A Study in Silks (52 page)

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 both 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.”

His mother squeezed his hands and let them go. “Poor girl. That was very generous of you, but would never have worked out. We could never have recommended a servant who had obviously involved herself in something disreputable. But I see why you couldn’t tell any of that to Inspector Lestrade. It wouldn’t do to have it rumored that we had a criminal element in the house.”

Uncertainty crept over Tobias. His mother was clearly missing the point. “Grace was afraid that if I said anything, she would be dead for certain. I think she was afraid of someone in this house.”

He watched his mother’s face carefully. Bewilderment faded to consternation, and she shook her head. “Impossible.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“How can you say that?” she exclaimed.

“Who are we, Mother?” he snapped, hating the sharpness of his voice. “Do you recall the housemaid being electrocuted
at our garden party? How many steps is it from torture to murder?”

“Tobias!” His mother’s eyes were wide and a little afraid. “Whatever put that thought in your mind?”

He had felt the fissures in his world widening under his feet even then. Perhaps Grace had seen them even before he did. “Father is guilty of something.”

“How can you say that?”

“I don’t know,” Tobias said dryly, wondering how the conversation had turned to his father. Then again, everything in their lives revolved around the man.

His mother’s face had gone white. He decided to let the subject of Grace drop and try a different tack. “What is the connection between Father and Dr. Magnus and automatons? They both seem obsessed with them.”

“Automatons? What do you mean?”

“The ones we had in Vienna. The ones that were stolen.”

She sat back slowly, every movement carefully controlled. “Oh. Those.”

“What is so valuable about them?”

“Dr. Magnus helped him build them, long ago,” his mother said dully, avoiding the question. “It’s a part of your father’s life that he will never willingly revisit.”

“Why not?” Tobias gave a harsh laugh. “Science is the one thing we have in common, and he won’t even talk about it.” Anger jammed in his throat, too thick to let out. He fell silent.

His mother looked stricken. “Some things should never be disturbed,” she whispered. “Whatever it was that happened came at that terrible time when your sisters were so ill.”

“A girl is dead. Two of our grooms are dead. A little discomfort is a small price to pay.”

His mother blinked rapidly, refusing to meet his eyes. “Tobias, stop this. For my sake, if not for your own.”

“Did he kill Grace Child?”

His mother looked up, her lips parted in shock. Guilt seared through him. He hadn’t meant to go this far. His mother was the last person he wanted to hurt. She bore too
much of his father’s burden already. And yet he held his breath, waiting for the answer.

“I don’t know,” she said. The words held so little force, he could barely hear her.

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure what for. Maybe everything, like the sacrificial scapegoat.

She drew herself up, folding her hands in her lap. She refused to look at him, but sat with the light gilding her hair and casting her features into sharply limned shadows. “What are you going to do?”

Tobias didn’t know. What would the future hold if Lord Bancroft were hauled off for murder? Or even if his career collapsed? Imogen would never make her brilliant match. His youngest sister—scholarly, awkward Poppy, happier in the country than enduring the London social whirl—would suffer, too.

If his father fell from grace, so would his mother. How long would she last in genteel poverty, forced to manage her husband’s thwarted ambitions, before the shadows finally blotted her out altogether?

How much depended on Tobias keeping his suspicions to himself? Bile burned in his gut. He didn’t want this much responsibility. “I have to find out what happened to Grace,” he said quietly. “Until I do, I can’t know where my duty lies.”

“Duty?” his mother asked in a stiff voice, finally turning to look at him. “To whom? To what?”

“Honor, then.”

“There is no such thing,” she said hoarsely. “It’s time you grew up and learned at least that much.”

“Mother?”

Her face twisted. “Honor is what people use when they can’t bring themselves to face their own weakness. Then they grasp their honor like Michael picking up his holy sword and cut their loved ones off at the knees in the name of the greater good.”

Tobias sat, numb and silent. His mother worked her tiny handkerchief, kneading it into a tight ball. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t bear this conversation a moment longer.”

