“Yesterday I saw a sample of her gown at my dressmaker’s.” She paused. “You will recall I did say the gown would be important. We call that foreshadowing.”
“Get on with it.”
“That particular gown has only been sold to one person: the costumer at the Theatre Royal. Which means the woman was likely an actress. My mantua-maker is going to inquire who the dress was worn by. And then we’ll have another clue.”
“No,” he snapped. “I already asked you not to pursue this. Do not consult further with your dressmaker. And whatever you do, do not say a single word to Henry Evesham. He’s circling the story and I don’t want him to think that either of us is taking the slightest bit of interest in it.”
“Fine,” she said. “Do you have any further unreasonable and self-defeating demands or will that suffice?”
“That will suffice. Good day.”
He turned around and walked briskly for the door.
“Wait,” she said coldly, half-rising from the sofa.
He could only assume she was going to apologize, so he paused.
“Forgive me for being frank, as I know you despise it when ladies display candor. But since today is Wednesday, I would be remiss if I did not ask you to break your usual appointment.”
He stared at her. Her expression was defiantly blank.
“You must be joking.”
She rose fully to her feet. “I assure you, Apthorp, I am not.”
To think what had been going through his head at lunch. This is how it would feel if she really were in love with me. And the traitorous thought that came after it: What if she wasn’t pretending?
Bile splashed up in his throat for indulging in such foolishness.
The only thing that was real was her low opinion of him.
He shook his head. “My God, the things you think of me.”
“Not think,” she corrected quietly. “Know.”
He was so angry he was shaking. He looked at her long and hard.
“You know nothing, Constance. And though you believe courtesy to be beneath you, I would ask that while we must bear each other’s company, you grant me the small decency of considering what you are implying about my character when you say such things.”
“All I’m implying is that your usual Wednesday habits are not conducive to our current goals,” she said with infuriating calm.
“I wouldn’t observe my usual Wednesday habits, Constance, because in addition to being very foolish with Evesham circling, it would show a distinct lack of care or respect for my supposed future wife. Would it not?”
“Yes,” she said peevishly. “It would.”
He threw up his hands. “And yet you think I would do it anyway? You think I would risk humiliating you for a fuck?”
She was silent, her face pinched into a bitter frown.
He moved closer to her, until he was close enough that she was forced to look at him. “You are very quick to assume that I am a careless person. Someone who harms other people without a thought to the consequences. Have you ever stopped to consider why that is?”
She stared at him angrily. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, I think you do. You’re observant enough to have gathered that we often loathe the qualities in others we most dislike in ourselves.”
Chapter 9
Apthorp’s meaning hit her like a sack of bricks between the shoulder blades, making it difficult to breathe. The old familiar claim. Wicked, harmful Constance. Never to be trusted.
“I see,” she said slowly, so he would not hear that she was trying not to cry. “You believe I think these things of you because they are true of me. You think I harm people.”
“Well, don’t you?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head, wiping moisture from her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m surprised to hear you say that. You’ve always thought poorly of my character, so why would you not believe me to be cruel?”
“Not cruel,” he said. “Reckless.”
That bloody word. How she hated that word.
“Yes, you’ve thought me reckless ever since that day in Devon, haven’t you? Well, perhaps you’re right about me. Perhaps I am reckless. Because I wasn’t trying to get his attention that bloody day—I’d been trying to get yours. And for my reckless efforts, I have been rewarded with no end to your low opinion of me ever since.”
She turned and left the room and slammed the door recklessly behind her. She stomped recklessly through the marble hallways and managed to avoid being caught recklessly weeping until she was halfway up the stairs, where she recklessly collided with Rosecroft on the landing.
“Constance! Whatever is the matter!”
At his concerned tone she threw herself onto his shoulder and recklessly wept.
“I hate him,” she seethed. “He is so unkind.”
“Who?”
“Your bloody cousin bloody Apthorp.”
Beneath her soggy cheek, Rosecroft’s shoulder rumbled gently. He patted her back, moved aside, and dug in his pocket to offer her his handkerchief.
“Bloody Apthorp, indeed,” he said, sounding as much amused as he was sympathetic. “Had your first lovers’ quarrel? Don’t worry, my dear. You’ll be able to extract all sorts of tender moments from the lad once you’ve forgiven him for whatever he’s done to aggrieve you. It’s all part of the fun.” He gave her a wink.
His good-natured amusement made Constance cry harder, because this was not a lovers’ quarrel. This was an enemies’ quarrel, and it had been quietly brewing ever since she returned from France at seventeen.
In keeping with her character, she had acted impulsively. And in keeping with his, he had held it against her ever since.
“I’m going to my room. Tell Winston not to let anyone disturb me.”
She heard Rosecroft chuckling to himself as she marched up to her bedchamber, where she drew the curtains, climbed onto her bed, and stared miserably at the ceiling.
She regretted every moment of that odious party in Devon. She’d been so excited to return to England. After her humiliating sojourn in her native country at fourteen, she’d gone back to France determined to remake herself into a woman who’d never again be subject to rejection. She would gain the upper hand not by fitting in, but by being so clever she would not have to.
And so as soon as her final year in convent school was finished, she’d descended upon her aunt’s apartment in the Marais and made it her sole purpose to observe the elegant, arch French ladies who peopled her aunt’s salons. She apprenticed herself in the absorption of their secrets. How to emphasize one’s supposed flaws to exaggerate the singularity of one’s beauty. How to dress to devastate. How to draw a man’s eye without so much as looking at him. And most crucially: how to read the room.
By carefully observing, one could sense when there was advantage to seeming mysterious and striking, or humble and attentive, or beflattering and generous—and adjust oneself accordingly. This, it turned out, was Constance’s inborn gift.
The art of influence, she’d discerned, was not in being perfect but in being the right thing for the right person. Being admired and indispensable to everyone—floating on a sea of fizzy bons mots and favors—was far more restful than cultivating intimate relationships that pinned one down. For when one was truly known, one could be judged insufficient, and dismissed.