Free A Little Knowledge by Emma Newman Page A

how to proceed. He considered confiscating it, but he couldn’t risk it being found in the house and he couldn’t be seen to condone such material. He went to the fireplace and threw it into the embers. By the time Lucy had dashed over to his side the paper had caught alight, rejuvenating the dying fire.
    “Tom!”
    “I’ll forget I saw that, for your sake. But if I find another, or if one of the residents brings it to my attention, I will investigate and haul whoever is responsible in front of their Patroon. I’m going to change for dinner, and we’ll never speak of this again.”
    “You can be better than this,” Lucy said as he headed towards the door. “Just let me talk it over with you. It’s not what you think.”
    “It’s not what you think, either,” he said. “This isn’t some romantic intellectual movement. It’s an attempt to disturb the order of things and cause chaos. Otherwise known as sedition!”
    “That’s—”
    “And you can be better than this too,” he added. “You can set an example and make it clear you disapprove. You’re the wife of the Marquis of Westminster; don’t forget it.”
    He left the room and shut the door behind him, his stomach cramping and headache worsening. As he climbed the stairs he told himself he was doing the right thing. If that was the case, why did he feel so wretched about it?
    • • •
    By the time Cathy got home after the Court, she felt terrible. Even though Will was clearly so afraid of what Sir Iris was going to say to him, she’d just scored points off him, without any consideration of how he was feeling. With her blood up, she’d felt invulnerable, filled with satisfaction with how shocked the men of the court had looked when she put that stupid Peonia in his place. Not even Bertrand Viola had been able to cow her.
    That triumphant feeling and her irritation that Will was clearly not on her side had pushed away any compassion about the summons. Cathy didn’t regret any of what she’d said in the Court, but did regret not giving a second thought to how worried Will was about Sir Iris, and wanted to apologise. She waited up for a couple of hours, and then received word from the Tower that Will was sleeping there that night.
    Now that she was dressed and ready to tackle the day despite a sleepless night, Cathy found herself both hoping for and dreading his return. Navigating a path between her near-constant frustration at Society and her love for Will was harder than she’d imagined it would be. Now she understood why the few romantic films she’d seen in Mundanus ended at the part where the couple got together. Even Doc Brown and Clara’s story had the tricky middle bit skipped out. There was the getting together, then the kids, not the time where they learned how to be a couple. Cathy shuddered. She didn’t want to get to the kids part.
    Cathy went to her study, trying to draw comfort from the fact that even though Will wasn’t as keen for change as she was, he wasn’t a monster like his brother or Bertrand Viola. It could be worse , she thought. We’ll figure this out. On the way, she checked in with Carter about her movements for the day and reassured the bodyguard that she still didn’t need him to stand outside of her study whilst she was dealing with correspondence.
    She sat at her desk and whispered the Key Charm with her hand over it to unlock all of the drawers. She pulled out a pen and her notepad.
To-Do List
Burn down the patriarchy
Apologise to Will and work out a way forward
Write to Eleanor
Check on how the escapees are doing in Mundanus
Get Coll to buy me Plants vs. Zombies 2 for the iPad
Research batteries for TV and DVD player
    At the knock on the door she invited in the butler, Morgan. They’d settled into a routine and, as expected, he entered with a stack of envelopes on a silver tray.
    “Did all of that arrive today?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
    “No,