He finally slowed the horse to a halt beneath Evelina’s box. All eyes were on the lithe, hawk-faced young showman as he raised the rose in salute.
And then all those eyes were on her, the object of his tribute. For a moment, she quailed. Still, he was impossible to refuse. She rose, leaning over the edge of the box to accept the flower. He was breathing hard, the throat of his damp shirt open, the dark skin glistening beneath. His eyes held her, electric with the triumph of the performance.
Evelina was mesmerized. Her fingers closed over the rose petals—soft, sensual velvet. Nick said no words, his fingers grazing hers as she took the flower, and she felt the prickle of shared magic. Even if she could have heard him speak over the wild audience, nothing was necessary. Everything was clear.
She’d been blinded by memory, not seeing the present. In their years apart, he’d transformed into a magician of air and steel. She had risen to new heights, but now she understood that he had, too. This was his kingdom, and he ruled it.
I see you now. A tremor passed through her, followed by a flood of unwelcome heat. His sheer physical prowess made her mouth go dry.
She raised the rose her to face, breathing in its scent. Nick made a graceful bow of his head, finally breaking that dangerous gaze. He spun the gray mare, giving a final wave to the roaring beast of the crowd as the horse reared and snorted. And then he was gone.
Evelina fell as much as sat down. Her heart thudded as fast as the mare’s hooves.
“Good gracious!” Imogen exclaimed, fanning herself with her handkerchief. “So that is your Niccolo. My, my, my.”
Evelina gave a weak nod, and then touched Imogen’s arm. “Please wait for me here. There’s something I need to do.”
What she had just seen had broken her heart a little, or maybe it had just broken the fear around it. Now the past gripped her like a riptide. She had to see Gran.
Chapter Thirty
London, April 11, 1888
HILLIARD HOUSE
6 p.m. Wednesay
Lord Bancroft looked across his desk at his son. The tiger’s head mounted on the wall above somehow managed to mimic his expression, perhaps because it was frozen in its usual snarl.
“I received a note from Markham’s drapery this afternoon wanting to know whether or not Imogen wished to purchase a certain length of silk brocade, as there was another customer interested in the same bolt of cloth. I thought nothing of it at the time.” Bancroft’s fingers twitched.
“Imagine my consternation when, not a half hour later, Jasper Keating arrived in person and brought two items to my attention.” His father opened a drawer, pulling out the offending objects and setting them on the desk. One was a silver paper knife. The other was a calling card with Imogen’s name embossed on it.
“This,” his father pointed to the knife, “was pulled from the leg of the Gold King’s streetkeeper—some creature named Striker—just days ago. It came within an inch of severing the artery in his leg.”
“Unfortunate, but what is the significance?”
“Look, you dolt.” His father held it up so that Tobias could see the handle. “It bears the Bancroft coat of arms. According to the staff, it belongs in the guest room Miss Cooper is currently using. I would like to know what it was doing embedded in the flesh of a back-alley thug.”
“Oh.” Tobias shifted in his chair, deciding he had best pay attention.
“This,” Bancroft poked the calling card, “was found in a warehouse belonging to Keating. One his cousins, Mr. Harriman, runs it for him—and Mr. Harriman brought it forward to the Gold King’s attention.”
Bancroft’s mouth worked as if he wanted to spit. “Harriman was considerably upset by the fact that there was clear evidence that there had been intruders in the place. He has, consequently, hired toughs to guard his person.”
Tobias doubted his sister could inspire that kind of response. There had to be more to this Harriman’s paranoia than finding a young girl’s calling card on his warehouse floor. However, he knew better than to interrupt the pater when he was on a tear.
Bancroft slammed his palm on the desk. “What, I wonder, was my daughter doing there? The only clue I have is that Markham’s Drapery is nearby, where Imogen was shopping in the company of Miss Cooper.”
His father put heavy emphasis on the last phrase. “Your function was to keep the girl distracted and out of our affairs, not to allow her to roam free and drag my daughter into God only knows what difficulties.”
Tobias opened his mouth to protest, but then closed it. He usually felt guilty about something—and probably was—but he couldn’t quite work up a feeling of responsibility for Imogen’s escapades. She was responsible for her own damned guilt, with or without Evelina helping her along.
His father gave him his special glare. “So? What are you going to do?”
Tobias wished he’d leave off about Evelina. He wanted her right enough, but not on his father’s terms. He took a painful swallow. “She’s an innocent girl, and our guest. Don’t expect me to dishonor her. I’m better than that.”
There, he’d said it. He’d stood up to his father.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Bancroft snapped. “Innocent girls don’t stab street thugs and go traipsing through back alleys. I want to know what she thinks she knows about the murder of that wretched serving girl.”
The change of subject startled Tobias. “What does that have to do with Imogen?”
“I’m thinking it is time that Imogen learns to do without her. I want Miss Cooper gone by week’s end.”
Tobias frowned, not liking this turn in the conversation at all. “What makes you think she knows anything?”
His father glared.
What are you afraid she will find out? Tobias wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. Instead, he took his turn changing the subject.
“What is it between you and Dr. Magnus? Why do you dislike the man so much?”
