“He left as soon as the vase hit the floor.”
She looked at Holmes sharply as suspicion changed to certainty. “So he was one of them.”
“Undoubtedly. I suspect he was the key player. It remains to be seen whether Keating figures that out. I’m sorry for your friends, but it will be rough sailing for Bancroft if he does. That can’t be helped.”
She swallowed hard. He was telling her no more than the truth. “But what about Grace? And who shot you?”
Holmes made a face. His color had gone beyond white to a sickly gray. “The game is still afoot. It might be limping, but it’s not finished yet. Unfortunately, for tonight, I am.”
Chapter Forty-two
It had been up to Tobias to call a hansom and bundle his sister into it. Lord Bancroft had taken the carriage, and Tobias’s first priority was to exit the scene before anyone noticed that he and his sister had been left behind. After that shocking scene with Harriman, who knew what scandalous whispers the slightest misstep would cause?
The pater’s sudden departure said he was guilty, but how bad was it? Imogen had opened her mouth once or twice, but had not been able to force out a single word. Instead, she held her brother’s hand as if to comfort him. She was probably comforting herself.
Poor Im. She’s always the leaf caught in other people’s storms. And she’d been looking ill again the past few days. She wasn’t made to withstand so many shocks.
Jolting along in the cab, Tobias wrapped himself in the tense silence with a species of bloody satisfaction. Whatever his father had feared, whatever guilt he had tried to hide, little Evelina Cooper and her peculiar uncle had found it. It served his father right for keeping it—whatever it was—from his own son. He’d assumed Tobias was too incompetent to be of help, but who was the family disaster now?
Tobias let the petty monologue run riot around his brain until the hansom reached their house. Bigelow, with the instinct of a well-trained servant, had already opened the door before Tobias reached the front walk.
“What’s going on?” Imogen asked once they were safely inside.
Tobias mused a moment, studying his sister’s worried face. The worst, he knew, was yet to come. “Go look after Mother. I’ll try to talk to Father.”
“Tobias,” she grabbed his sleeve. “Grace Child …”
“You don’t really think Father killed her do you?” He did. He had since the disastrous dinner with the detective.
“I don’t know. There are moments I think I do. Other moments I’m so angry that I wish I could.” Imogen’s eyes were dark with fear. “But what do we do now?”
“We do what we need to.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re the sane one. The rock. You have to be strong for us.”
“But I’m not strong. I’m the one who is always ill.” Her voice shook just enough that he caught the tremor.
He wanted to take his little sister in his arms and hold her, but was afraid he might lose his courage. Instead, he gave her a little shove toward the stairs. “Go be the saintly daughter. See to Mother. I’ll come find you later.”
Tobias went to his father’s study, but paused outside with his hand on the cold brass knob. It had been little more than a week since he’d been summoned there after the squid affair. His father had told him to seduce Evelina in order to prevent exactly what had just happened. So I would have ruined a girl’s life over what? Some gold pots?
He turned the doorknob slowly, part of him hating Evelina. She and her uncle had turned everything on its head. But he’d felt her lean into him on the dance floor and in that moment of tenderness, he’d known nothing was simple for her, either. She’d been wise to say she couldn’t afford him. And yet, despite her cool reasoning, her blood ran every bit as hot as his.
Only one thing was certain. Tobias was done being his father’s puppet.
The door swung open. His father sat behind the desk, the tiger’s head snarling above him. One of Lord Bancroft’s hands rested lightly on his silver-handled revolver. Tobias’s heart jerked in his chest, like a carriage hitting a rut. This was unexpected. For a moment, he nearly turned and ran.
He forced his voice to be light. “Are we so ruined that you need to blow out your brains?” He was being deliberately callous, but it got Bancroft’s attention.
His father glared up at him through lowered brows. “Get out.”
Tobias took a deep breath, forcing the air into lungs so tight they screamed a protest. Suicide? Truly? He’d always assumed his father too egotistical, but now he wasn’t sure. Like everything else, this assumption was crumbling away, leaving him standing on air.