She stood up, waving him down when he scrambled to his feet. “Sit.”

“Mother—”

“Sit and think about the calamity you’re going to cause before you do a single thing.”

“But what if he is guilty? What am I supposed to do then?”

She turned to look down on him, her face taut with misery. “Guilty he may be, but am I? Are your sisters? If you punish him, you punish us. That’s the way of the world. Does his guilt matter that much?”

The worst part was she thought her husband capable of murder. He could see it in her eyes. He could hold his tongue, but he couldn’t protect her from her own suspicions. “It matters to you,” he said.

“Only so far.” She held up her finger and thumb, a scant inch apart. “I have children. That makes me blind to everything else.”

Tobias could find no words to say. His mother left the room.

He stared at his hands, lying idle in his lap. All he wanted in his life was to build interesting machines. Instead …

Outrage crept over him. He wished he wasn’t part of his family anymore, but there was nothing he could do to change his blood.

THE CLUBHOUSE WAS SILENT AS THE PROVERBIAL … WELL
, Tobias was depressed enough without the comparison. The conversations with his mother and father had left him raw.

The bottle of brandy he had taken from his father’s private reserve at first tasted like hot, smooth ambrosia. Then rank as poison, as he drank past the point of pleasure. Finally, he tasted nothing at all.

The remains of the iron squid looked lonely in the yard. He and Edgerton had quietly retrieved them from the scrap heap behind the Royal Charlotte, where old sets went to die. The scavengers had been at it, picking the metal like a carrion bird cleaned a corpse. He had mourned the thing with all the intensity of a bereaved parent. It had been his one real triumph.

Now it lay on its back, the remaining three legs stuck in the air, a fly carcass from a giant’s windowsill. Tobias sat on its steel belly, bottle in hand, and fondly patted one of its knees. “That was some night.”

He had barely escaped. And then that wretched girl had died. Tobias raised the bottle to his lips again, accidentally banging it against his teeth.

He squinted up at the sky. Coal smoke dimmed the stars, but he had the impression of a vast, awe-inspiring heaven. It seemed like a good moment to wax philosophical, but tilting
his head back reminded him how much brandy he’d consumed.

What options did he have now? He could fall into line with his parents. Take up a profession his father approved of. Abandon his talents. Protect his family. Use Evelina’s affection to trick her. Most important, bury any uncomfortable truths she and her uncle might uncover. As options went, they all sounded disgusting.

In truth, he thought he might love Evelina. It wasn’t because she was pretty or clever, though that didn’t hurt, but because she actually cared who he was. That was worth fighting for, taking risks for. He hadn’t lied when he’d said she made him a better man. He needed her if he meant to keep his soul. No, there would be no betraying the woman he loved.

He could help Evelina find Grace Child’s murderer and whatever other horrors might be hiding in the Roth family closets. But that way led to ruin not only for his father, but also for the innocent women of the family.

The first alternative—dishonor—was unthinkable and the second—utter ruin—unbearable.

He rose, desperation giving him a second wind. The dark swirled around him, the shadows unpleasantly intimate. With a final affectionate caress to the squid, he walked with careful steps toward the clubhouse, where a gentle pool of light spilled through the door.

He had left a candle burning in the lantern that hung from an overhead beam. Tobias half sat, half fell into the ragged chair. There was an inch of brandy left in the bottle, but he set it aside. He was at that state where the world tilted if he closed his eyes. Instead, he stared at the floor, focusing very hard on the cracks between the boards to keep the room from spinning.

Tobias needed a mentor. Someone who knew who he was and could help him turn that to practical ends. To be perfectly honest, Magnus’s intensity was daunting. But, with knowledge, money, and ideas, he was a lifeline. Tobias’s best option was to surpass the foreigner’s expectations at every turn and hope somehow to make a name for himself
with his talent. That might lead to an independent income, which meant the freedom to make his own choices.