The Timeseer's Gambit (The Faraday Files Book 2) (25 page)

Her nostrils flared, and then she ducked her head graciously. “Of course, Mister Buckley.” She looked back up at him. “But I will not just―back down from this. Your sister needs to see you. She’s wilting. I have no other way to describe it. You were the entire world to her for so very long. And then, one day, you were gone. A face on the other side of a mirror. How could she adjust to that the way you want her to?”

Miss Albany put forward a very convincing case. Chris’s eyes darted to the door. The long windows that framed it were frosted, but he could make out the vague shape of the empty bench. Empty
today
. Miss Albany’s theory made sense, but there was no proof it reflected reality. What about tomorrow? What if someone sat down the moment Rosemary pulled up in a hackney from the train station? What if they were only doing this in the first place to bait him into doing this very thing, and would follow Rosemary back to Summergrove?

He looked back at Miss Albany. She stared at him with wide eyes. “I… I’ll consider it,” he said. He shook his head. “But the answer will likely be no. I can’t―it’s such a risk, Miss Albany. It’s too much a risk.”

“I suppose that’s all I can hope for,” she murmured.

Chris nodded sadly. He tried not to let himself be seduced by the thought of Rosemary and Miss Albany coming through those doors. Rosemary would throw her arms around him and he’d clasp her tight, and―would she be taller? She was at that age. And Miss Albany, prim in her terribly serviceable dress and practical shoes, would watch them, a small smile on her lips. He felt a smile tug at his own, and he smoothed it out, but he saw from the knowing gleam in her eyes that Miss Albany had seen it.

“I shouldn’t have contacted you,” he said, trying to change the subject. “I don’t know why I did. We have a planned conversation tomorrow. I just…”

“I suppose that I’m the closest thing you have to someone… involved,” Miss Albany said delicately. “There’s no use in either of us pretending I don’t have connections to the reformist movement. Garrett is in all the papers.”

Ruefully, Chris rubbed the back of his neck. They had never―
really
―discussed Mister Albany. There was the tacit understanding that he existed and he was a threat, and that his relationship with his sister was not ideal. But there were many things Chris didn’t know and had always wanted to ask. Were they on speaking terms? What about their parents? How separated were they in age? Had they been close growing up? Just how deeply did Miss Albany’s political leanings run? Doctor Livingstone had told him to his face that Rachel Albany was a believer in the reformist way, but not a true reformist.

Was that true?

“I suppose he wants the good doctor done away with,” Chris said, trying to sound casual. He failed entirely, and Miss Albany’s eyes flashed.

“I don’t know what he wants,” she said fiercely. “But Doctor Livingstone has never been anything but good to Garrett and me, and that my brother is actually using this situation to―” She cut herself off. She folded her lips and blew out her nose so hard Chris almost expected to see steam. “I promised myself,” she said primly, “that I would not discuss my politics or my brother with you.”

“Do you discuss them with Rosemary?”

He knew immediately that he’d chosen the wrong words. Miss Albany’s face turned stormier and she folded her arms in a most unladylike fashion. “No,” she said sharply. “Because that would be entirely unprofessional. I am not seeking to indoctrinate your sister into anything, if that is what you’re asking, Mister Buckley.” She sniffed. “As if I even could. Believe you me, Miss Buckley has
quite
made up her mind about where she stands on the debate.”

Chris sighed. “I suppose we should worry that she might turn
herself
in to the traditionalists if she comes to Darrington,” he said, and then realized he’d let on how seriously he was considering it.

That brought a small, grim smile to Miss Albany’s face. “I do believe you’ve managed to frighten her away from that course of action,” she said. “For now.”

Chris nodded, flushing. “I―I’m sorry, Miss Albany,” he said and flushed deeper. “
Again
. Goodness, I’ve rather been the boor this evening, haven’t I?”

