God Save the Poor Duke

"That you would decide something this important all on your own... good God."

Benjamin finally buried his face in both hands.

"Listen to me, Mina. I don't for a moment believe you have no idea what's lurking behind this whole affair. You're not so ignorant a child as that."

"I know. His Highness Edward orchestrated it."

Benjamin, who had been scrubbing roughly at his face, suddenly lifted his head.

"You knew that much?"

"Of course I did. Did you think I was a fool, Brother?"

He stared at his tartly snapping sister in a daze for a moment, then finally let out a tremendous sigh.

"You knew all of it, and you still went and did this."

As though he were genuinely at his wits' end, he tipped his head back over the seat and muttered,

"Then I suppose you know perfectly well what kind of mud you've just stepped into."

"It isn't as though I went in unprepared."

"This isn't a matter of being prepared. This is an exceedingly delicate fight over political and symbolic authority that could sway Brighton itself. And you've gone and tangled yourself up in a game that could turn as petty and filthy as anything..."

Benjamin seemed genuinely despondent. Needless to say, this was a reaction of an entirely different order from when Wilhelmina had, not long ago, hidden his favorite cricket bat.

"I didn't tangle myself up in it."

Even as a faint prick of conscience stirred at the sight of her brother, Wilhelmina could not stop herself from stating the facts.

"To be precise, His Highness Edward dragged me into this game. In a thoroughly petty and filthy fashion, I might add."

"Could you not have trusted me a little more and left it in my hands?"

"It isn't that I didn't trust you, Brother. I did this precisely because I do."

She had set the board in motion because she believed he would be there to clean up afterward. At that, Benjamin made no effort to hide his look of utter incredulity.

"I don't know whether I ought to thank you for that faith or what else to say..."

"That isn't the point, Brother. This is a matter on which, sooner or later, you will have to choose a side regardless."

Cassian or Edward. In that binary choice, not a soul in Brighton could remain free.

"Unless, of course, the Priestley family's neutrality as you conceive it means tossing our votes into the River Tess and washing our hands of the whole affair."

"As it stands, that's precisely what I feel like doing."

"Surely you wouldn't, Brother."

A smile spread across Wilhelmina's lips. That particular wicked grin of hers — the one that made her large eyes even more striking as they curved, her generous mouth tracing an elegant arc — was a variety Benjamin knew all too well.

"You weren't planning to side with the Duke of Kingsley, the man who ruined my reputation, were you?"

"Do you think I've gone mad?"

"Then there's no problem, is there? All I did was help you make a rather more decisive choice."

And then, as though it were nothing of consequence, Wilhelmina added,

"Well, I won't pretend I had no desire to take personal revenge on His Highness Edward for laying hands on both the family and myself."

"Why wouldn't you? With that temper of yours."

Even as he said it, Benjamin's gaze was complicated — worried, and yet, somewhere in it, a touch of admiration for this disaster of a little sister.

"His Highness Edward is a 'luminary of society,' isn't he. He's spent nearly his entire life in Winster, the safe heart of the Brighton Kingdom, and if there's one thing he's mastered, it's the anatomy of high society. Which is to say..."

Wilhelmina's hazel eyes flashed sharply. Benjamin knew perfectly well that his sister, in this mood, was not the sort to grant even a shred of mercy.

"It means that flitting about like a butterfly through a townhouse in the middle of Belgrave and a luxurious drawing room, ferrying gossip from one noble to another, is the sum total of his life's accomplishments."

"It's a mercy His Highness Edward cannot hear you."

If he had, Benjamin thought, the man might well have spent the rest of his days in self-loathing with his nose planted in the River Tess.

"Getting mixed up with that sort of creature is nothing but exhausting."

"And standing with His Highness Cassian — a man who has political enemies in every direction, all for the sake of opposing that troublesome ambitious schemer — that, you think, won't be exhausting in the slightest?"

"Well. At the very least, it's a thousand times better than sharing a boat with the creature who drove a dagger into my back while I was standing still."

There was not a trace of hesitation in Wilhelmina's resolute tone. On any ordinary day he might have scolded her for being unladylike, but Benjamin made no attempt to check his sister as she fired back with such spirit.

Or rather, it would be more accurate to say he could not. Her ruthlessly practical, cold-blooded assessment of the situation aligned exactly with what he had buried in his own heart.

"...The truth is, Mina, it isn't that kind of grand political logic I wanted to talk about."

After a stretch of silence, Benjamin's voice sank into something far more grave. Wilhelmina arched one eyebrow, puzzled.

"If not that, then what?"

"You."

Every ounce of that fond, worried gaze he reserved for his little one was turned upon her.

"It's you I mean to talk about. If you decide to walk this path, you'll have to abandon the way of life you've so carefully held onto — lock, stock, and barrel."

"I'm sorry, but I don't quite follow..."

"Like it or not, you'll have to put on the yoke of marriage like everyone else."

"Ah."

As though the thought had never once occurred to her, Wilhelmina let out a small sound of revelation.

Meeting those round, widened hazel eyes, Benjamin found himself scowling for no particular reason and grumbled,

"What. Is it so astonishing that, before making a decision on which the family's fortunes hang, I might wish to respect my exasperating little sister's eccentric philosophy of life?"

"No, it isn't quite astonishing, but..."

The daze lasted only a moment. Wilhelmina's eyes — edged with that peculiar halo, like a newly unfurled leaf — curved into a smile. It was an expression of pure delight, without so much as a hint of malice.

"Still, I have to say — it's rather touching, coming from you."

"......"

"But you needn't worry about me in the slightest, Brother."

In the next breath she was once again that bold, impertinent young lady, offering her assurance with complete confidence.

"Defending the title of spinster until the day I die, while the gossips of Winster chatter on with no end in sight — that's a worthy endeavor, but it takes a tremendous amount of work. So I rather think an opportunity has presented itself: to live out the rest of my days more comfortably as a proud divorcee with a colossal settlement in hand."

"A divorcee. How on earth can you be so certain of that?"

A deep furrow carved itself between Benjamin's brows.

"Divorce, as a rule, can only be established once both parties have reached a complete agreement. Unless, of course, you and His Highness the Duke of Clifford have already settled the entire procedure of a divorce in advance..."

Benjamin's words, which had been proceeding as though he were lecturing a child, stopped dead in midair. And then, slowly, seized by some thunderbolt of intuition, his eyes began to bulge like a goldfish's.

"You... you didn't...?"

Wilhelmina neither confirmed nor denied her brother's horrified murmur. She merely sat beneath the dim lamplight of the rattling carriage, wearing a smile that was ominous and thoroughly wicked.

"Good God."

Benjamin groaned.

The drawing room of the Priestley household had always been a deeply familial place — and, at the same time, the point of origin for every manner of incident and accident that occurred under that roof.

At some point, Benjamin had developed the habit of taking a deep breath before setting foot in the drawing room. All the more so on a day like today, when the butler had breathlessly reported that His Highness Cassian had come to call on Miss Wilhelmina.

"Good heavens."

But as always, a mere deep breath did nothing to lessen Benjamin's astonishment.

"What in God's name is all this?"