Rise of the Arcane Fire (The Secret Order) (16 page)

“After this debacle I wouldn’t be surprised if your grandson’s future wife is never invited to another Society function again. I don’t care if she is to be the Duchess of Chadwick.” Lady Thornby’s daughter, who had been watching the exchange, giggled behind her hand.

How dare they?

Lucinda had been a part of their “Society” for all her life. She had grown up under the pressure of their scrutiny, and now that she’d found the courage to attempt to defy the lot of them, they set their tongues wagging like a bunch of chattering hens ready to crucify her.

“Yes, strong head, fickle heart in that one. Such a temperament tends to cause difficulties in our politics, but it has never caused as much ruin as blind ambition.” The duchess arched a knowing brow at me.

It seemed I was being conscripted to fight in this war. Very well. I could handle myself. Determined to tell them exactly what I thought, I answered, “If the Order bases power and influence on family connections, the vagaries of the human heart will always be a variable. The intelligent course of action would be to give up on manipulating the system through marriage entirely and distribute power equitably through merit alone.”

“Rubbish.” Lady Thornby screwed her face up as if she had just tasted something foul. I was pretty certain it was her own tongue. “Do not listen to her, Lady Chadwick. She is young and foolish, if her own marriage prospects and latest embarrassment with this apprentice nonsense are any indication.”

Lady Chadwick grinned in a way that reminded me very much of her grandson. “I would agree with you, Lady Thornby, except Miss Whitlock’s family has a long-standing tradition of following the whims of their hearts.” Lady Chadwick tilted her head. The twitching feathers looked as if they were holding back laughter.

“And what has it gotten them?” Lady Thornby asked. “Nothing but tragedy and ruin, so far as I can tell.”

The duchess half-closed her eyes in the way a cat does when it deems itself far too clever to even acknowledge a mere mortal. “Yet they stand poised to take control of the Order, should Henry still be living. He was the worst of the lot of them, the fickle beast. In spite of that, none of the Whitlock affairs seems to have lessened the standing of the family as a whole, unlike your carefully managed arrangements, which landed you with an imbecile.”

I tried hard not to laugh. I did, truly, but I am a weak soul, and I had to look away to hide my unrepentant mirth. Lady Thornby didn’t seem to notice, as she quickly excused herself without another word, her daughter following at her heel.

“Dear, dear, I think I may have offended her.” Lady Chadwick tapped her cane on the floor. “I wonder what it was I said.”

“The truest barbs stick deepest.” I collected myself, though I felt the strain of holding back my smile.

“Indeed.” She carefully looked me over. “You remind me of Henry. You have his spirit.”

“Should I take that as an insult, since you claim he was the worst of our lot?” I tilted my head at her in challenge.

“Yes, well, I suppose he settled down some once married. In his youth, though, he was a man who knew little restraint. Very little. But Henry was that way, always dancing along the edge of scandal and causing controversy within the Order.” She waved her hand in a flippant way as if to say she didn’t wish to discuss it, so I shouldn’t ask.

All the noise of conversation filling the glass chamber seemed to quiet to a murmuring hush in my mind.

If my grandfather had enemies, the man with the mask might be counted among them.

I wanted to know more, but then, on the other hand, I was too afraid to look behind the smoke and mirrors and expose the illusion of my grandfather as a good and well-respected man. The prospect of hearing about my grandfather’s youthful dalliances seemed distasteful. Frankly, the thought was appalling.

I swallowed the foul taste in my mouth and continued. “I can’t believe my grandfather would be involved in a scandal. He was always a gentleman and never involved in anything unsavory.”

The duchess laughed.

“Oh, my dear child.” She took my arm and waved her cane in front of her skirt. The crowd parted out of self-preservation. “How sweet you are. Perhaps such innocence serves you well. I shouldn’t spoil it.”

I certainly didn’t want to hear ear-burning details about long-dead affairs, especially ones involving my
grandfather
. I only wanted to know one thing. “Would any of these scandals have caused someone to stoop to murder?”

The duchess continued to walk, swinging her cane, clearly enjoying drawing out my suspense. “Well, there was that unmentionable business with the Haddocks, but they were a bit before my time, really.”

“Clearly, a woman as clever as you knows something.” I continued to hold the old woman’s arm gently, even though I wished I were leading her to Scotland Yard to interrogate her properly. Instead she found a bench near the edge of the glass and shooed away the occupants, then perched upon it like a proud old crow.

In the background I could hear Lucinda’s mother resume her speech about her husband’s great achievements, though her voice now wavered and cracked with uncertainty, after her daughter’s outburst. Those around us turned to listen. The cool glass curved above us, making me feel crowded into an uncomfortable confidence.

The duchess smiled. “Richard Haddock had been your grandfather’s mentor, treated Henry like the son he never had.”

“What was so scandalous about that?” I felt something cold drip onto my neck, and I looked up suspiciously at the seam in the glass. I didn’t like to think what would happen should those seams fail.

“I really can’t mention what nasty business Haddock was up to. In fact, I shouldn’t even be saying his name. He found himself afoul of the rules of the Order. I was never privy to the meetings involving his trial. But I do know that if your grandfather had testified on behalf of Haddock, things might not have ended so badly.” The duchess didn’t look at me. Instead she seemed riveted by the quavering eulogy. “Of course I couldn’t blame Henry. The influence of the Haddock line was waning considerably, and your grandfather had great ambitions. It would have been foolish to tie his fate to that. None of us want the scourge of the Black Mark. Better to be the betrayer than the one who has to endure that fate.”

Betrayer? My grandfather was as loyal a man as God had ever created. He would never betray anyone. It didn’t make any sense. “What is the Black Mark?” I asked, feeling vaguely ill.

