A Study in Silks (44 page)

“Benevolence?” Bancroft spat. “Call it tyranny. No, vanity. You and Keating want the same thing. You both want to
see your reflection everywhere you look. Maybe if the world is remade in your image, you’ll believe you exist.”

Magnus muttered something that sounded like a curse. “And you are disintegrating into a shadow of the man you were. Get the casket for me, and I’m gone. Beyond that, I don’t care what games you and Keating play.”

“And if I can’t?” Something new resonated in Bancroft’s voice. To Nick, it sounded like a mix of anger and dawning realization. He would have laid good coin that a penny had dropped for the man, though he couldn’t say what had prompted it.

“I have your trunks. Jasper Keating is not the only man who can hurt you. I trust that you do not need a demonstration.”

“I remember what you did in Austria.”

Nick’s muscles screamed with tension, frozen with fascinated horror. It was like watching a terrible accident, where one could not stand to bear witness, and yet could not turn aside.

Suddenly, Bancroft pushed away from the wall, making Magnus fall back. The ambassador spun on the heel of his glossy shoe, striding stiffly away. Not another word. Not a single nod of acknowledgment. Just his back, straight and square and impeccably garbed in black.

It didn’t matter. Even Nick could tell that he had lost. Magnus laughed, low and long. After a minute or two, he followed at a slow saunter.

Nick gripped the wall, finally rising to his full height. He was sweating, a sick, greasy sensation in the pit of his stomach. Part of it was the aftermath of tension. That had been a close call. By the Dark Furies, in what sort of a place was Evelina living?

IMOGEN NOTICED THE
way her brother looked at Evelina, and a tiny thread of worry disturbed her contentment. The evening was perfect in so many ways—she and Evelina were safe from dragons, the power was back on, her dress was perfect, and the company couldn’t have been more congenial.
And she was watching Bucky Penner with intense interest, because he never seemed to be more than a few steps away. However—the very same thing appeared to be happening between Evelina and Tobias, and that concerned her.

There was no doubt that Imogen loved her dashing brother, but she had no illusions about what he got up to at his clubs. Bucky did the same things, true, but some young men seemed to treat such shenanigans as a rite of passage—a moment in time that was folded away and revisited years hence for nostalgia’s sake. She could hardly blame someone for that. But Tobias never seemed to have that sense of a future, and that frightened her both for him and for Evelina. She drifted in their direction, knowing what they discussed was none of her business, but somehow unable to stop herself.

She never got far enough to overhear their conversation. Instead, her father’s low tones came from somewhere behind her.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” he growled.

Imogen froze, her hand poised over the tray of sherry glasses one of the footmen offered. Then, she realized it wasn’t her to whom Lord Bancroft spoke. She took a glass and angled her body as she sipped, realizing that she was standing with her back to him and that he was addressing a man she recognized as Jasper Keating’s cousin. What was his name again? Harrison? Hartman?

Whoever he was answered in a strained voice. “I did exactly as you instructed, no more and no less. I returned the crates to my warehouse and informed my cousin of their arrival.”

She felt, rather than saw, her father’s flinch. His next words came out as a furious rasp. “We’ll talk about this later.”

“You must believe me. Whoever intimated that there is a missing article is quite mistaken.”

“Mad, perhaps,” her father conceded. “But he has never been careless about his facts. In any event, this is not a conversation for tonight.”

And her father walked away, leaving Imogen with an
intriguing—and disturbing—scrap of information. She casually glanced in the direction of the other speaker, appearing to look for someone else. Harriman! That was his name. Despite his connection to the Gold King, he was a nobody. What would Father be doing with a man like that?

Whatever it was had to do with a warehouse and crates—Harriman’s warehouse, apparently—and one of her father’s schemes. Cold terror prickled up her arms. She had long been aware—probably far more than Tobias—that Lord Bancroft always had his fingers in a dozen problematic pies. That was the fate of a girl with some intelligence who was forced to be quiet and polite and part of the furniture. One learned far more than was appetizing.

Now a thousand details came flooding back. Harriman had come to the house about four days ago, slipping in to see her father and slipping out again without the usual stay-for-tea sociability a home visit implied. Were Harriman and her father involved with the boxes she’d seen in the warehouse? The blood on the floor? Grace Child’s death? Imogen suddenly felt weak, the taste of the sherry sickly and cloying on her tongue.
Dear God, what if he’s guilty of something?

Evelina had said the next step in the investigation was to find out who the warehouse and those crates belonged to.
Those crates were for Harriman’s cousin, the Gold King
. And her father seemed to think Harriman was responsible for an object going missing. Lord Bancroft had instructed Harriman to return some crates. Return them from where? And why?
And do I tell Evelina?

The question hit her like a physical pain. Her first instinct was to share everything she had just heard, but caution brought her up short. It was one thing to hunt down a killer, believing it would clear Tobias from suspicion. It was another when the murderer might be your father.

Ridiculous!
She pushed the idea away vehemently.
That can’t be true. I won’t have it
. Her father was a schemer, but that was all. The best thing she could do was forget she ever overheard him talking. That was the problem with eavesdropping—it was too easy to get the wrong end of the
stick. Imogen trembled, caught between what her mind knew and what her heart was willing to accept.

“Miss Roth?”

She jumped so violently that her sherry nearly spilled down the front of her dress. “Mr. Penner!”

“I interrupted your thoughts.” He regarded her with steady brown eyes.

“They weren’t very good ones.” She guessed that he’d watched her all evening, weighing every nuance in her attitude toward him. It had made her jumpy until now—but after the incident with her father, she didn’t have the energy to edit every twitch of her eyelash. “I would welcome some distraction.”

