Page 159 of Immortal Rose

“And it doesn’t bother you that everyone assumes that you’re a man?” I asked, irritated on her behalf. “That you’ve never been recognized for it?”

“Darling girl,” Mrs. Keyes said, “one does not survive a war without making enemies, many of whom are still alive and would be glad to find me. It was a privilege to start again here and to give myself a new name.”

“And you only had to do the impossible and kill General Auguste to earn it,” Hugh muttered.

“The last Lord Foxcourt was my handler during the war,” Mrs. Keyes explained before I could ask. “He helped Celine and me with the arrangements.”

I thought of the painting down the hall, the way the artist had depicted the Black Needle as little more than shadows and smoke. And yet, here she was before me, flesh and blood, a small woman with a spine of steel and an essence drenched with blood.

“My God,” I said, mortified by the sudden realization. “Have you all been pretending to be staff for my sake?”

“No, dear,” Mrs. Keyes said, amused. “I am the housekeeper of Foxcourt House. Celine is our cook. The boys are our footmen, and Felicity is a maid. It’s not about keeping up appearances for you but for everyone else.”

“We all perform different roles,” Mrs. Silver added, “sometimes in service of the kingdom, and sometimes only in service of each other and our home.”

Hugh ran a hand back through his hair, and Mrs. Keyes patted his arm fondly, in a purely maternal gesture.

What a dark, strange, but deeply interesting life Hugh had lived. Nothing at all like the staid, politely torturous upbringing so many of his rank had. There would always be some new layer of soul to pull back, some hidden corner of his life to discover.

Mrs. Silver held out the rag to Hugh. “Come help your wife, mon chou.”

“No, really . . .” I began, but Hugh was already taking her place, accepting the bloodied rag from her.

“I’ll fetch her a new night rail and open one of the rooms upstairs,” she continued. “Perhaps the peach one? Horrid color, but no windows.”

After a moment’s hesitation, in which he seemed to draw in a long, soft breath, Hugh took my hand lightly in his, turning the palm up toward him. The sensation of his calloused fingers sent a now familiar curl of warm sensation up my arm.

Damn him. I’d nearly been carried off and had watched an assassin posing as a housekeeper kill a man with a needle no longer than my finger, and my body still reacted to his nearness.

I started to pull back, only to stop when I noticed that the rigid lines of his face were relaxing as he dabbed at the blood coating my fingers. The whole of his formidable attention was fixed on my upturned hand, on his careful, delicate work.

“Don’t tell me Fleming is an old pirate or world-renowned thief,” I said lightly.

“No, dear,” Mrs. Keyes said. “He’s a butler with a nervous complaint who only knows a more pleasant shading of the truth where our pasts are concerned. Mrs. Silver and I found each other in the war and came here to start again. Felicity wanted to seek out life in town. The boys were merely orphans Lord Foxcourt took a liking to.”

I took her meaning at once: I was not to tell him anything different. Not because they didn’t trust him, but because they didn’t wish to distress him.

“Cartwell is one of my uncle’s former spies,” Hugh added. “Now retired. Mostly.”

“This is a house that keeps its secrets,” Mrs. Keyes continued, “and holds them without judgment.”

I shrank back into the silence, trying desperately not to look at the body sprawled on the floor. I knew Hugh felt the tremor work its way through me as he stroked the damp cloth over my palm. His voice was deceptively calm as he asked again, “Who was that man?”

“I don’t know.”

His hand stilled.

That suffocating feeling of panic returned. The truth had been buried in me for so long, it was a moment before I could find the words to unearth it.

You are safe here, I told myself. And even if he despises you for it . . . it will only be another reason to sever this.

“I don’t know,” I repeated. “I only know that he and the men who tried to take me at Briarwood Palace were Stone Sloggers.”

Whatever Hugh had been expecting, it clearly hadn’t been that. Even Mrs. Keyes edged closer, looking as startled as she was likely capable of.

“Stone Sloggers?” Hugh said. “I wouldn’t have expected Glenmoor to hire them—”

“He didn’t,” I interrupted. “They came here on my father’s orders.”