped that power away from me? How had it stolen the narrative I’d only just begun to write?

“I didn’t do it,” I told them again.

“Of course not,” Mrs. Silver said, sitting on the table. “Not that we would have judged you if you had. The old goblin’s temperament could only be improved by a brush with painful death.”

“Celine,” Mrs. Keyes said, chiding.

The cook sniffed in a quintessentially Gallian way, looking as though she was struggling to bite her tongue.

“The only person I’d like to kill is Glenmoor and the policeman who gave the newspaper Mama’s journal,” I said darkly, then paused. “I suppose I’d like to poison the writer of this piece as well.”

Mrs. Silver straightened, her face brightening.