Page 25 of Thrones We Steal

He shelters me against his chest, and we step outside to face the ugliness of this country I once called beautiful.

9

“We Fall Apart” - We As Human

My mother and Beatrice are waiting for me when I get home. One look at their faces tells me everything I need to know.

“Oh my god, Celia!” Bea cries and launches herself at me as I walk through the back door. Lane and Davies remain outside to secure the perimeter, ma’am. “I can’t believe what they’re saying. Is it true?”

“Let her breathe, Beatrice,” Rosalind says. She disentangles my neck from Bea’s overeager grip. “How are you holding up?” she asks me, eyeing the bandage on my forehead.

“I’m fine. Just a scratch. Everything else will need more than a sticking plaster.”

She nods and I can see her already concocting a scheme. My worst fears have just collided with her highest hopes, and there is nowhere to hide. The one upside is that if anyone can find a way to spin this so that we come out the other side looking like heroes, it is Rosalind. “We’ll get through this. I’ll make sure of it.”

I move down the hall with the intention of some time alone to figure out what to do next, but Bea has other ideas and follows me into the library.

“Not now, Bea. Please. I just want to be alone.”

She bites her lower lip, normally covered in gloss but now uncharacteristically void. I realize she isn’t wearing any makeup at all, something I’ve rarely seen since Rosalind allowed it when Bea turned fourteen, a whole year younger than I’d been allowed. “I need to talk to you,” she says.

“What about?” I pick up the stack of mail on my desk and flip through it.

“It was me.”

“What was you?” I pull out several items that are destined for the rubbish bin and set them aside.

“I gave those papers to Fran. She took them to WBC.”

I turn to study her. She’s destroying her nails, pink flecks of polish peppering the rug. “What papers?”

“The ones on your desk. The ones you fought with Henry over.” She raises trembling fingers to her eyes and presses them into her sockets. “That’s why this all happened. It’s my fault.”

Comprehension sifts into my foggy head. I scan my desk for the photocopies that I somehow failed to miss all weekend. “You turned the diary over to the press?”

Fingers still jabbed into her eyes, she nods.

“What the hell, Beatrice?”

A trembling sob slips past her lips. “I didn’t know! I had no idea what it was. I came downstairs to get a cup of tea and I heard you and Henry in the kitchen. I was jealous and stayed to listen. I heard you fighting about something and—”

“You thought you’d take your jealousy out on me?”

“I wasn’t really thinking.”

“You don’t say.”

“I knew that Henry wanted to come forward with whatever was in those papers and you didn’t. I wanted to help him out.”

“You betrayed your sister for a fling? You must really hate me.”

“I don’t!” She clasps her hands together as though in prayer. She’ll need a prayer before I’m through with her. “I don’t hate you, Celia. I just … lost myself for a moment. I thought I could help Henry out and …” Her shoulders droop.

“You made as big of a mess for him as you did for me. Even if I had let him come out with this, he wouldn’t have gone to the bloody WBC.”

“I know that now. I—I’m sorry for everything. Please say you forgive me. I’ll do anything.”

Before I can answer, my phone rings. It’s Beck. “I need to take this, but we are not done here.” I push past her, accepting the call on my way out of the room.

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