Page 55 of Immortal Rose

Suspicion rolled around in my mind like a loose billiards ball, but I forced it to still.

The law of the Brickbats boiled down to this: Pay no mind and be paid no mind, see no evil and have no evil enacted upon you. Their business was their own, as mine belonged solely to me.

And whatever the reason for it, I would not reside in this house long enough for the poison to be used on me.

Linden rolled past in a blur of midday activity, looking refreshed after yesterday’s rain. The cool air whipped my cheeks pink, the usual reek dulled to something approaching lovely by the wisteria- and rose-covered shops.

I took it all in as if for the first time as we sped toward Queen’s Park in a hackney coach. To be fair, it was the first time I’d ever ridden in one. Paying for a ride anywhere in the city had always been well beyond my means.

“First time in a hack?” Foxcourt guessed from his seat across from me.

I scowled. “Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” he asked, a touch too innocuously.

“Presuming to know my mind,” I said. “It’s . . .” Unnerving. “. . . annoying.”

Even more so because it was impossible to return the favor. I may as well have been deciphering the forgotten fairy language.

“Then you may wish to do a better job of disguising your feelings,” he said, crossing his ankle over one knee as he reclined. “We’re nearly there. I’d advise you to let me do most of the talking.”

I lowered my voice, doing my best imitation of him. “But of course, Master of Disguise.”

He preened at that, damn him.

“Are you not even a little worried about being recognized?” I asked. “Wait, what am I saying? Your fellow peers would deem you charmingly eccentric.”

The Patricians forgave their peers anything short of murder and unfashionable clothing.

“You are very sure of your sweeping judgments about the Patricians,” Foxcourt noted, “though you’re soon to join their ranks.”

I snorted. “I will never be one of them. For one thing, the Rosebourne wealth wasn’t built on bloody conquests and the suffering of innocents in the old colonies.”

The best thing one could say about King Alfred III was that he hadn’t fought the independence movements on the western islands and the far-flung Newland. After the Gallian Revolutionary Wars, there hadn’t been the appetite for the deaths of more young men, and it had allowed for beneficial trade deals to be struck. The lords who’d owned land or foreign investments were compensated handsomely for the loss of them—using funds originally meant to rebuild Linden’s crumbling slums.

Foxcourt’s gaze never strayed from the path ahead. “And you’re so very certain William Rosebourne didn’t source material collected by enslaved peoples in Gallia’s colonies?”

My heart stopped dead in my chest. “Did he?”

“It was only speculation,” Foxcourt said, the sun glinting off his borrowed glasses. “Merchants have ways of disguising the origin of raw materials to circumvent bans on imports from those islands, especially sugar and tobacco. I can find out for you, if you’d like.”

“Yes,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Please do. I would be grateful.”

He nodded.

“I have to say, I’m surprised,” I told him. “Not even a word of defense for your fellow Patricians—not even to choke up the well-chewed argument that the House of Lords prohibited slavery a decade ago?”

Foxcourt’s jaw tensed. “There’s nothing defensible about any of it. It was despicable then as it is now.”

It was some time before either of us spoke again. The exuberant green of Queen’s Park, just south of Summerland Palace, ushered us toward its imposing gates.

I had only just inhaled the scent of the oaks and cut grass when Foxcourt asked suddenly, “What is the difference between a nib and nob?”

I couldn’t bottle my shocked laugh. “Has that been bothering you this whole time?”

“Yes,” he said, looking cross. “You called His Majesty a nob and myself a nib. Tell me what the difference is.”

There was very little difference, but he didn’t need to know that. Especially when it made him look so peevish. I had the sudden image of him as a lordling being told no by a governess.