His father’s face turned to the color of ash. “Don’t ever speak to me about him. Ever.”
It was Tobias’s turn to narrow his eyes. A strange feeling was coming over him, almost a dislocation. He was used to being the one in the wrong. The one whose affairs were in disorder. Now everything was suddenly different, as if he were standing on solid ground and watching his father flounder for a change.
“Keep your mind on what’s important,” his father snapped. “Such as this attack on the streetkeeper with our knife. I can’t apologize to Jasper Keating for one more thing. Not if I intend to keep this family afloat.”
“Which is another way of telling me, sir, to behave like a cad,” Tobias said dryly.
“Why not? You’re good at such things, from what I hear.” His father swept the knife and card back into the drawer. “How hard can it be to distract one young woman?”
Tobias sat in stunned silence. He wanted to rage and bluster, but a horrible embarrassment stilled his tongue. He’s guilty!
The only question was how deeply Lord Bancroft was involved in Grace Child’s murder. Tobias had a sudden urge to retch or get very, very drunk. Maybe both. His father had always been terrifying, oppressive, but he had been a standard, the thing Tobias could never live up to. His father wasn’t supposed to be beneath contempt.
Lord Bancroft broke the silence. “Now get out of my study and do your duty to this family.”
And what is that? Evelina was right when she said it would be hard to find his true path. After a life doing little beyond drinking, whoring, or building a giant squid, he wasn’t sure what to do next. He’d never been taught how to be useful. Quietly, Tobias got up and left the room, wishing he would never have occasion to return.
Bancroft scowled at the door as it closed behind Tobias. The last thing he needed was to give Keating another weapon to use against him, and there seemed to be no way to impress the importance of the situation upon his son. Why hadn’t he simply caught the girl in a secluded corridor and shown her what a strong, healthy young
man was good for? Now even that expedient was too late.
The fact that the Cooper girl had been at the warehouse—no doubt dragging Imogen into the matter—was intolerable. The fact that Keating had arranged for her presentation was a complication, but surely she could be moved on after that. There had to be a polite way of showing a single nosy girl the door. And once she was out of the house, anything could happen to her. Something would, if Bancroft had his way.
He couldn’t take a chance that she would learn what had gone on at the warehouse. He wasn’t even sure he was content to let Harriman live. Unfortunately, it seemed that Keating’s cousin had second-guessed him there.
He’d told Tobias the truth about Harriman’s bodyguards. They were all over the weasel’s house now, and Bancroft thought he knew why. According to Harriman himself, the last crates had arrived in the early morning around the fourth of the month. Thinking they contained something especially valuable, the idiot had kept them underneath the warehouse and had not told Keating that the final pieces of the shipment had arrived.
That night Harriman had sent a coded message with Grace. The message had disappeared along with the package of gold she was carrying, but two days later—and here things got interesting—Harriman had said the note didn’t matter. Bancroft remembered his words: I’d read Schliemann’s letters about what was supposed to be coming. One or two really large pieces. The crates were so late, I wasn’t sure we’d have time to make copies. If everyone thought the crates were lost, we could just keep the contents. But then he’d described the crates as nothing but pottery, jewelry, and plate.
A crafty look had crossed Harriman’s face right then. It had come and gone too quickly for Bancroft to be sure he’d seen it, but he’d been on the alert ever since. As it turned out, caution was justified. He’d produced the crates when Bancroft had ordered him to, but now something was missing—this thing Magnus had called Athena’s Casket.
Bancroft rose from his desk, staring out the window at the circular garden that graced the middle of Beaulieu Square. The garden was ordered, trimmed, the paint on the iron railings immaculate. He was filled with a sudden urge to run outside and dig his hands into the cold spring mud and tear that perfection to ruins. On some primal level, he wanted the outside world to match the chaos inside his mind.
What was this blasted casket? Magnus wanted it, and had approached Keating to get it. It had to be valuable. That meant both Magnus and Keating would be on the hunt—and the gods only knew what they would turn up in the process. But it was obvious that Harriman had melted it down and kept the gold entirely for himself.
So Bancroft had gone around to Harriman’s house, which is when he discovered that the little cretin had hired a handful of very dangerous-looking men to guard his modest townhouse. Only a trained eye would spot them, one smoking under the streetlamp, another drinking a glass of wine outside the shop across the way—but both had gone on the alert when Bancroft approached. Evidently, Harriman was afraid he would figure things out and make a move.
Fury rushed through Bancroft at the memory, making him wheel away from the window. He didn’t want to look outside, but inward, where he could nurse his rage. Anger was better than fear.
Magnus has the automatons. There was no better bargaining chip to be sure Bancroft helped him get the casket from Keating. But Keating doesn’t have it. There is no casket to get anymore. How would Magnus react to that news? Would he give them back? Destroy them out of spite? Would he even believe the truth? With a shuddering breath, Bancroft buried his face in his hands, wishing he could scream in frustration without attracting a dozen servants.
Bancroft picked up his decanter and glass, setting them before him on the desk, but pausing there, his fingers tracing the elaborate geography of the cut crystal.