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and sauntered in. “You’re guilty.”
“Yes.”
God help us. “How badly?”
Bancroft stared at the middle of the desk. His voice sounded already dead. “I organized the affair. I knew jewelers who could recut the stones and sell them for sizable profit.”
“Why do it?”
Bancroft made a minute movement, not quite a shrug. “Money. Ambition. Everything takes gold. I gambled and lost.”
That made Tobias swallow. Would this be him in twenty years, disappointed and holding a gun? In ten? “The Gold King doesn’t know you’re involved. Not yet. Suicide is as good as admitting your guilt.”
“He will. And a bullet might encourage Keating to spare my family.” Bancroft’s hands were starting to shake. He was a brave man, but no one could stay wound to the necessary pitch forever.
Tobias was counting on the fact. If he stalled long enough, his father would lose his nerve. “Don’t be an idiot. Killing yourself won’t spare us. It will shatter us to pieces.”
Bancroft’s hands clenched. He smelled of whisky. “Stop sniveling. If you’d been a man, if you’d stopped that girl, then none of this would have happened.”
Tobias gave a dry smile. “But it seems that, at the moment, I have Keating’s respect. He likes my spirit.”
Bancroft’s mouth worked. He’d never been able to bend. Now he was breaking. “Leave me.”
Tobias was losing patience. “No. I’m tired of dancing in your wake. If it’s not a scheme at Harter’s, we’re being Disconnected. One day you’re asking me to seduce an innocent girl, the next someone is murdering our servants to get their hands on a collection of cursed automatons. The family cannot afford this insanity a moment longer.” Tobias still wasn’t satisfied by his father’s explanation about the automatons, but this wasn’t the moment to revive that argument.
His father finally met his eyes. His gaze was dull as rock. “How dare you presume?”
Tobias gritted his teeth, biting back his first retort. The second was only a sliver more civil. “I dare because if you don’t act like the head of this family, I will. Splattering your brains on the wall won’t fix anything.”
A look of pure rage crossed his father’s face. He gripped the revolver, raising the barrel to point right between Tobias’s eyes. “Get out.”
“What about Mother? What about Imogen’s Season? How can she find a husband if she’s in mourning? And Poppy is still a girl. She won’t understand.”
Defeat flooded Bancroft’s face, turning his eyes raw with despair. “Don’t you comprehend ruin? Those will be the least of their problems.”
His father’s face—that look of a drowning man—transfixed Tobias. He went utterly still inside, much the same way as when he was deep in the bowels of an engine. It was the same calm he felt memorizing how parts connected, cog and wheel, piston and pulley. He was a maker. Cause and effect worked the same way, inside a machine or out of it.
He had a flash of insight how his father, once a maker himself, got into the business of politics. It was all about pulling the right levers.
Tobias gentled his voice. “I understand there are broken things that need mending. I’ll kiss Keating’s arse if that’s what it takes to bring him around. I’m exactly the type of bright young aristo he likes in his retinue. And I can built a better machine t
han that prat Jackson. I can save this.”
For a moment they stood staring at each other. An understanding passed between them Tobias had never thought possible. It wasn’t enough.
Bancroft shook his head. “I’ve always told you to be like me, but I’ve secretly taken comfort in the fact that you weren’t. You still have dreams. Don’t give them up. Not for Keating.”
“I’m doing it for us.” Tobias reached for the gun, feeling exhausted and exhilarated at once. It must have been the way those Japanese warriors felt when they drove a sword into their own entrails. Sacrifice and honor. Except not literally. The pater had gone right over the top on this one.
Tobias’s fingers brushed the silver grip of the revolver. Bancroft jerked the gun away. Tobias grabbed for it at the same instant, trying to wrestle it out of his father’s hand. It went off with a thunderous pop, blowing a plume of sawdust out of the tiger’s head. A fang clattered to the floor.
And then Tobias had the revolver. He was panting, more from nerves than from exertion. Bancroft looked amazed, then furious. The fleeting moment of understanding was over, and suddenly they were rivals.