Miss Albany actually smiled at that―a real smile―and it brought that fey touch of flourishing and then wilting beauty to her plain face. “Mister Buckley,” she said, “somehow, you are almost
always
a boor, despite being the most proper gentleman I know.”

“I suppose you fluster me,” Chris murmured, and realized what he said only after it had left his mouth. He ducked his gaze, unable to meet her eyes, but not before he saw her eyes widen and her lips part. He stared at his bare feet, each toe red from the heat in his stockings and shoes, while he waited for his embarrassment to subside.

It didn’t.

“I must say…” she said quietly. “It is very… strange. And I suppose, somewhat… nice. Getting to know someone again without constantly feeling their emotions brushing up against mine. I have to read you like any normal person would. Your face. Your tone. I’d almost forgotten what that was like.”

“I… must be going,” he muttered. He glanced up, but couldn’t look directly into her eyes. The spot just behind her shoulder was far easier to stare at. “Olivia invited me to some sort of―ball, if you could believe it, on Godsday. She’s agreed to foot the bill for my wardrobe necessities, and, ah, well, I intend to take full advantage of the opportunity. I haven’t owned true proper evening wear since I was thirteen years old.”

“And I can’t imagine you were invited to very many evening affairs when you were thirteen years old,” Miss Albany quipped. A rather poor joke, but it lightened the atmosphere enough that he could look into her eyes without bursting into flames.

“And that was long before the fashion for tightly fitted profiles, which I think I would look very well in,” Chris said, with a little more genuine excitement than the bantering tone called for, and Miss Albany giggled. Like a young girl. And oh, did Chris feel himself colour at that.

“You are a peacock, Mister Buckley,” she said, and, flushing, admitted: “It’s a good thing that you’re ever so slightly more handsome than you believe you are, or you would be most obnoxious.”

Strange giddiness rose in his chest. Was this flirting? Surely, this was flirting. And what did that mean? He opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say. So he closed it again, looking at her sheepishly, until she shook her head.

“You’re also just hapless enough to make the vanity charming,” she said. Chris’s breath caught. Yes. Yes, it seemed as if this was most certainly flirting. Before he could work up the nerve to actually respond, she waved him off. “Go see to your fine things, then, Mister Buckley.” And without waiting for a response, she disconnected the gnomes and her plain, beautiful face disappeared into mist.

Heart beating a little fast, breath coming a little shallow, and face more than a little flushed, Chris tapped out another frequency on the chimes. After all, a man did not shop for clothing alone. When Will’s face appeared in the mirror, Chris’s voice was a bit breathless as he asked, “Are you terribly busy this evening?”

William smiled warmly. “Not if it’s for you.”

“I should have ordered the white pique vest,” Chris decided. “Do you suppose it’s too late to go back? If I changed the order now―”

“The order you asked them to start work on immediately? And paid for expediency? Oh, yes.” William snorted. “I don’t suppose that would be any inconvenience at all!”

Chris sighed and scuffed his shoe at the footway. The night was so unseasonably hot that the thought of getting into a closed hackney had been untenable, and neither of them had seen a single open one that wasn’t already occupied twice over. Will would come back to the Buckley estate, and then hire a hackney later in the evening when it had cooled off somewhat.

“How miserable for you.” Will rolled his eyes. Despite his slighter stature and shorter legs, he kept pace with Chris effortlessly and seemed unaffected by the exertion while Chris felt as though he might melt into a puddle on the pavement. “A fine velvet double-breasted waistcoat in the exact blue of your eyes, and you sigh that you ought to have ordered the pique.”

Chris flushed, ducking his head a bit. “I want to look my best,” he defended himself. “You can be sure Olivia will have no end of fun at my expense if I look less fine than she does.”

Will threw back his head and laughed, bitter and sardonic as ever. “Oh, yes, Chris. Olivia will surely have no cause to rib you when she sees you dressed in what you
did
order.”

