Page 107 of Last Comes Fate

Something in his final statement chilled me to the bone. Perhaps that was always what had seemed wrong about Georgina Parker. That, for all her ladylike composure, the woman really was ruthless. She had been on the hunt for me from the moment we met.

“Well, whatever she does, I believe I’ll place my bets on the winning pony, Freddy. Xavier will come ’round and make the right decisions. I know he shall.”

I’d had enough. I stepped out from behind the boxwood, arms crossed, ready for battle. “And which decisions would those be?”

Imogene jumped in her seat with a decidedly unladylike yowl. Frederick barely moved a muscle, only turned and greeted me with a shallow tilt of his head.

“Your Grace,” he called. “Fine evening for a walk, is it not?”

“You—why you—you were listening the whole time!” Imogene screeched. “Freddy, do you believe her?”

Frederick looked as nonplussed as ever. Certainly not surprised as I approached. He only offered the same patented shrug I was starting to think was something they taught these boys at Eton. They all seemed to do it.

“Well, it is her garden now,” he pointed out. “I daresay she’s allowed to walk wherever she likes. Or listen to whatever she wants.”

“It was very interesting,” I said. “I came out here to listen to the birds and ended up hearing your squawking instead. What’s the matter, Imogene? Didn’t get enough of a reality check in Xavier’s office?”

Her eyes blew into saucers. “I-I only—”

“You were only interfering,” I finished for her. “Again.”

Frederick frowned between us. “What does she mean, again?”

“Imogene likes towatchwhat goes on at Kendal, doesn’t she?” I said. “Just like she really likes to have herhandson things. Even if they don’t belong to her. Isn’t that true, Imogene?”

Imogene just continued to gape at me as if I were a statue come to life.

“I suggest you stop boring Frederick with your plots and run along home,” I told her. “I know myhusbandalready said that you were no longer welcome. It’s time to get the hell off our property.”

“Your—yourproperty!” Imogene stood in a rush, towering over me by at least three or four inches at her full height. “My family has been here for generations! You’ve been here five minutes! You are nothing but arude American!”

I didn’t back down, though. It helped that her eyes shifted nervously to my rings, which gleamed in the afternoon sun. But it helped more that I believed everything I said.

I didn’t have to let any of these people walk over me. I had nothing to prove anymore.

“I know you love him,” I told her. “And honestly, I don’t blame you. He’s very easy to love.”

Her face started to heat visibly, while Frederick’s gaze, still carefully flattened, continued to bounce between us with curiosity he couldn’t quite hide.

“But if you ever touch my husband again,” I said in a voice low enough that it forced her to lean down to my level, “you will learn just how rude Americans can really be. Right in that pretty nose of yours. You got me?”

It took her a second to fully comprehend that I had just made a physical threat on her person, then a second longer to figure out that I meant it. And I did. I might have been small, but I was strong. Not to mention raised in a house full of sisters and a brother who knew how to fight dirty. Catfights were something I wasveryfamiliar with. Pregnant or not, I would have no problem taking down someone like Imogene Douglas if it really came to that.

It didn’t. Gradually, she took a step back, then another. She glanced at Frederick, then appeared to realize he wasn’t coming to her proverbial rescue any time soon.

“Right,” she said. “I’ll just be on my way, then.” She nodded to Frederick.

“I’ll come ’round tomorrow,” he replied.

But she was already fleeing the garden.

We both watched her go, waiting until her footsteps on the pebbled gravel were no longer audible in the deepening afternoon.

Then Fredrick turned to me and gestured that I might take her seat.

Gingerly, I did.

“I shouldn’t have said that if I were you,” he remarked.

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