“No!” Bancroft lunged across the desk.
Tobias had enough. He’d had enough for years. “We’re done.”
“Stop being a child!”
Without exactly thinking, Tobias plowed his fist into his father’s jaw. Bancroft sprawled backward into his chair.
“We’re done,” he said quietly. Nausea seeped upward. He’d crossed a line, gone to a place he couldn’t retreat from. “I’m sorry.”
The study door banged open, Bigelow an uncharacteristic tableau of panic. He’d heard the shot. Tobias held up a hand, signaling calm.
Bancroft touched his face. Blood welled on his lip. “You’ll hate yourself for this.”
“I already do.”
It wasn’t just for the blow. He’d taken authority from his father he didn’t want. Now he had to keep his word if that gesture was to have an ounce of meaning.
Tobias turned and walked past the butler, still holding the gun.
Chapter Forty-three
Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.
—Sherlock Holmes, as recorded by John H. Watson, M.D., “The Adventure of the Yellow Face”
Holmes went directly back to Baker Street under Watson’s care. His wound had reopened, and the good doctor was ready to enforce bed rest at gunpoint if necessary.
Worry squirmed inside Evelina, pushing her into action. The Roths had left, Nick had fled into the night, and she needed to find a ride back to Hilliard House. She had to collect the last of her things and make her way to Baker Street. She’d been advised that morning that the moment her uncle was no longer an invalid, Lord Bancroft no longer wished to suffer her presence. She had delayed until after the gallery opening only because her uncle had required her presence and she had run out of time to pack. Now that Holmes had started a chain of events that would likely lead to Lord Bancroft’s arrest, she would be lucky not to find her underthings in the street.
How much has changed in such a short span of time. She stood at the curb in front of the gallery, looking for a hansom to hire.
“Miss Cooper.” She turned to see the Gold King standing beside her. He gave a slight bow.
“Mr. Keating.” She gave a small curtsy.
“Allow me to loan you one of my carriages for the night.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “But I am quite comfortable hiring a cab.”
“Perhaps, but I owe your uncle for his services. It was my men that saw him home, and he specifically requested that his young relation be treated will all possible respect.”
There was no objection she could make to that. Keating studied her a moment, as if seeing her for the first time. She noticed his eyes were a peculiar shade of amber, like a cat’s. “I understand that you also played a role in uncovering the forgery scheme,” he said.
“It was very modest, I assure you.”
“I don’t think so.” A smile creased his distinguished features, but it had an edge. “I found your paper knife in the leg of my streetkeeper, and my agents found Miss Roth’s calling card in the warehouse.”
Evelina felt herself going light-headed. “A coincidence, surely.”
He smiled with a quick shake of his head. “You have interesting talents. I am always keen to know more of clever young people.”
“And I am gratified if I was able to assist in any way.”
A small black victoria pulled to a halt in the street. One gray horse pulled it, and the top was up to shelter against the evening breeze. Keating gave another bow. “Here is my carriage. Again, I thank you. I’m sure we shall meet again sometime.”
He helped Evelina up and closed the door, but his hand remained on the sill of the open window. “One piece of advice, Miss Cooper. It is clear that my foolish cousin is but one of a cabal of thieves, quite probably the least and last of their number. That is my mistake; I thought safely unpacking crates was well within his capabilities. Apparently, I was in error.”
Evelina waited while he cast a glance around the street and then leaned closer to the window. “Captain Roberts is certainly among the guilty, and Lord Farley. I do not doubt those involved in the Harter Engine scheme attempted to recoup their losses at my expense. This bears the hallmark of someone with imagination and an understanding of craftsmanship and metalwork.”
Understanding seeped in like chill, foul water. She turned icy, her fingers trembling in her lap. He suspects Lord Bancroft. Dear God, they’re ruined.
He narrowed his eyes. “When word gets out, there will be a metaphorical bloodbath in Mayfair, Miss Cooper, and I would be very surprised if your name was not dragged into the affair. I would advise you to forget having a Season and retire to the country. I’m sure what social events go forward would not welcome you.”
