Page 103 of The Shadow Key

‘Come, my lady,’ he murmurs.

There are cries of displeasure from the table, and trembling with anger Linette pushes herself away from it in a rush of scraping chair and cutlery. Mr Dee is rising too, Miss Carew with him, and all at once they stand.

‘Mamma,’ Linette says, stern. ‘You’re going back upstairs.’

‘No.’

The authoritative way her mother says the word makes Linette stare. Lady Pennant claps her hands gleefully together.

‘See! She does not want to go. Come now, have her stay here with us. We’ll take very good care of her.’

But there is something in Lady Anne’s expression Linette does not like – a look of triumphant hunger, a cruel and taunting greed – and as Lady Selwyn begins to titter the others follow suit, Dr Beddoe and Mr Lambeth watching in amusement. Linette turns her back on them all.

‘Mamma, do not argue.’

‘No. No!’

Above her mother’s pale head, she meets Henry’s gaze. His dark eyes are hard, angry, and an unspoken truth passes between them.

Her mother is not safe here.

At that moment Lady Gwen begins to sob. Not the soft cries of a genteel lady but the sobs of (and Linette hates to think it), a madwoman. Loud and guttural, her breath catching at each rise and fall of her chest. Indeed, the change in her is quite extraordinary.

Henry takes both her mother’s hands in one of his, wraps his arm about her shoulders, attempts to steer her away.

‘Open the door,’ he instructs.

Mr Dee moves to obey, but before he can do so Lady Gwen attempts to fling herself from Henry’s arms, striking Linette sharply across the chin; a sting explodes along her skull and with a shout she falls against the wainscoting, holding a hand to her face. From the floor she sees that it is to Julian that Lady Gwen reaches – but he merely stares at her without expression, black eyes like deep pools of tar.

‘You will not take them,’ her mother sobs, voice rising, desperate and wild, and Linette rises unsteadily to her feet, hand still to her jaw, wary, heartsore. Miss Carew gently takes her arm.

‘Mamma, please!’

In that moment the dining-room door flings open and Enaid rushes through it, the keys on her chatelaine jangling loudly in time to her gait.

‘My lady! My lady!’

The old woman’s appearance is enough, it seems, to make her mistress cease her sobs. Linette’s mother’s eyes roll to the back of her head – the whites frightening in their starkness – and as she faints into Henry’s waiting arms, Lady Selwyn’s citrine jewel falls to the floor where it lands on the rug with a dull and heavy thump.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Henry takes the first flight of stairs two steps at a time, Gwen Tresilian – weighing no more than a child – lying limp in his arms. He is tired. He is body-weary and brain-worn, a condition which can easily be accounted for by the upheaval of the past few days but now, after the events of this evening, Henry feels as if he has been entirely stripped of all vigour. He longs to simply shut his eyes and sleep.

He hated that dinner, hated the fakery, the forced politeness. Julian had held it in his honour yet it felt like a mockery, an opportunity to show him off as some sort of jest that Henry was not part of. Still, he has become adept over the years at discoursing with entitled gentry; has he not dined with the governor of Guy’s Hospital and his arrogant associates, endured the likes of many such as the Pennants and Selwyns, the coarser company of self-entitled men such as Beddoe and Lambeth, and pretended to look as if he enjoyed it?

Linette, however, made no such attempt; her frustration was clear to see on her face, simmering like water boiling within a covered pot, and once Julian confessed to his ludicrous scheme – Slate to copper, copper to gold – he expected Linette at any moment to let her anger at Julian and his guests spill over, that she might let her caustic tongue run wild. And perhaps she would have, if it had not been for Gwen Tresilian.

If tonight has taught him anything, it is that he can keep quiet no longer. Indeed, Henry did not mean to keep his silence for as long as he has. Enough is enough.

They form an odd procession. Mrs Evans and Linette, Mr Dee and Rowena, following him up the stairs like a ceremonial troupe. The housekeeper trails close at his heels, wringing her hands in anguish.

‘Oh, be careful,’ she whispers. ‘My lady’s never fainted before.’

‘Perhaps because you never gave her the opportunity?’ Henry retorts.

‘I don’t understand,’ comes the reply in a voice wobbling with emotion. ‘I’ve always protected her.’

‘What an interesting way of putting it,’ he replies as they reach his patient’s rooms. ‘I’d not class poisoning your charge as protection, but to each their own.’

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