“She told me to dress finely!” She had not, exactly, said that in so many words, but had surely
meant
it when she’d offered to pay for his toilette. Otherwise, she would have just had him make do with his daily wardrobe.

“Well, then, she’ll be ecstatic when you strut out, presenting your coattails like a peacock’s tail feathers.”

Chris flushed. He hated going red in this heat, and he had been doing a great deal of it. William shared his interest in fashion and had a clever eye for cuts, despite the fact that he usually wore his police uniform. Chris had been right to invite him because the helpful eye of someone who was neither him nor invested in selling him something had helped him make difficult decisions. But there had been times when he’d been uncomfortably aware of William’s keen eye on him, and he’d tried to avoid thinking about the comments Maris and Olivia had made over the months, or the way William’s mother had talked about all the handsome friends William had at their home on Black Canning Street. It was always easier, he found, to just
not think
about something like that than to examine it.

He was thinking too much about it right now. He stopped.

He pulled off his bowler and brushed his fingers through his sweat-damp hair. He winced. How vile. He needed a long shower when he was home. “How can it be so hot?” he demanded. “This is the most miserable I can ever remember a summer.”

“Some of it must have to do with fewer fiarans,” Will mused. “Did you notice even some of the finest places we visited were sweltering inside? Unable to afford fees for a ‘binder, or just not a strong enough fiaran to do any good.”

Chris waved his face with the brim of his hat. It did bring some relief. “I’m glad that hats are out of favour for evening wear this season,” he admitted. “Because I certainly did not want to spend another moment in the haberdasher’s.”

“And because you hate the way hats make your face look square,” Will reminded him, a sharp little smile on his lips. “And hide your fine golden hair.”

Chris hid yet another flush behind the angle of his waving bowler. “I’m wearing a hat tonight,” he said defensively.

“Only so you can wave it in your face like you’re doing now. And it’s a bowler, not a top hat, so the effect is less apparent. Or so you believe.”

While Chris struggled to find a response to that―one that wasn’t just demanding how William knew all these things despite the fact that Chris had never said aloud in his life that he hated how square his face looked when he wore a hat―they turned a corner and were met with a riot.

FREE DOCTOR LIVINGSTONE
, the closest placard screamed as it waved in a young woman’s face. She held an illegible sign of her own. Tears screamed down her face and she howled at the placard’s wielder, words too full of anger and feeling to be understood. All down the footway, battles just like it raged.

WHO WILL STAND FOR LIVINGSTONE?

LIVINGSTONE IS A KILLER.

1517 LIVES DEMAND JUSTICE!

The signs continued as far as Chris could see, accompanied by shouting, screaming, calls and cries, profanities and pleas. He swayed on his feet, acutely aware that in three days, the matter would be settled once and for all. Francis Livingstone, the kindly man who’d talked in glowing tones about his new granddaughter, would be gone from the world forever, sent to the gallows for a crime there was no way he committed.

Was anything in the world fair, anymore?

Something tugging his arm pulled his attention from the raging battle. William peered up at him. He looked almost wrong with something other than exasperation or contempt in his eyes. “There’s another way,” he said, pulling at Chris’s arm again. “We’ll go through the alleys just a little past here. It won’t take any longer.”

Chris nodded dumbly, his eyes sliding back to the war as he let himself be tugged away. Three days was nothing at all. Three days ago, they’d just gotten done arresting Willie Clifford and Mary Trask. And now there was a spiritbinder killing priests, the bench in front of his house was empty, William Cartwright could dance like a professional, Rosemary might come back to Darrington, and Rachel Albany had flirted with him.

A sudden smell knocked him out of his thoughts and he pressed a hand to his nose. “Oh, gods,” he gasped.

“I didn’t say it was a
pleasant
journey,” Will agreed. After a moment when Chris realized they were in a dim alleyway filled with overflowing rubbish bins, he pulled his arm away and Will let him. He followed where his friend lead, picking his way around the detritus.