She caught his gloved hand where it sat on the window. “Please, remember these men have families, and they are innocent.”
The look on his face said she’d revealed something interesting to him. Her anxiety went up a notch as if a gear inside her had tightened.
“Calm yourself, Miss Cooper. I know very well about family affections, and I’m not a wasteful man.” He rapped on the side of Victoria with his cane, and the Gold King’s equipage lurched forward, rattling on the cobbles.
If his words had been meant to reassure her, they didn’t. Evelina sank into the soft velvet of the cushions, horrified. What is going to happen now?
Once the carriage reached Hilliard House, she stood for a moment admiring the serene beauty of it, ignoring what it hid. She’d never completely fit into the world of the gentry. She remembered cowering in the cupboard under Grandmamma Holmes’s stairs, afraid of a beating because she’d thoughtlessly picked the flowers in the formal garden. And she’d cried when she saw her brand-new bedroom, the one her mother had as a girl. It was so big, and so beautiful, but she had no one to share it with, and she would have to sleep in the huge white bed alone. And yet she’d persevered. She’d gone to school and learned to be a lady. She’d been presented to the queen and danced at a ball. She didn’t not fit, either.
Quietly, she slid into the house and mounted the stairs to her room. Her trunks had already been removed. All that was left was a bag to pack with her last few things, and she wanted to avoid everyone until that task was done. Far better to be ready to go before she went through the awkwardness of good-byes.
“It’s my fault, you know. I should have left Grace Child standing outside in the cold.”
She turned. Tobias was in the doorway, his face haggard. “That’s nonsense,” she said. “If anyone is to blame—” She stopped. She was going to say it was her fault, or her uncle’s. But her intention had been to save Bancroft, and Holmes had been hired to find the casket. Both of them had, in their own way, tried to shield the family. In truth, the only person guilty of Bancroft’s ruin was Lord B himself—but that wasn’t what Tobias needed to
hear.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with a shrug. “What matters is that everything has fallen to pieces since. It will seem odd with you away. You’ve been Imogen’s friend so long, I feel like you’re one of us. I can’t imagine our house at Christmas, or five, or ten years into the future and not seeing you in your spot at the table. You’ve been one of the family for ages. You’re a habit I like.”
She bit her lips together to keep them from trembling. “I know. I feel it, too. But things will settle down when your father realizes that everything is fine.”
That statement fell between them like a concrete dirigible. Once Keating finished with Harriman, and got his list of names, Lord Bancroft would be in very, very deep water. “The Gold King warned me what was coming. He said I should go to the country. Grandmamma isn’t well. I think I might go stay with her for a time.”
“What about your Season?” he asked.
“There won’t be one. Not for me, anyhow. I’ll be fine. I always am.”
She saw her words strike to the quick. He blamed himself, or at least his family, for what was likely to be her fall from favor, too.
“It’s all right.” She whispered it, because she didn’t trust her voice. “You didn’t cause any of this.”
He smiled, but it was jerky. “I don’t like it.”
“But what you like doesn’t count right now, does it?”
He took her hands in his, and she felt the rough spots where he’d been handling tools. He kissed her fingers, looking up under his brows. She saw the fear and desire in his gray eyes. It was the look of someone seeing a door crack open—and praying it doesn’t close. The naked, honest vulnerability of it squeezed her heart.
They embraced, hot and desperate. His mouth found hers, telling her without words how much he hurt. Evelina felt tears slip from under her lashes and she dragged in a shaking breath. “I don’t want to lose you.”
His hands slid over her ribs, over the flare of her hips. “I know.”
And their lips met again, but this time it was slower, more deliberate, as if the alchemy of touching was turning their sorrow into something else. They kissed once, twice, then his fingers found the buttons of her fine lace collar and slid first one pearly sphere, then the next through the fine mesh loops that held it closed. Warm against her throat, his fingers were indescribably intimate, as if a great deal more of him were touching her.
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