A Study in Darkness (17 page)

Nick wasn’t in the mood. “Friends of yours?”

The man chuckled softly. “Nobody’s friends now. Of course, these days it’s hard to tell who’s a friend and who’s working for thirty pieces of silver. But you knew that already.”

He did. “Next you’ll tell me you know the name of whoever gave away our location last night.”

“Maybe.” Jones took another drink of tea, eyes mocking, daring him to knock the tin mug across the deck.

Nick gripped the rail, refusing to play his game even though his guts were hard knots. “Who are you working for?”

Jones finished the tea and let the empty mug dangle. “I’m not saying more.”

“Who betrayed me?”

Now Jones smiled, a slippery, unpleasant sight. “I’ll tell you if you set me free. What shall it be, Captain? The Schoolmaster’s shipping orders or the safety of your vessel and crew?”

Nick weighed the man’s words as he watched Smith climbing the rigging to the top of the balloon. Two others patched the deck where a hot harpoon had burned a hole last night. He could still smell the charred wood. Deliver the prisoner, or know the name of the man who had betrayed his friends?

“I’ve heard you’re a rich man, Captain. You’re not exactly Robin Hood, despite what the rumors say. You know which side of your bread is buttered.” Jones probably thought he was moving in for some decisive stroke of logic.

“That’s not entirely true. I help out now and then.” And as the steam barons pushed the rebels harder, Nick had found himself giving aid to the poor more often.
I might end up a hero of the revolution yet, for seven percent plus expenses
.

“My freedom or the safety of your ship. Which is it?”

Nick took the tin mug from Jones and tossed it from hand to hand, catching it neatly, although he never took his gaze from the prisoner’s face. “You make a good argument, but you also made a serious error.”

For the first time, Jones’s composure slipped. “What?”

But Nick just smiled, the only sound the cawing of gulls and the creak of wood and rigging. The first mistake was confirming Nick’s suspicions that there was a traitor. He’d suspected, but here was corroboration from an inside source. Now that he was on guard, he could be careful. And if the Schoolmaster wanted Elias Jones so badly, the man was worth far more than a traitor’s name.

But the real reason he’d never let the man go free was private.
You put Evelina Cooper in danger
. The explosion meant for Holmes could have easily killed her. But he wouldn’t say the words. Not to this fool.

While he might be angry with Evie, while she might have shattered his life by walking away, his first instinct was still
to keep her safe. No one could ever know that she was his Achilles’ heel.

“
WHAT IN HEAVEN
’
S NAME WERE YOU THINKING
?”
IMOGEN
dragged Evelina to her room. She didn’t bother to turn on a lamp, but just slammed the door and bolted it, locking them in an envelope of lavender-scented darkness. “How could you do something so witless?”

Evelina wasn’t sure there was even an answer. She had wanted—what? Her body felt curiously numb, like she had been injected with one of her uncle’s drugs. And yet that absence of feeling was destroying her. Inside, she felt consumed, as if all that was Evelina was blackening and falling away into ash.

“Say something!” Imogen’s voice demanded. Only her indistinct outline was visible in the dark bedchamber, her face a lighter patch of gray.

Evelina started to reach for Imogen’s hand the way she’d done a hundred times over the years—wanting comfort, offering it—but she cut the gesture short.
This is my fault
. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I’m sure you are.” Her friend’s voice was weary. “Do you still love him then?”

“Yes.”

Evelina heard the scratch of a striking match, and Imogen lit the candle on her dressing table. A simple taper was an interesting choice, since they were in the home of the man who owned every gas plant in the West End of London. There was something rebellious in the tiny pool of warm, intimate light.

“What makes you think he loves you?” Imogen asked, keeping her attention fixed on the jars and bottles on the
table. The candlelight turned her pale hands the color of new ivory.

The question caught her short, but she understood the question. Tobias was nothing if not complicated. “He told me so.”

“I’m sorry.” Imogen’s eyes were bright with tears. “You know that nothing can come of it now.”

“I know.” Evelina’s chest hurt, as if the air was too heavy to breathe. “I want him to be happy. I know he’s not.”

“I was hoping things would get better.” Imogen sagged onto the tasseled stool that sat before the dressing table. Her image in the mirror did the same, head bowed with sorrow. “Alice needs him now.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I didn’t think he would be here. You have to believe that I didn’t intend to even see him, much less kiss him.”

A tear slipped down Imogen’s cheek, glistening in the candle’s glow. “I believe you. I don’t know if anyone else will. You’ll probably have to leave.”

Evelina’s eyes burned, but no tears would relieve them. “I know.” She also knew that her reputation was in grave danger if news of that careless kiss spread.

“Then why open that wound?” Imogen looked genuinely bewildered.

Why, indeed?
The wavering candle made eerie shapes on the flocked wallpaper, as if all her childhood monsters had come out from under the bed and were clustered around the room. He had come to see her dance one last time. He still desired her—and she still felt the heat of his answer in her blood. But that wouldn’t bring either of them peace.

Evelina closed her eyes. The numbness inside was fading, and it felt as if she were falling into a bottomless cavern. “I should have known better.”

Without replying, Imogen rose from the stool, the candlelight catching the faceted jewels in her hair combs. Her silence was the same as agreement, and somehow it was worse than a fight.

Evelina touched her burning face to discover it was wet. “I’m sorry,” she said again weakly. Her stomach ached with
tension as she looked up into her friend’s face, realizing that Imogen was caught between being loyal to her brother or her friend. It wasn’t fair.

A voice thundered from outside the bedroom door. “Miss Roth, is Evelina Cooper in there with you?”

