Clockwork Prince

Page 45

"Better to resign than to have Consul Wayland come in over my head and force me out," Charlotte said quietly.
"Don't you mean 'us'?" Henry looked hurt. "Should I have at least a say in this decision?"
"You've never taken an interest in the running of the Institute before. Why would you now?"
Henry looked as if she had slapped him, and it was all Charlotte could do not to get up and put her arms around him and kiss his freckled cheek. She remembered, when she had fal en in love with him, how she had thought he reminded her of an adorable puppy, with his hands just a bit too large for the rest of him, his wide hazel eyes, his eager demeanor. That the mind behind those eyes was as sharp and intel igent as her own was something she had always believed, even when others had laughed at Henry's eccentricities.
She had always thought it would be enough just to be near him always, and love him whether he loved her or not. But that had been before.
"Charlotte," he said now. "I know why you're angry with me."
Her chin jerked up in surprise. Could he truly be that perceptive? Despite her conversation with Brother Enoch, she had thought no one had noticed.
She had barely been able to think about it herself, much less how Henry would react when he knew. "You do?"
"I wouldn't go with you to meet with Woolsey Scott."
Relief and disappointment warred in Charlotte's breast. "Henry," she sighed. "That is hardly-"
"I didn't realize," he said. "Sometimes I get so caught up in my ideas.
You've always known that about me, Lottie."
Charlotte flushed. He so rarely called her that.
"I would change it if I could. Of all the people in the world, I did think you understood. You know-you know it isn't just tinkering for me. You know I want to create something that Will make the world better, that Will make things better for the Nephilim. Just as you do, in directing the Institute. And though I know I Will always come second for you-"
"Second for me?" Charlotte's voice shot up to an incredulous squeak.
"You come second for me?"
"It's all right, Lottie," Henry said with incredible gentleness. "I knew when you agreed to marry me that it was because you needed to be married to run the Institute, that no one would accept a woman alone in the position of director-"
"Henry." Charlotte rose to her feet, trembling. "How can you say such terrible things to me?"
Henry looked baffled. "I thought that was just the way it was-"
"Do you think I don't know why you married me?" Charlotte cried. "Do you think I don't know about the money your father owed my father, or that my father promised to forgive the debt if you'd marry me? He always wanted a boy, someone to run the Institute after him, and if he couldn't have that, well, why not pay to marry his unmarriageable daughter-too plain, too headstrong-off to some poor boy who was just doing his duty by his family -"
"CHARLOTTE." Henry had turned brick red. She had never seen him so angry. "WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"
Charlotte braced herself against the desk. "You know very well," she said.
"It is why you married me, isn't it?"
"You've never said a word about this to me before today!"
"Why would I? It's nothing you didn't know."
"It is, actual y." Henry's eyes were blazing. "I know nothing of my father's owing yours anything. I went to your father in good faith and asked him if he would do me the honor of all owing me to ask for your hand in marriage.
There was never any discussion of money!"
Charlotte caught her breath. In the years they had been married, she had never said a word about the circumstances of her betrothal to Henry; there had never seemed a reason, and she had never before wanted to hear any stammered denials of what she knew was true. Hadn't her father said it to her when he had told her of Henry's proposal? He is a good enough man, better than his father, and you need some sort of a husband, Charlotte, if you are going to direct the Institute. I've forgiven his father's debts, so that matter is closed between our families.
Of course, he had never said, not in so many words, that that was why Henry had asked to marry her. She had assumed . . .
"You are not plain," Henry said, his face still blazing. "You are beautiful.
And I didn't ask your father if I could marry you out of duty; I did it because I loved you. I've always loved you. I'm your husband."
"I didn't think you wanted to be," she whispered.
Henry was shaking his head. "I know people call me eccentric. Peculiar.
Even mad. all of those things. I've never minded. But for you to think I'd be so weak-wil ed-Do you even love me at all?"
"Of course I love you!" Charlotte cried. "That was never in question."
"Wasn't it? Do you think I don't hear what people say? They speak about me as if I weren't there, as if I were some sort of half-wit. I've heard Benedict Lightwood say enough times that you married me only so that you could pretend a man was running the Institute-"
Now it was Charlotte's turn to be angry. "And you criticize me for thinking you weak-wil ed! Henry, I'd never marry you for that reason, never in a thousand years. I'd give up the Institute in a moment before I'd give up . . ."