He was tempted simply to tell Magnus to go get his magical toy from Harriman and be done with it. Unfortunately, then he would have to explain more than he wanted Magnus to know, and Harriman was sure to squawk to Keating with some lie about being bullied into going along with Bancroft’s plans. There was no way to emerge the winner from that scenario.
What had started as an elegant plan to grab money and insert himself into the inner circle of aristocratic rebels had devolved into a house of cards that threatened to topple with the slightest gust of ill wind. Unfortunately, he had blowhards on every side. Bancroft, as the brains of the plot, had to stay the course until the forgery scheme was complete. There was one more piece, one more phase that he had to see through. One that, thankfully, Harriman knew nothing about. That was the way to do things—always have a trick up the sleeve that only you knew about.
Bancroft had started out as the fox stealing from the henhouse, and ended up as Reynard on the run. The only way he could survive was to duck between Keating and Magnus and let the two of them beat each other’s brains out over this mysterious casket.
Well, he was clever and lucky. It just might work. He wanted his share of that gold. He absolutely had to retrieve the automatons from Magnus’s clutches. He could only pray that luck held.
I’ll drink to that. He lifted the stopper from the decanter and poured a measure into his glass. It tasted like victory, but unfortunately didn’t give rise to any brilliant ideas.
That thought drove him to another, and he picked up a letter that had been sent half in jest from an acquaintance at the club who knew Bancroft liked a bet. Here you are, the note had said, the longshot of your dreams. A few of us contrarians are getting in the action. The odds don’t get any longer than an aging actress with no paint, nor lines, nor boards to tread. If La Reynolds comes out of this alive, the heavens will have set on the Empire as we know it.
Bancroft picked up his pen and applied it to a clean sheet of paper. Put me down for ten pounds.
Given the precarious state of the Roth purse, it was a lot of money for a losing bet, but if anyone prayed to the goddess of lost causes, it was Bancroft.
When Tobias reached the hallway outside his father’s study door, he wasn’t sure where to go. There were times when he confided in Imogen, but she was out with Evelina. He would have to figure this out on his own.
Or perhaps not quite.
He turned his steps toward his mother’s sitting-room. Once, she had ruled over the house every minute of every day. She still oversaw all the entertaining, but more and more she came to this small, quiet room with only her thoughts for company.
When he opened the door and peered inside, he nearly overlooked her. The soft gray of her dress blended into the muted tones of the walls and drapes. She was sitting on the sofa, holding a book, but staring out at the garden.
“Mother?” he said softly.
She turned, the sunlight silvering her wealth of golden hair. With the light behind her, she looked so much like Imogen it made him blink. “Yes?”
“May I sit with you a little?”
She motioned him to the other end of the sofa. “Problems with your father?”
Was that the only time he came to talk to her? The thought made him wince. “Yes, but I wanted to talk to you about something that’s been on my conscience.”
She furrowed her brow. “What’s that, Tobias?”
“The servant girl who died. Grace Child.”
“What about her?” Her eyes took on that perceptive sharpness he remembered from being a small and naughty boy. Back then, she had never assumed his guilt, but never ruled it out, either.
“I saw her just before she died. I’ve never spoken of it to the police.”
“Why not?”
“I had nothing to do with her death, I promise, but I was out doing something, well, a bit unwise.”
Her smile was wistful. “And if I can’t keep my son’s confidences, what kind of a mother am I?”
Tobias closed his eyes for a moment, realizing how badly he needed to hear those words. “Maybe you can help me understand what Grace said.”
Lady Bancroft set down her book, then reached over and grasped b
oth his hands. The spring light fell around her gently, glinting off the stones in her wedding ring. “Tell me.”
Tobias thought carefully, his gaze on the ring. He hadn’t told Evelina everything. He hadn’t told anyone this part of her story. “I was coming home late and went to the side door. She was outside.”
His mother waited patiently while he sorted his thoughts for a moment more. “They’d locked the doors and she couldn’t get in. At first it seemed all she wanted was to get to her bed without Bigelow finding out she’d missed curfew. I didn’t mind. What was it to me if one of the maids was making merry? I liked the idea of doing her a good turn. But then, just before we went inside, she held me back, asking for a word.”
“What did she want?”
“She said she was in terrible trouble.” Tobias wet his lips. “At first I thought she meant she was, um, in a family way and needed money.”
His mother drew her brows together. “The talk below stairs says that was the case.”
A surge of nausea left him hot and prickling. Grace had been so afraid, and not just for herself, but for that unborn child. “Maybe. But that was not all that troubled her. She said—”
He stopped, distracted by his memory of her piquant features, bold and fragile at once. Us girls got to takes their chances where they find them, she’d said in her common accent, raising her chin. And then she had started to sob.
He cleared his throat. “The long and the short of it was that she’d become mixed up in some sort of illegal business and wanted to get free of it. She thought it was only a matter of time before she was caught.”
His mother was starting to look alarmed. “What did you say to her?”
“I asked her what she wanted me to do. She seemed to think that I could find her a position someplace far away. I said I’d try. The Penners have a house in Yorkshire. Maybe she could have gone there. But by the next day, she was dead.”
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