“It may be,” he said thoughtfully. “And that suggests your earlier point was correct, as well. If she cannot even rebut me, I do not see how others like her hope to stand up against the elders of the Sanctuary. They are far more eloquent than I am.”
In my peripheral vision, I could see Mrs. Kefford opening her mouth to say something, but I didn’t give her the chance to interrupt. “Well, she isn’t quite old enough yet to be counted as an elder. But perhaps in a few more years?”
Grandmama, we routed her. Not by engaging directly—our sniping at her social and political acumen notwithstanding, she’s far too good at that sort of thing—but by making her play audience to our willful defamation. She couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Kudshayn and I kept improvising new, barely veiled insults until she finally gave up. It was that or shout over us.
Kudshayn’s wings rattled with laughter as she stalked off. When he sobered a moment later, I thought it was because the reality of our situation had come crashing down again—until I heard a voice behind me say, “Miss Camherst. May I have the honour of this dance?”
Of course Aaron Mornett was there. I’d even half expected it. But I didn’t expect him to come up behind me without warning. It took me so much by surprise that I couldn’t even compose the refusal he deserved; whatever incoherence I stammered out, he took it as a yes, leading me out onto the floor for a waltz.
I shot a pleading look at Kudshayn, but by then it was too late, unless Kudshayn wanted to make a scene. Mornett and I squared up, holding each other like two bombs about to go off, and then the flow of the dance carried us away.
Is it wrong that I briefly wondered if he had somehow managed to take credit for some other man’s dancing skill? He’s gotten a good deal better since the last time we danced, during my disastrous Season. I am still as bad as ever, of course. It should be much easier to dance well with a skilled lead, but that only works if the follow is willing to relax and be guided, which I wasn’t at all.
Mornett could feel it, too. He said, “I would compliment you on your dress, but somehow I suspect you don’t want to hear such things from me.”
I think my riposte was some brilliant piece of original wit like “How can you tell?”
He sighed. “Audrey . . . Miss Camherst. Would you believe me if I said I regret our falling-out?”
“Our falling-out,” I repeated, my voice flat. “But not what you did to cause it.”
“I would like to start over,” he said. It’s good he kept to the basic waltz step, not trying anything complicated, because I would have tripped over him if he had. “Do you think that’s possible?”
My nerves would have liked me to go on staring fixedly at his bow tie—but that would have been cowardly. The last time he and I had spoken, I’d spent nearly an hour planning what to say to him; it’s much easier for me to simply open my mouth and let words fall out. I lifted my chin and met his gaze, saying, “That would require you to be honest with me, and every piece of available evidence says you aren’t capable of it.”
I took some satisfaction in him stumbling, losing the smooth pattern of the waltz before regaining it. “You truly think so little of me?”
“Just now I reminded you that what happened five years ago wasn’t some accident or inevitable occurrence; it was the result of your own actions. You had a chance to admit your guilt, but instead you dodged—just as you have always done. You say you want to start over with me, but you seem to think we can just shovel dirt over the past and roses will grow.” My fingers were digging into his shoulder, harder with every step we took. “That may be your habit, but it isn’t mine. And you’re relying on that, aren’t you? I don’t know how you think I could ignore the truth in my personal life, and at the same time make plans that rely on me to—”
(I said it’s easier for me to let words fall out. I didn’t say the results are any better when they do.)
“Rely on you to what?” he said.
And then we drifted to a halt, right there in the middle of the floor, as he realized. I hadn’t said it . . . but Mornett, damn him, does know me. In some ways, he understands me like no one else does.
As you always say, Grandmama: hanged for a fleece, hanged for a yak. “We know,” I told him, my voice low.
You’ve met the man; you know how smooth-spoken he is. For the first time, I saw him at an utter loss for words. All he managed to get out was a stuttering “How?”
“A mistake on Gleinleigh’s part,” I said, “or more than one—certainly he underestimated his niece’s intelligence. She recognized one of the tablets in his so-called cache.”
Mornett shaped a soundless curse. “That vainglorious fool. We told him the epic would be enough. But no, he had to make a grand discovery of it, throwing in every tablet he could get his hands on—”
I realized, very much to my surprise, that Mornett was a little drunk. He wasn’t much for that sort of thing back when I knew him, and I don’t know whether he’s changed . . . or whether he resorted to some liquid courage before approaching me. Given where he’d tried to start the conversation, I have to admit the latter is possible.
“Did he buy out Dorak’s whole stock?” I said.
That was supposed to be a sour joke, but Mornett said, “Yes. And had to be talked out of staging an entire fake temple or library; he didn’t understand that people would have spotted that immediately.”
I can believe it. Gleinleigh likes to buy the fruits of archaeologists’ labours—or rather, the things stolen out from under their noses—but has no particular interest in or respect for the science of it.
The next part, I didn’t want to ask . . . but whether it was because of the drink or how I’d needled him about honesty, I had Mornett talking. I couldn’t let my own bruised feelings get in the way of exploiting that. “How long ago was it found, really?” I asked. Then, before Mornett could answer that, the real question tore its way out of me: “How long ago did you read the epic?”
Just then Lady Cossimere whirled past and snapped at us to leave the floor if we weren’t going to dance anymore. If she’d prevented Mornett from answering, I swear I would have torn her ridiculous wig off. But as it happens, I can’t pin the blame on her, because something else interrupted us much more thoroughly: a sudden boom, loud enough and close enough that it rattled the crystals in the chandelier.
The band stopped playing, and the dancers all drifted to a halt. Dr. Pinfell got up at the front of the room and told us all it was nothing, that we should go back to enjoying ourselves, but of course he had no more idea what was going on than the rest of us did, so nobody listened to him. People went to the windows and peered outside, trying to see what had caused the noise, but the Whitsea Salon is on the wrong side of the Tomphries for that. Alan had just made up his mind to go into the street and inquire when the door swung open and Cora came rushing in, hair wild and face streaked with soot.
She isn’t one to soften things even under ordinary circumstances. Her gaze raked the crowd until she found me, and then she shrieked, “Someone has blown up the annex!”
I don’t remember much of what followed. My mind just went white with shock. I know I ran for the door, and half the room ran with me; Simeon told me afterward that Pinfell just fainted dead away. We all stampeded outside and around to the back of the Tomphries, and at that point even people who didn’t know the museum had an annex could see where to go, because there was a sinister glow coming from Hemminge Street.