Henry was staring at her, his hazel eyes wide, his ginger hair bristling as if he had run his hands madly through it so many times that he was in danger of pul ing it out in chunks. "Before you'd give up what?"
"Before I'd give you up," she said. "Don't you know that?"
And then she said nothing else, for Henry put his arms around her and kissed her. Kissed her in such a way that she no longer felt plain, or conscious of her hair or the ink spot on her dress or anything but Henry, whom she had always loved. Tears well ed up and spilled down her cheeks, and when he drew away, he touched her wet face wonderingly.
"Real y," he said. "You love me, too, Lottie?"
"Of course I do. I didn't marry you so I'd have someone to run the Institute with, Henry. I married you because-because I knew I wouldn't mind how difficult directing this place was, or how badly the Clave treated me, if I knew yours would be the last face I saw every night before I went to sleep." She hit him lightly on the shoulder. "We've been married for years, Henry. What did you think I felt about you?"
He shrugged his thin shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "I thought you were fond of me," he said gruffly. "I thought you might come to love me, in time."
"That's what I thought about you," she said wonderingly. "Could we real y both have been so stupid?"
"Well, I'm not surprised about me," said Henry. "But honestly, Charlotte, you ought to have known better."
She choked back a laugh. "Henry!" She squeezed his arms. "There's something else I have to tell you, something very important-"
The door to the drawing room banged open. It was Will. Henry and Charlotte drew apart and stared at him. He looked exhausted-pale, with dark rings about his eyes-but there was a clarity in his face Charlotte had never seen before, a sort of bril iance in his expression. She braced herself for a sarcastic remark or cold observation, but instead he just smiled happily at them.
"Henry, Charlotte," he said. "You haven't seen Tessa, have you?"
"She's likely in her room," said Charlotte, bewildered. "Will, is something the matter? Oughtn't you be resting? After the injuries you sustained-"
Will waved this away. "Your excel ent iratzes did their work. I don't require rest. I only wish to see Tessa, and to ask you-" He broke off, staring at the letter on Charlotte's desk. With a few strides of his long legs, he had reached the desk and snatched it up, and read it with the same look of dismay Henry had worn. "Charlotte-no, you can't give up the Institute!"
"The Clave Will find you another place to live," Charlotte said. "Or you may stay here until you turn eighteen, though the Lightwoods-"
"I wouldn't want to live here without you and Henry. What d'you think I stay for? The ambiance?" Will shook the piece of paper til it crackled. "I even bloody miss Jessamine-Well, a bit. And the Lightwoods Will sack our servants and replace them with their own. Charlotte, you can't let it happen.
This is our home. It's Jem's home, Sophie's home."
Charlotte stared. "Will, are you sure you haven't a fever?"
"Charlotte." Will slammed the paper back down onto the desk. "I forbid you to resign your directorship. Do you understand? Over all these years you've done everything for me as if I were your own blood, and I've never told you I was grateful. That goes for you as well, Henry. But I am grateful, and because of it I shall not let you make this mistake."
"Will," said Charlotte. "It is over. We have only three days to find Mortmain, and we cannot possibly do so. There simply is not time."
"Hang Mortmain," said Will. "And I mean that literal y, of course, but also figuratively. The two-week limit on finding Mortmain was in essence set by Benedict Lightwood as a ridiculous test. A test that, as it turns out, was a cheat. He is working for Mortmain. This test was his attempt to leverage the Institute out from under you. If we but expose Benedict for what he is- Mortmain's puppet-the Institute is yours again, and the search for Mortmain can continue."
"We have Jessamine's word that to expose Benedict is to play into Mortmain's hands-"
"We cannot do nothing," Will said firmly. "It is worth at least a conversation, don't you think?" Charlotte couldn't think of a word to say. This Will was not a Will she knew. He was firm, straightforward, intensity shining in his eyes. If Henry's silence was anything to go by, he was just as surprised. Will nodded as if taking this for agreement.
"Excel ent," he said. "I'll tell Sophie to round up the others."
