Gloria waited in the Cartwrights’ largest parlor, hands clasped before her. The parlor door stood ajar; the curtains were not yet drawn. Gloria was a model of propriety and entitled expectations.
Richard had not yet been home. He did not know whether Gloria had responded to his pleading note from that morning. She looked so brashly complacent, she had likely sent a reply agreeing to accept his apology in person.
It would be easy to pounce with the up-to-date reality, the severing of their connection. Richard was tempted. He had ascribed Gloria’s petty spitefulness to commonplace ladder climbing, something he could hardly criticize, considering his own life.
Blackmail changed the dynamics. Richard might debase himself; he would never use another person’s debasement to get ahead. He might not be honorable. He was honest.
In the end, all Gloria trite malevolence mattered nothing. Let the conversation take its natural course. Let the scorned woman express her wrath. Richard’s mind was elsewhere—on Phillipa, who had as much reason as Gloria (if not more) to wheedle her way up the political ladder, but Phillipa did it with so much more fortitude and self-sacrifice.
“I hear you had a meeting with Lord Rustilion,” Gloria said and looked arch.
Of course, she had her spies. Richard was sure that Gloria spent every day smiling her way into homes where information might be dropped, rumors transmitted. Gloria almost certainly knew about the Commons Project from Day One. She doubtless knew more about it than Richard ever had.
“He offered me a place on Mr. Belemont’s staff,” Richard said.
“Oh, Richard, that is wonderful.” Gloria lowered herself to a divan, smoothed out her skirt. “I knew your qualities would eventually attract attention—”
“I declined it.”
“What?!” Her voice was a pinprick of edged fury: here was the true creature behind the gentlewoman’s façade.
“I don’t want it. I like Historical Designations.”
Gloria’s hands clenched. Richard watched them idly, watched them slowly uncurl as Gloria breathed deeply. She was no shouter. She was readying herself to deliver icy disdain.
“I suppose you gave no thought to our future? Our need for a larger house? How was that all going to come about? By magic?”
Speaking of which.
Richard didn’t say it. He also didn’t point out that Gloria had never discussed buying a larger house with Richard. Not that she would have paid Richard much heed if he had objected to her . . . pronouncements.
If, when, whether: it was all irrelevant. Fundamentally, basically, Richard deserved better than Gloria.
“You can always cry off,” he said.
Gloria stilled, eyes lowered, hands braced against the divan.
“Or I will,” Richard said levelly.
She was on her feet now. “You wouldn’t dare. The Cartwrights—”
Were not beloved by Lord Rustilion or his cronies. Richard didn’t say so; Gloria might make good on her threat to broadcast what she knew about his boss.
He said instead, “I prefer to do without your family’s assistance.”
For all Richard knew, Gloria bullied her family into assisting her schemes. She didn’t threaten him now with her father’s wrath. Instead she spat, “And if I take your job from you?”
“Lord Simon and I came to an agreement about his house. He will wish me to remain in office—to ensure his property is kept safe.”
She stared at him, teeth clenched, then, “Ooh,” she screamed and strode away, body shaking. “You! You are nothing. Nothing!”
“Think how much better off you’re going to be,” Richard said indifferently.
The conversation had run its course. He was ready for it to be over, to get on with the better part of his life. As if from a telescoped distance, he watched Gloria whirl, her chin lifting.
“Yes,” she said, and he supposed, if he bothered to label it, that the look she threw him was scornful. “Your only use was your potential. There are better targets.” She shook her shoulders loose, hands falling to her sides, facial features smoothing into her usual complacence. “Montgomery Plysant’s boy has good prospects.”
Minister Plysant’s boy. Richard pulled himself back into the conversation.
“I don’t think his father wants a political match.”
“His father writes indiscreet letters about his peers.”
Except those same peers found Montgomery Plysant’s foot-in-mouth tactlessness positively charming.
Richard gave up. For better or worse, male parochialism didn’t react well to pressure. Gloria would keep trying. Maybe she would succeed. Maybe her family would be driven out of Kingston. Richard didn’t care either way.
He said, “Would you prefer that I or you send the notice to the newspapers?”
“You will not,” she snapped. “I am letting you go, not the other way around.”
Richard didn’t say, Thank you. For once, he didn’t even look it. He just nodded and left the parlor, left the house, went out in the cool night that hinted at spring. The hack was waiting as he’d requested. He had one last stop to make.
