Chapter 6
Percival admitted the Second Table existed.
He still refused the word conspiracy.
Fine.
Call it breakfast club.
The function remained.
Six families had agreed that Whitcomb needed “balance.”
Meaning me constrained.
At first they wanted regular consultation.
Then Amelia became sick.
My attention moved home.
Meetings shortened.
Decisions became faster.
I trusted fewer people.
Percival interpreted all of it as vulnerability.
Then Amelia died.
He believed grief would make me either reckless or isolated.
Neither happened enough for his plan.
So Cordelia suggested Beatrix.
Not harm.
Pressure.
Public irritation.
Social embarrassment.
Something that forced me to show the room where my priorities lived.
“What was supposed to happen tonight?”
Percival looked at the ruined crown.
“Cordelia humiliates her.”
Beatrix cries.
I intervene.
Then the Second Table members respond.
Those who support Cordelia stay relaxed.
Those still afraid of me retreat.
A map of loyalty created in fifteen minutes.
Elegant.
Disgusting.
Then:
“The rabbit?”
Percival looked confused.
Good.
He did not know.
Cordelia had kept that part private.
I turned to her.
“What did you think the key opened?”
Silence.
Percival stared.
“You had a key?”
Cordelia finally cracked.
Amelia told her months before dying that one day Beatrix’s rabbit would deliver something to me that would “end the argument.”
Cordelia never knew what.
She assumed evidence.
Correct.
So tonight she planned two things simultaneously.
Run Percival’s loyalty test.
Take the rabbit.
She tried earlier.
Failed.
Then used the crown scene as another opportunity.
That was why she held the rabbit above Beatrix instead of simply throwing it away.
She needed time to feel the seams.
Find the hidden object.
Instead I arrived.
I looked at Percival.
“You didn’t know your wife was protecting herself from you too.”
His face changed.
Interesting.
The Second Table had fractures.
Cordelia did not trust Percival with Amelia’s secret.
Why?
May you like
Because if Percival obtained whatever evidence existed, Cordelia feared he would decide she was expendable.
Apparently everyone in shadow governments eventually realizes shadows work both ways.