Evelina’s breath caught at the threat in his tone.
Keating is furious
. He’d been pouncing on Tobias when Imogen dragged her away. Unfortunately, now it was her turn. Visions of Crowleyton rose up to haunt her.

The doorknob rattled. She cast a glance at Imogen’s frightened face.
He could destroy her in a blink
. There was a reason that Tobias had bowed to Keating’s will. Above all else, he’d been afraid for his mother and sisters. He’d put everything on the line not just for their happiness, but for their survival.

And Keating might have been pleasant to Evelina because she’d helped Holmes crack the forgery ring, but now Evelina had crossed him. More than that, she’d wounded the daughter Keating loved more than anyone else in the world.

Her stomach felt like a corkscrew.

“Miss Roth!” Keating’s knock became an insistent pounding.

Imogen tried to hold her, but Evelina pulled her fingers free and turned to the door. She drew back the latch and pulled it open before she could change her mind. The sight of the Gold King’s furious face nearly stopped her heart.

She sucked in a breath that sounded eerily like a death rattle. “Here I am.”

“
I THOUGHT YOU AND I HAD AN UNDERSTANDING ON THE
topic of Mr. Roth,” Keating growled. “Now you’ve hurt my daughter, and I won’t have it.”

He’d dragged her into his study, one hand clutched around her wrist like a pincer. He shoved her inside and locked the door behind them, then turned and faced her, arms folded.

Evelina loathed being handled like a child. Without thinking, she braced herself, feet apart, ready to fight back. Keating saw the move and raised his eyebrows, daring her. Evelina bit her lip, forcing herself to relax. Her heart pounded with fear and anger, but she’d gain nothing by antagonizing him further. Besides, Keating had a right to be angry, and that knowledge burned worse than anything else. She backed away, putting distance between them.

Unlike Imogen’s room, this place glowed with gaslight, and the sudden brightness hurt her eyes. The room was stark, decorated in shades of white except for hideous tartan furniture. The crazy pattern of reds and greens reminded Evelina of the bars of a cage, and the room seemed to shrink with each tick of the clock.

She wet her lips, trying to steady the thundering of her heart. “I’m sorry about what happened. I didn’t expect to see Tobias here. I didn’t intend to be alone with him.”

“Bloody hell, is that supposed to be an excuse?” Keating said hotly, cursing even though she was a young gentlewoman. But then again, she hadn’t behaved like one, had she?

“I know it’s not an excuse.”
How do I reply?
She opened
her mouth to blurt something—anything—out, but he cut her off with a growl.

“Does the fact that he is betrothed
to my daughter
count for nothing?”

Heat flared in her cheeks.
You trapped Tobias. Does that count?
But Keating’s wrong didn’t erase hers. Guilt slithered through her, devouring her courage. “I know I am at fault, sir. I forgot myself. I should not have come here in the first place.”

He advanced a step, his eyes narrowed. “Tobias said much the same thing. If either of you breathe a word of this indiscretion to Alice, if either of you give her a moment’s unhappiness, I will personally throttle you!”

She inched backward, keeping the space between them constant. “I understand. Yet please know that I wish I could make it up to her.”

“You wish to make amends?” he asked with an edge of sarcasm.

“If there was a way, I would.” Then Evelina swallowed hard, realizing she’d made a mistake. She’d given him an opening of some kind. She didn’t know why it mattered, but knew she would find out soon. Anxiety skittered through her stomach.

“To her or to me?”

It was a question writ in quicksand, bound to trap her no matter how she jumped. “To either of you, sir.”

“I’m pleased to hear it.” Keating regarded her with calculating appraisal. “You owe me an apology, and I will collect it on my own terms.”

Evelina raised her chin. She deserved to be upbraided for breaking the social rules. She would do penance for endangering Alice’s future happiness. But Keating was turning this to his own ends. “What do you want from me?”

He narrowed his amber-colored eyes. “Hm.” Then he circled around the study to sit behind the desk. The leather chair sighed and creaked with his weight. Keating picked up a pen and rolled it through his fingers. He’d left her standing like a maidservant, a less-than-subtle assertion of his power over her.

“I’m aware that there was an incident involving an explosive device at your uncle’s address,” he said in a much calmer voice.

The change of topic was so unexpected that she nearly started. But then she smoothed any emotion from her reply.

“You are?”

He gave a chilling smile, his lips the only thing to move. The rest of him stayed utterly still. The clock ticked, dragging out the moment, and Evelina’s attention wandered. At one corner of the blotter sat the correspondence box that had tempted her to the stairway in the first place. She felt a deep-seated urge to smash it.

Finally, he spoke. “I hired the man who did the job.”

Evelina felt her face go numb with shock. Not that he had done it—it had been his detonator, after all—but that he had admitted it so freely.
But then Imogen said Keating was the one trying to stop the bomber, so was he lying to the Scarlet King, or is he lying now?
She was growing confused. Something about the exchange seemed like a test and she bridled, letting her temper rise. “Why are you telling me this?

Why kill my uncle?”

Keating smiled, clearly fascinated by her distress. “But I didn’t. Your uncle has special talents. I was extremely grateful to him for the service he performed with regard to that forgery situation last April. It would have been a great shame to lose his talents, and to have such a valuable asset exterminated within the boundaries of my territory would have had the effect of throwing down a gauntlet. I would have had no choice but to go to war.”

“With whom?” she demanded. “And where do I come into this?”

He gave another one of his long pauses, and that allowed time for her fear to rise again. Fear came, but so did fury. “Mr. Keating, please explain yourself!”

HER IMPUDENCE WAS
all it took to unleash a storm of anger inside Keating, the muscles of his neck turning rigid as steel. He was not a man who sentimentalized domesticity,
but Evelina Cooper had struck at the very core of his home. At his daughter’s happiness.