The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,39
leaned close together, whispering blond hair against brown, barely enough space for a breath between them, both men’s faces troubled and pale.
Her friends had always argued in the Swallows, but this was more than friendly teasing. People were becoming actually angry. Penelope leaned against the back wall of the tavern, seeking comfort from the wall’s sturdy bulk.
After a moment, Griffin angled toward her, firelight licking across her face. “Everything alright, Flood?”
Penelope bit her lip and shook her head. “It shouldn’t have to come to this. It should be easier to sever a union when the parties make one another so evidently miserable. Even if she was tired of Italy—why can they simply not live apart, as so many couples do?”
“Because he’s King and she’s Queen,” Griffin said grimly. “And they both want everything that means.”
“So he has to brand her publicly as faithless and depraved, and the Lords have to all vote on whether they agree. And for what? Spite and pride.”
“And power,” Griffin countered. “Even if she’s not crowned, as long as they’re married, she can be used as a cudgel against his ministers. Good English loyalists who wouldn’t pick up a radical paper to light their kitchen fires with will champion Caroline, because they can do so without feeling it makes them disloyal. You heard Mr. Kitt: the radical press will support the Queen because they oppose George, not necessarily because they believe the Queen to have done nothing wrong in Italy.”
“Who cares what she did in Italy?” Penelope burst out. “If George doesn’t want her, why should it matter that somebody else does?”
Griffin’s dark eyes were hot as coals as they pinned Penelope in place. “Would it have mattered to you? If you had someone who—who wanted you, and your husband was an ocean away, would you have taken any happiness you were offered, no matter how illicit?”
Penelope laughed painfully, for that struck too near the bone. Griffin wasn’t to know how Penelope dreamed of unbuttoning the high prim collar of John’s coat to press hungry lips against the printer’s neck; how often she imagined Griffin’s slender form trapping her against a tree in the heart of the wood, while Penelope’s hands shoved that blue coat off the dark-haired woman’s shoulders.
Even now, hearing Griffin’s voice turn stern and steely like that made Penelope want to fall to her knees and do anything the woman commanded her to do. The more licentious the better.
Her friend wasn’t offering anything like that, no matter how much Penelope wished she would. Agatha Griffin was far too respectable for that sort of dalliance.
Penelope turned her tankard around on the table, leaving dark wet rings on the wood. “I would have to think about the consequences of any indiscretion,” she said. “How many of my friends and servants have been paid to inform on me? How many eyes are watching me, prepared to exploit any errors or sins or moments of weakness?”
Griffin sucked in a breath so sharp it sounded as though she’d been stabbed. Slowly, she leaned away, both hands clutching her cup hard enough that her knuckles shone white against the pewter. “Indeed,” she said, refusing to meet Penelope’s gaze. “A husband’s power knows very few limitations, even when he is not a king.”
Penelope knew she’d said something hurtful, but couldn’t think what. They sank into a private, awkward silence for two, while all around them people argued over adultery.
Inevitably the Turner boy came around, hawking caricatures and cartoons about the scandal.
Mr. Painter turned up his nose at the whole set, and went outside to smoke in peace. Mr. Biswas set aside the Times to buy a sheet of the cheapest paper, splashed with the brightest colors. The image showed Queen Caroline as a luxuriant, fluffed-up chicken, the feathers of the headdresses she favored carrying down to clothe her squat, round shape. Beside her a towering rooster in Italian costume bowed chivalrously over her hand, while in the background various foxes in Liberty caps pilfered the henhouse of all its eggs. Scrawled names of radical writers floated above their heads like smoke from revolutionary bonfires: Cobbett and Carlyle, Hone, Brougham, and Hunt. Lord Sidmouth was written above a turtle in a constable’s costume, but it was clear he’d arrive too late to apprehend the thieves.
A COCK IN THE HENHOUSE, read the caption.
Mr. and Mrs. Biswas snickered; Mrs. Koskinen rolled her eyes and resumed whispering anxiously into her husband’s ear about possible legal wrinkles in the coming debate.