And he darted from the room.
Charlotte stared up at her husband, all thoughts of the news she had wished to tell him driven from her mind. "Was that Will?" she said final y.
Henry arched one ginger eyebrow. "Perhaps he's been kidnapped and replaced by an automaton," he suggested. "It seems possible . . ."
For once Charlotte could only find herself in agreement.
Glumly Tessa finished the sandwiches and the rest of the tea, cursing her inability to keep her nose out of other people's business. Once she was done, she put on her blue dress, finding the task difficult without Sophie's assistance. Look at yourself, she thought, spoiled after just a few weeks of having a lady's maid. Can't dress yourself, can't stop nosing about where you're not wanted. Soon you'll be needing someone to spoon gruel into your mouth or you'll starve. She made a horrible face at herself in the mirror and sat down at her vanity table, picking up the silver-backed hairbrush and pul ing the bristles through her long brown hair.
A knock came at the door. Sophie, Tessa thought hopeful y, back for an apology. Well, she would get one. Tessa dropped the hairbrush and rushed to throw the door open.
Just as once before she had expected Jem and been disappointed to find Sophie on her threshold, now, in expecting Sophie, she was surprised to find Jem at her door. He wore a gray wool jacket and trousers, against which his silvery hair looked nearly white.
"Jem," she said, startled. "Is everything all right?"
His gray eyes searched her face, her long, loose hair. "You look as if you were waiting for someone else."
"Sophie." Tessa sighed, and tucked a stray curl behind her ear. "I fear I have offended her. My habit of speaking before I think has caught me out again."
"Oh," said Jem, with an uncharacteristic lack of interest. Usual y he would have asked Tessa what she had said to Sophie, and either reassured her or helped her plot a course of action to win Sophie's forgiveness. His customary vivid interest in everything seemed oddly missing, Tessa thought with alarm; he was quite pale as well, and seemed to be glancing behind her as if checking to see whether she was quite alone. "Is now-that is, I would like to speak to you in private, Tessa. Are you feeling well enough?"
"That depends on what you have to tell me," she said with a laugh, but when her laugh brought no answering smile, apprehension rose inside her.
"Jem-you promise everything's all right? Will -"
"This is not about Will," he said. "Wil is out wandering and no doubt perfectly all right. This is about-Well, I suppose you might say it's about me." He glanced up and down the corridor. "Might I come in?"
Tessa briefly thought about what Aunt Harriet would say about a girl who all owed a boy she was not related to into her bedroom when there was no one else there. But then Aunt Harriet herself had been in love once, Tessa thought. Enough in love to let her fiance do-well, whatever it was exactly that left one with child. Aunt Harriet, had she been alive, would have been in no position to talk. And besides, etiquette was different for Shadowhunters.
She opened the door wide. "Yes, come in."
Jem came into the room, and shut the door firmly behind him. He walked over to the grate and leaned an arm against the mantel; then, seeming to decide that this position was unsatisfactory, he came over to where Tessa was, in the middle of the room, and stood in front of her.
"Tessa," he said.
"Jem," she replied, mimicking his serious tone, but again he did not smile.
"Jem," she said again, more quietly. "If this is about your health, your-il ness, please tell me. I Will do whatever I can to help you."
"It is not," he said, "about my il ness." He took a deep breath. "You know we have not found Mortmain," he said. "In a few days, the Institute may be given to Benedict Lightwood. He would doubtless all ow Will and me to remain here, but not you, and I have no desire to live in a house that he runs. And Will and Gabriel would kil each other inside a minute. It would be the end of our little group; Charlotte and Henry would find a house, I have no doubt, and Will and I perhaps would go to Idris until we were eighteen, and Jessie-I suppose it depends what sentence the Clave passes on her. But we could not bring you to Idris with us. You are not a Shadowhunter."
Tessa's heart had begun to beat very fast. She sat down, rather suddenly, on the edge of her bed. She felt faintly sick. She remembered Gabriel's sneering jibe about the Lightwoods' finding "employment" for her; having been to the bal at their house, she could imagine little worse. "I see," she said. "But where should I go-No, do not answer that. You hold no responsibility toward me. Thank you for tell ing me, at least."