The Queer Principles of Kit Webb - Cat Sebastian Page 0,8
locked the duchess in her rooms after the duchess caused the duke’s morning chocolate to be laced with what was either an emetic or arsenic, depending on who one believed. It was also how he learned the duke had his mistress housed in the east wing of Cheveril Castle, and also that the duchess, either in retaliation or in provocation, had sold a coronet and used the proceeds to build a Roman Catholic chapel on the grounds of that same estate.
During these years of civil war, Percy was well aware that his parents were equally matched adversaries, and that the only people who imagined the duchess to be an innocent victim were the same people who could not imagine a woman as conniving as his mother even existing. But none of that mattered: Percy was a partisan of the duchess, a fact as immutable as his yellow hair or his gray eyes.
The duchess had other partisans, of course, and Percy needed to visit one of them to confirm his suspicions about the book.
Lionel Redmond was a distant maternal cousin. He had been sent to seminary in France and was now a Roman Catholic priest in London. His mother’s family, the Percys, were an old family of Catholics. His father’s family, the Talbots, were emphatically Church of England. After decades upon decades of persecution, English Catholics could now, at least, be relatively certain that they could huddle in an alehouse or a cockpit for a makeshift mass without finding themselves burned at the stake, but that didn’t prevent Percy from looking repeatedly over his shoulder as he made his way from the carriage to the narrow little house where his cousin lived.
“Cousin Edward,” Lionel said when he saw Percy waiting in the parlor.
“Father,” Percy responded, getting to his feet and bowing his head.
“Have you come to tell me of your travels?” Lionel asked, and Percy realized his cousin probably imagined that Percy had dined with the pope or some such.
“You’re a kind man to invite me to bore you with my stories,” Percy said. “But in fact, I have a more sorrowful reason for my visit.”
“Oh dear,” Lionel said, and gestured for Percy to sit.
“As you know, I was in Florence when news of my mother’s death reached me during the summer of last year. The solicitor wrote to me about the portions of her marriage settlement that pertained to property left to me upon her death.” There had been startlingly little. The property that was his mother’s dowry passed into his father’s hands at the time of their marriage, with a nominal amount held back for the dowries of their future daughters.
“I hoped you could tell me what became of her personal property. When I returned last month, I discovered that her rooms were now occupied by the new duchess, and my mother’s little things—books and combs and so forth—were gone. My father claims to have distributed them among the servants, but I hope he sent you something as well.”
Lionel frowned. “Indeed, he did not. But, as you know, your father is hardly sympathetic to the true faith.”
Percy hummed in understanding. “I wish I had something of hers to remember her by,” he said. Which was the kind of truth he didn’t like to think about, so he uttered the words without letting them seep into his thoughts. “Do you remember that little green book she carried about? I’d pay a king’s ransom for the chance to even see it one more time.”
Percy didn’t know if it was his imagination or if something shifted in his cousin’s posture—a tilt of the head, a narrowing of the eyes, but suddenly the old man looked as shrewd as Percy’s mother.
“The only book I ever saw your mother with was her Bible,” Lionel said.
As far as lies went, that was a bad one, because there was no possibility Lionel had somehow escaped noticing that little book. An easily disproven falsehood is no better than a confession was one of the duchess’s lessons.
“That’s a pity,” Percy said lightly. “If you remember anything about it, please do tell me. Meanwhile, I’ve brought a bank draft for you to use as you see fit in the tending of your flock.” He took the paper from his pocket and left it casually on the chimneypiece, and hoped that his cousin would correctly interpret that as a promise to pay for future information.
When he returned to Clare House, Percy found his valet waiting in his apartments.