His mouth quirked. “I’m pleased to have some useful function.”

“I seem to have lost mine.” She cleared her throat. “There is no teapot nearby for me to guard.”

They stared at one another for a moment. Imogen grew increasingly uncomfortable, unsure what to say. Her mind groped for subject matter—the weather, the liveliness of the guests, the handsome brocade of his waistcoat. It all seemed boring enough to make anyone scream and run away, and she wanted him close right then.

“How fare your sisters?” He had three—one older, two younger. She’d visited with them last summer.

“They flourish,” he said with a polite nod. “Noisily and with gusto. How is Poppy?”

“She is well and remains with her grandparents at Horne Hill.”

“In Devonshire?”

“Yes.” Miraculously, Imogen’s shoulders were starting to unknot, although part of her mind was still occupied with her father’s discussion with Harriman. “I trust in another year or two Poppy will recover from the catapult trauma.”

“Ah,” Bucky looked away. “Well, it
was
the season for plums, and my father had just given me a book of da Vinci’s designs.”

“A parent should know better,” Imogen said with mock
severity. The Plum Affair was the outrage of several harvests ago, but she never tired of teasing him about it.

He smiled at the memory, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “On the contrary, Miss Roth. My father makes guns for a living. The idea of his son and heir shooting at things is hardly a source of parental concern.”

The Penners might have been—as her father put it—common as turnips, but their large weapons manufactories in Yorkshire had turned a tidy profit for the last three generations. “I suppose the future magnate has to learn his marksmanship somewhere, although Poppy is still a trifle disturbed by your efforts. She regards fresh fruit with the utmost suspicion.”

He made a dismissive sound. “I was determined to hit every pane of glass in her bedroom window. There were fourteen, as I recall. Excellent target practice, but it was only for one afternoon. She will recover.”

“Are you as rotten to your own sisters?”

“Rotten?” he grinned. “Such attentions are the highest mark of my regard.”

Imogen cocked an eyebrow. “It must be extremely sincere regard, to sacrifice so many wormy plums.”

Then he bowed, all courtly courtesy. “Where it concerns ladies I regard as diamonds of the highest water, I would far rather shower them with more appealing attentions.”

Imogen felt herself flushing and turned away to set her sherry glass on the tray of a passing servant. “Ah, of course. Your father also has some breweries, I think?”

He laughed at that, a hearty sound that made her grin in response. She simply couldn’t help it. “That is very true, Miss Roth, and I do prefer my father’s beer to my father’s weapons. But before that statement causes you concern, I promise to spare you a bath of good Yorkshire ale.”

“That is a relief.”

He then gave her a look that still held mischief, but of a much more adult kind. “I trust that you will not object to attentions of a dryer nature.”

“They may be dry,” she returned, “but is that the extent of their wholesome qualities? A lady in this day and age must
be careful that there is no rotten fruit involved.”
In other words, Bucky Penner, what are you up to?

Bucky took her hand, bowing over it with all the grace of Sir Walter Raleigh making obeisance to the queen. “My lady, you may rely that my every intention is earnest and honorable, and entirely fruit-free.”

Imogen sucked in a breath as his lips touched her gloved fingers. This was as serious as she’d ever seen him, and his manner said far more than his words.
So he does want to court me!

Something in her chest gave a tiny pang, and she realized what made Bucky different from the other young men who begged for a dance or a chance to turn pages while she played the piano. Like Evelina, Bucky had spent a good deal of time at their house for years. They had jokes that spanned years. She was the girl who always had to have her toast slightly burned. He was the boy always up to messy mischief. Who they were formed part of the equation between them, not just how much of a fortune she had to offer.

Bucky straightened, his eyes meeting hers with unusual seriousness. With the lightness of a swift’s shadow, an understanding passed between them that something had turned a corner. They agreed to share more than banter now.

And then Percy Hamilton’s voice cut through the air, shattering the moment. “Disconnect me! There you are, Miss Roth!”

Blast
. And in that moment, her other anxieties came tumbling back down on her soul—her father, the murder, the steam barons—all summoned by Percy’s shrill voice. Beneath that discomfort was the fearful certainty that she would be sold to whoever could do the most for her father’s career.

As if reading her need for reassurance, Bucky gave her hand a squeeze.

EVELINA HAD SPENT THE LAST HALF HOUR PRETENDING
everything was normal. Guests had come and gone from the room, each arrival making her start, afraid it would be Magnus. Her first instinct was to plead a headache and slip from the gathering, but the crowd made her feel safer. Besides, giving in to abject cowardice was a bad way to begin the Season.

Courage was sometimes the only meaningful weapon. Back at the Wollaston Academy, on that first day of school, the headmistress had made her stand on a stool at the front of the class while she was introduced, stiff and awkward in ringlets and petticoats. One look at the sea of spiteful faces, and she knew she would never fit in. They’d take her down like a doe among wolves at the first sign of weakness. Only Imogen had shown the least curiosity about who Evelina was. School did prepare a young person for life, but never in the ways parents expected.

So Evelina smiled and made light conversation, determined to look bright and happy. A champagne fountain appeared, wheeled in by two of the footmen. Evelina wasn’t sure it was quite a success. The pump was steam operated, the heat melted the ice too quickly, and a few of the guests complained behind their hands that the wine was a shade too warm.

“I just don’t think these new inventions are the thing. I mean, certainly the trains are efficient and industry finds them useful, but steam has no part in a gentleman’s home,” said a whiskered man named Sir Darius Thorne.

“I rather like the novelty,” protested another. “Something
new. Tradition can stand to be shaken up a bit from time to time.”