The duchess polished the brow of the eagle head with her handkerchief. “The family line is quite simply erased, and any fortune that has been made through the Order is returned to the coffers. If the crime is severe enough, your life is forfeit. Your grandfather on the Reichlin side was charged with enforcing the sentence against Haddock. He never believed Henry was innocent of the crimes Haddock died for.”

My mind went immediately to the blacked-out name in Simon’s journal. The name must have been Haddock.

“What happened to the rest of the Haddock family?” I asked. Any one of them would have just cause to wish ill upon my family, both the Whitlocks and the Reichlins.

“They were well in decline before the whole mess. The more superstitious among us would say they were cursed. Haddock’s only true family was his daughter. She was a silly young girl, always far away and lost in her own head. About the time Haddock fell afoul of the Order, he shipped her off to live with her spinster aunt on the Continent. I believe he wished to spare her the pain of his trial.”

“Did she ever marry?” If she had, the Haddock line would have continued through her.

“No, I don’t believe she ever did.”

I leaned back, my shoulders hitting the ice-like glass behind me. And that was the last of my only lead to the identity of the man with the clockwork mask. There was only one thing I knew for certain. The man behind the mask was clearly not an old woman.

“Don’t fret, child. Your grandfather knows how the game is played. Henry Whitlock is one of the most intelligent men the Order has ever seen. He knew exactly what must be done to ensure the Whitlock lineage at that time. Not even your mother’s broken betrothal to the dearly departed Lord Strompton put him off for long.”

What?
I found myself speechless, which was a blessing, since the old duchess continued as if she hadn’t just shattered everything I’d ever thought to be true of my family. “He took advantage of the new ties to the Reichlin clan and still sealed his carefully planned political agreement with the Harringtons. It all tied up very neatly when he arranged for your marriage when you weren’t yet a year old.”

Shocked, I sat upright. “I beg your pardon?” It came out as a squeak.

“Didn’t you know, dear? He had an agreement for you to marry Lord Strompton.”

I had to clutch my stomach as I nearly became violently ill on the floor. “But he was old enough to be my
father
.” Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the bubble. I felt trapped under the glass.

The old woman cackled, which made Lady Strompton pause in her speech, and the assembly turned their pale faces to us. “Gracious, not that Lord Strompton,” she said with a labored breath. “
That
Lord Strompton.”

And with her pronouncement she pointed the head of her cane directly at David.

LADY CHADWICK’S UNEXPECTED REVELATION ABOUT
my betrothal consumed all my thoughts as I tried to return my life to some semblance of what it had been before Lord Strompton’s memorial.

It didn’t work.

Not a moment seemed to pass when I didn’t tumble from a deep feeling of betrayal and disillusionment on the one hand, and sheer revulsion on the other. Secret affairs, betrothals, scandals, intrigue—I’d had my fill of them.

The only peace I found was back in my workshop, where I could focus on the Haddock mystery. However, that peace came at a high cost. I found myself burning candles well into the night, scouring Simon Pricket’s writings for any information about the Haddock line, and yet I found nothing.

The Haddock name had been well and truly blacked out, or carefully not mentioned at all.

The entire affair put me in a foul mood so severe, it could not even be soothed by the promise of buttered cheese crumpets. I felt tired all the time. My muscles ached with my fatigue. It became difficult to muster the will to move at all. At times I would find myself staring at the mantel, letting my eyes trace over the swirls in the polished wood. I didn’t want to think. My head swam, as if underwater, but out of some heavy sense of duty, I managed to pull myself through each day.

I feared I would never be cheerful again.

The family I had held so dear to my heart had only been wooden dolls. I had dressed them in the manner I’d wished to see them, but I knew nothing about who they really were. I could only see them from the outside.

My mother had been intended to marry Lord Strompton. My soft-spoken mother, who had always been so accommodating, had broken an engagement to an earl and eloped with the son of a man her father had believed guilty of a horrible crime.

I didn’t remember such spirit in her, and now that she was gone, I felt I’d never truthfully known her. I never
would
know her. It broke my heart.

And my grandfather.

I was still trying to find a way to combine my memories of a kind and gentle man who danced with me and sang me silly songs, with the truth, unless that truth was nothing but vicious old gossip.

I clasped my hand around the clockwork key. My grandfather had used me and my childhood games to create a fail-safe for his precious master key, a key that people were still trying to murder me for.

And now I had come to discover that he had been willing to bind my future, my entire life, to whatever family could gain him the most political power. Strompton must have been so eager for the arrangement. He never would have imagined that I would become an apprentice, and his son’s rival. I was to be David’s bride and the final nail in the political scaffolding that would give the Harrington family control over everything.

What was I to do with such knowledge? I wanted to burn it from my soul, and I couldn’t.

My grandfather had betrayed me.

Perhaps it would be better if he were dead.

I hated that thought most of all.

Back at the Academy things seemed to go from bad to worse. How I found the strength to keep going was a mystery to me. Yet I managed to attend each of my lessons and performed my tasks as well as I was able, in spite of the nagging doubt that no matter what I did, it would never be good enough.

The current seating arrangements didn’t help.

Now that the headmaster suspected sabotage, he kept me under extra scrutiny. I was forced to sit at the very front of the class, and I was not allowed to collaborate with anyone.

This made it difficult to even speak with Peter. I couldn’t believe he was the saboteur. I had to find a way to prove he wasn’t.

But that was not the worst of it.

I glanced at the ceiling as David stood next to me in his perfectly brushed coat. With all the arrogance and self-assuredness of the lord of the manor, he confidently answered Instructor Barnabus’s questions one after another.