A Study in Silks (72 page)

“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 with 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 the 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.

An ache began low in her belly, a fire instantly stoked to life. She leaned into him, suddenly needing the pressure of his body like she needed air, and rested her head against his strong shoulder.

The lamp on her desk spilled light into the room, pulling the yellows and gold from the Turkish carpet, but it could not dispel the emptiness of the space. The dresser was bare, the wardrobe door standing open, the bookcase cleared of all her volumes. She had already left. This was just the denouement.

Tears coursed down her face freely now. “Tobias.”

His hand pressed against her back, holding her to him. “I love you.”

Evelina felt her body go limp. She didn’t move a muscle, but felt like an automaton whose engine had just died. Then a wave of heat surged up from her feet, as if life suddenly returned in a glorious, delirious rush.
He loves me!
It was real. She’d heard it in his voice.

She raised her head to look at him. His eyes, too, were bright with tears, but he blinked them away. He no longer
looked like an angel, just a weary, fallen man. She liked this version of him better. She could love him this way, not just adore him as a golden idol.

His mouth worked a moment before he spoke. “Look, things are at sixes and sevens. You might have to leave for a while, and I have to put things to rights. Keating has to be appeased somehow if we’re going to keep going. I have to try, especially for Imogen and Poppy.”

As always, she dove for the difficult question. “How?”

“I’ll put my talents at the beck and call of Jasper Keating. I know it’s dealing with the devil, but it’s up to me to help make this thing blow over. If I do a good job, we need never worry about money.”

About my pitiful dowry, you mean
. “What about your own work? Whatever Magnus wanted to show you? Is there something there you could make your own?”

“He had some sort of a master plan he wanted me and some friends of mine to work on. He said he needed makers and that there was a part he was trying to get.”

The airship
. Magnus would need talented makers to put it together, but he had also needed Athena’s Casket. She couldn’t imagine the mayhem the doctor would have caused if he had possessed such a powerful weapon.

Tobias closed his eyes. “But in the meantime, he had built an automaton. He meant to test us with it. Incredibly beautiful, but it was—enchanted somehow. Maybe that was the test, to see if we would balk at the magic. I did.” He visibly shuddered, wiping his face with one hand. “I never understood all the prattle about herbwives and sorcerers, but I understand it now. Evil stuff. Vile. No wonder the steam barons do everything they can to repress it. The Gold King is right about that much.”

Evelina caught her breath, unable to speak, and her joy fluttered to earth, a moth with one wing.
He is afraid of magic
. Not only that, but she heard the subtle shift behind the words. Magnus had been his savior before. Now it was the Gold King.
He doesn’t know how to save himself. For all his talk about independence, he needs a stronger man to follow and they’re all monsters
.

She took a step back, but Tobias caught her hands, keeping her close. “Magnus is done. He’s not a problem anymore.” He gazed down at their clasped hands. “All the mysteries are solved.”

But they weren’t, not by a long shot. Evelina’s brain suddenly skittered sideways, her fingers twitching in his. He released her hands. “What is it?” he asked.

“I understand now.” She took a step back, folding her arms. She had figured out the murders. She thought of Grace standing in the cloakroom with her candle and her petticoat, unaware that she was minutes from her doom. “Grace was waiting for your father to meet her and collect the gold she was carrying. The killer probably came on her by accident that night.”

Tobias looked sick and confused. “The killer? You mean my father?”

“No, it wasn’t your father.” Pieces of evidence clicked into place. “Bigelow found Lord Bancroft in the library when he went to raise the alarm. Your father had fallen asleep after drinking too much. He didn’t murder the grooms, either. It was Magnus looking for the automatons, first in the house, then on the road. He’d somehow slipped into the house. That had to be him who passed me in the hall.” And as a sorcerer, it would be no trouble to cloak his presence from sight. Excited, she went on. “The only reason his plan failed is that your father realized he was in London and moved the trunks before he got there. Magnus probably came in the side door, but when he tried to leave, Grace was there.”

Tobias’s mouth drifted open, horror mounting on his face. He snapped it shut.

Realization shocked her. “You thought your father killed Grace, didn’t you?” Memory surged. She could see him putting the pieces together during the dinner when her uncle was shot, just before he left the room.

Her face went cold, a painful ache growing in her chest. Her feet backed away from him, almost by themselves. Tobias was known as a crack shot. He had been the first to leave the dinner table. Their eyes met, each reading the other perfectly. In that moment, she saw something in him
change. The man who had just confessed his love vanished in a storm of fear. He was terrified of what she might know.

Evelina’s mouth went dry.
You tried to kill my uncle. You thought he had figured out your father was guilty, so you tried to kill him before he could say anything—and now you know that I’ve guessed as much
.

But if she said it out loud, was he going to let her go? The unspoken dialogue between them stretched on, the fear on his face hardening to something else. There were moments when she was certain Tobias loved her, but there were also many when she was glad she hadn’t poured out every ounce of her soul.
He fears magic. He feared my uncle. He would rather lash out than face the consequences of the truth
. Not a comforting train of thought.

That was the difference between them, and there was no chance for either of them to grow and change now.
This affair cuts love’s throat as surely as it did poor Grace’s
.

And this man—Tobias—had tried to kill Uncle Sherlock. She looked away, trying to hide the mounting horror she felt.
I wouldn’t have believed it of him
.

Tobias watched her reaction, seeming to catalogue every nuance. His mouth twisted with bitterness. “My father isn’t a murderer? I’m so relieved.”

Yes, he knew he had made a mistake.

She felt a flash of pity, but it was mixed with fear. “Your father made a terrible mistake and things are going to change for your family. You can’t preserve things the way they are. If you do that, you let Keating pin you like a specimen in a shadow box.”

Tobias curled his fingers into fists. “I will protect the people I love.”

You’ll pick up a gun and start shooting
. “At what cost to you? To them?”

He gave her a weary look. “I don’t know, Evelina. My mother has already collapsed. I’ll do whatever is required of me.”