Page 32 of Whiskers and Wiles

He slammed his cards down on the table, bending the corner of one, and pushed to stand.

“What is this all about?” he demanded. “What poisoned ideas are you attempting to slip into my ear? That women should be barristers?” He glared at Pollock. A moment later, he blinked, then turned his furious glare on Waldorf. “No! This entire ruse has been about the Mercian Plan from the start, hasn’t it.”

“Is that what this entire thing has been about?” Gruffudd asked, abandoning his cards and standing with a sour expression. “Is that why she interrupted the game?” He nodded to Kat.

“That is most certainly not our aim,” Waldorf said, frowning at Kat.

“You cannot allow these men to persuade you to stand against the only viable pathway to unity that has currently been presented,” Kat said, standing as well. “They will convince you to vote against it, when the time comes. You must remain firm in your resolve to?—”

“The Mercian Plan is a pile of shite,” MacLeod snapped so loudly that Kat jumped. He glared at Pollock, then Waldorf, then said, “If you scruffy bastards think you can trick and coerce decent men into allowing such a wicked plan to be brought forward for debate, then believe me, sirs, I will stop at nothing until every last whiskered one of you are exposed as the villains to all that is right and proper that you are. Good night.”

With that, MacLeod, Blackthorne, Gruffudd, and perhaps the last hope the Mercian Plan had of being presented at the opening of Joint Parliament the following week, left the room.

Kat was only just beginning to grasp that the situation before her was not what she assumed it was. Her triumphant look was fading fast, and the color in her cheeks was draining.

“Lady Katherine,” Pollock said, shaking with rage. “What have you done?”

Ten

Kat’s momentof triumph was devastatingly short-lived. She had been so absolutely certain she was right, so completely convinced that Waldorf was the devil, the wolf at the door, and that he tainted everything he touched. But as Lord MacLeod had bellowed about being tricked into supporting the very cause Kat had worked so hard for, as the men had left the gaming room glaring at her, and at Waldorf as well, in disgust, a deep sense of horror began to flood Kat’s soul.

“Lady Katherine, what have you done?” Lord Pollock demanded, shaking and red-faced.

Kat pressed a hand to her stomach. “I…I am not entirely certain, my lord,” the words gusted out of her.

She glanced to Waldorf for help, but Waldorf merely gaped back at her, as if he still could not fathom what had just transpired.

“I will tell you what you have done,” Lord Pollock said, stepping closer to her. So close, in fact, that Kat was forced to take a step back to avoid the man bowling right into her. “You have destroyed the efforts of an entire season, madam,” he snapped. “You have turned an exceedingly influential Ministerof Joint Parliament against the Mercian Plan. You have more or less ensured that the bill will not be brought forward for debate once Joint Parliament is opened, very likely delaying the unification of Britannia for many years to come.”

Kat could not have felt more miserable if she had tried. “I…I did not know,” she stammered. “I was sent a note…I thought…I believed it to be….”

She glanced to Waldorf again, hoping he might at least be open to her explanation, but Waldorf had turned to the side and was rubbing his hands over his face, eyes wide, as though he were desperately puzzling out what to do next and how the situation might be salvaged.

“I am terribly sorry,” Kat whispered.

“Furthermore,” Lord Pollock went on, raising his voice and making Kat flinch, “you have very possibly just decimated a secret organization that has been working for the cause of unity for decades, centuries, even. You have more or less revealed the identities of dozens of agents, whose affiliation with the very cause that I believe you support, who have managed to keep those identities a secret for a great many years.”

“I did not realize….” Kat stammered, feeling more awful still.

“No, madam, you did not!” Lord Pollock shouted at her. Kat flinched again, but increasingly, she felt as if she deserved every twist of fear and load of guilt that was heaped upon her. “You marched into this room, into this delicate situation, on some matter of your own, intent on destruction when the rest of us were determined to build a future that would have benefitted all.”

“It was never my intention to?—”

“I cannot stand here and listen to your excuses, madam,” Lord Pollock snapped, cutting her off and making her shrink in on herself. He glanced to Waldorf, then made a sound that was partway between a sigh and a growl. “I cannot stand thiswoman’s presence for another moment. I fear if I do not remove myself, I shall take actions that are truly regrettable.”

“Understood,” Waldorf said, stepping forward at last.

Lord Pollock pinched his face for a moment, as if in pain, then went on with, “I will need to report this to our superior. The matter may be taken all the way to the top.”

“You must do as you see fit,” Waldorf said, his voice hoarse and his expression wary.

Lord Pollock sent Kat one last, infuriated look before turning and marching out of the room with a disgusted sound.

That left Kat and Waldorf alone.

The sounds of the ball filtered back to the gaming room, filling it with the merry sound of music, the low hum of dozens of conversations, and the occasional punctuation of laughter. Somewhere in the house, people were still enjoying themselves, still dancing and flirting, talking and eyeing the eligible men and women in the room. Somewhere else, life continued and the world seemed filled with possibilities for the future.

Even though Kat heard all of that, it felt to her as though silence reigned in the gaming room. She kept her eyes averted from Waldorf at first as the sense of deep, dreadful hollowness inside her grew. Everything she had worked for, everything she had dedicated her life to in the past twenty years. It all hung in the balance now, all because she had made a rash assumption and acted upon it without stopping to confirm its veracity.

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