Any Other Name (The Split Worlds) - By Emma Newman Page 0,27
attend here, in fact, I anticipate we’ll be very busy indeed. With all the upheaval of losing the Rosas, I imagine the Londinium notables in Aquae Sulis will abandon the season to consolidate their interests here.”
“Hang on a minute,” she said with a frown. “The Dukedom? They want you to be in charge of the Court?”
He nodded. “I’m under a huge amount of pressure, Catherine. After what happened with the Master of Ceremonies, they’re expecting great things from me.”
“Regret taking all the credit now?”
He smirked. “Not at all. You didn’t seem to appreciate it.”
“I didn’t think you needed anything else to inflate your ego.”
“I didn’t neglect to mention your involvement with the Arbiter and the Sorcerer because I wanted all of the acclaim. I did it to save you the trouble of difficult questions and–”
“There you go again, saving me when I don’t need it.”
“Not just you, the Censor also. She was the one who sent you to help the Sorcerer, after all. I’m sure she wouldn’t have appreciated that being revealed to your family, or the rest of Aquae Sulis for that matter. It isn’t all about you, Catherine.”
She tapped the potato salad with the back of her spoon and was quiet for a few moments. “Hang on. If you become Duke, then I would be Duchess. You don’t have to go for the throne, do you?”
“Catherine, I’m not doing this because I feel like it. Lord Iris wants our family to take Londinium.”
“Aren’t you sick of everyone telling you what to do?”
He took another bite of toast and mulled the question over. “It seems to me that the higher up the ladder you climb, the fewer people can do that. Ultimately, we’ll never stop being… guided by our patrons, but look at the benefits we have in return. If I become Duke, we’ll have more freedom than ever. Wealth independent of the family for one thing, that’s significant. And control over property in a way that’s impossible in Aquae Sulis. They do things very differently here.”
“But do you actually want to be Duke?”
The question made him pause. He hadn’t even thought of it that way; all he’d considered was the difficulty of the task. “That’s irrelevant,” he said and her eyes widened.
“Holy crap, they’ve totally brainwashed you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You haven’t even thought about it that way, have you? They say jump and you say, ‘How high?’” She shook her head. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard that song.” She dumped the spoon and leaned forwards. “What I don’t understand is how you could travel all around the world, meet people – mundane people – and see the most amazing things, then just come back and forget about it all!”
“I’ll never forget my Grand Tour, it was the best time I’ve ever had.” He didn’t want to admit how much he missed the Sicilian coast. He didn’t want to think about that woman, her laugh, and kissing away the tiny white circles of salt dried on her legs as the sun set.
“But didn’t it make you realise how much you’re missing now?”
He pulled his mind back to her and realised how strange a question it was. “That’s an odd way to see a Grand Tour. It isn’t a chance to see all the things denied us. It’s a chance to broaden our minds.”
“Oh, yes, but for men only, because women don’t have minds to broaden.”
“Ladies choose not to lose the first bloom of youth.”
“We don’t choose anything. Trust me.”
He sat back, aware that he was underprepared for her attitude. During their brief engagement she’d made it very clear she was unhappy about the match, but he hadn’t discovered the root of her dissatisfaction. She’d apologised for her bad manners, and then repeatedly destroyed every attempt to have a civil conversation. The only time they’d actually agreed on anything was when he had to distract the staff at the Rosas’ failed housewarming party so the Arbiter could enter the house unseen.
Memories of Horatio Gallica-Rosa’s accusations returned with renewed clarity. He’d said she’d been living in Mundanus instead of being polished up at a finishing school abroad. The evidence supporting Horatio’s claims certainly outweighed any of lessons in deportment.
“Didn’t your mother prepare you for this life in any way at all?” he finally asked.
“All she did was demonstrate how–” She cut herself off and sucked in a deep breath. “They did all they could, in their own way. It just didn’t… I just… I’m just…” She closed her eyes, looking very