* * *
“ARE YOU SURE we should be doing this?” Letty asked. “What if Mr. Kneland comes in and finds us?”
“Don’t be silly,” Phoebe retorted. “Who cares what Mr. Kneland thinks? We are justified in using any and all measures to achieve our goals.”
“I’m drunk,” Violet said.
The three of them were shoulder to shoulder on the couch in Violet’s workroom. Upside down.
Violet, Letty, and Phoebe had secreted themselves in the room with a supply of port. (“Father will never notice, and if he does, all the better,” Phoebe had declared.) Letty had snuck a box of confections in under her cloak. (“Bilious complaint be damned,” she’d whispered at Mrs. Sweet’s disapproval.) Like the early days, when they were envisioning a plan for Athena’s Retreat, Phoebe had marched around the room, spreading curses aplenty. (“A man can’t really do that to himself, can he?” Violet asked.)
Violet had missed this camaraderie in the past few months. Letty and Phoebe somehow managed to balance the intensity of their belief in Athena’s Retreat with a practical sensibility about how society truly worked. Even more important, laughter with friends was a balm for the soul.
“What if Earl Grantham catches us at it?” Letty continued. “He’ll make a terrible fuss.”
“Darling, do shut up,” Phoebe complained. “You are giving Violet the headache.”
“It isn’t Letty giving me the headache. I have to sit up.”
“How do we sit up?” Letty asked. “What if we—ow!”
“Your foot is so large,” Phoebe grunted. “Oh . . . oof.”
“You are kicking me in the—oh, this dratted corset,” Violet cried.
In the end, it took them ten minutes to stand upright. Violet had to have Letty yank her dress in one direction while she twisted her body in the opposite direction to settle her undergarments back into place.
It had been Phoebe’s mad idea, as usual. She’d been dressed down by her father again and confined to her house for the past two nights. Although she treated these punishments as a joke, from the occasional bruises glimpsed high on Phoebe’s arms, Letty and Violet had their suspicions about how the marquess quelled his daughter’s rebellions.
The one time Violet tried to broach the subject, Phoebe gently set her hand over Violet’s mouth. “Darling,” she’d said. “We leave our nightmares behind in the dark for a reason.”
“He found a bundle of my notes regarding Herr Kolbe’s work with Herr Schmitt and thought they were billets-doux, so I missed the excitement,” Phoebe said now. “I can’t believe that Mr. Kneland had the nerve to question where I was last night. Told him I spent my evening lighting metaphorical fires. Less dirty and smelly than literal ones. What were you even doing here so late, Letty?”
“I was simply . . . Oh dear.” Letty’s port had slopped over the side of her glass. She crossed to a set of cabinets and rummaged through for a rag to clean the mess.
Phoebe turned her attention back to Violet. “The faster you figure out this formula, the faster everything can go back the way it was.”
Violet popped a tart in her mouth and moaned with pleasure, then made a face at Phoebe. “It isn’t as if I haven’t been working on this for the past month. The ratios must be exact. I cannot risk exposing anyone to a mixture that might sicken them even more.”
“The problem is not the ratios,” Phoebe countered. “The problem is that you’ve been distracted.”
Letty intervened. “We don’t blame you for the fire, or the explosion, or any of the current upheaval. Anyone would be distracted by such goings-on.”
It hadn’t been the fire keeping Violet from her work, but she declined to correct Letty’s misconception.
Phoebe frowned. “What you need to do is clear your head of any other thoughts and then concentrate on the formula.”
That is how the three of them found themselves with their legs over the back of the couch and their heads touching the floor. Phoebe swore by the practice, but Violet’s corsets were unforgiving in any position other than sitting at attention. Even more so after having stuffed herself with tarts and half a bottle of port.
Phoebe managed to appear unflustered and invigorated by the whole experiment. “That was amusing. Did it work, Violet?”
Violet considered the question. “I learned how difficult it is to clear one’s mind when confronted with what lives beneath my couch. Does that count?”
Phoebe’s amethyst eyes darkened with irritation. “Give the work to me, then. I know enough chemistry of gases to finish the antidote. Then the event can go ahead as planned.”
“And put you in danger?” Violet shook her head. “I have Arthur and his gaggle of faux footmen watching my every move. You have no one. I won’t do that to you.”
“They weren’t watching for a fire,” Phoebe said with exasperation.
“It doesn’t matter. I will finish by the end of this week. I promise.” Violet clasped Phoebe’s hands in her own. The contrast between her broken nails and the supple cream leather of Phoebe’s gloves was lost on neither of the women.
“I believe you.” Phoebe smoothed the annoyance from her face. “You can do anything you put your mind to. In fact, the three of us will change the world, each of us in our own way.”
“You are prickly,” she said to Letty, “but your brain is magnificent.” She handed her a glass of port. “You hate the aristocracy, and you have a good reason for it. The Earl Melton treated you poorly.”
“Poorly?” Letty said. “You two are the only members of polite society who acknowledge me anymore. He ruined my life.”
“No. He is not responsible for your life. You are,” Phoebe said. “You are brave and strong and will someday make Melton and his son feel like insignificant toads.”
Next, she handed Violet a chipped mug, also filled with a generous dose of port. “And you are kind and generous,” she said. “The only woman who could come up with the idea for Athena’s Retreat and have the utter lack of self-preservation to see it become a reality.”
Phoebe held the bottle aloft and leaped onto a chair. “I am rich and fearless. Too highborn to ignore and too pretty to be taken seriously. We built this club together for women who need our protection. I pledge on all that is holy, namely the gods of sugar and alcohol, that Athena’s Retreat will continue its work. No matter what—or who—might stand in our way.”
16
RUMOR IS YOU gave Earl Grantham a thrashing the other day. Do you think he had anything to do with the fire?”
In a narrow alleyway in Shoreditch, Arthur and Winthram scrutinized a tiny coffeehouse on the opposite side of the street.
“No,” said Arthur. “Grantham’s a pain in the arse, but he wouldn’t do anything to hurt Lady Greycliff.” The earl’s affection for Violet was genuine, Arthur would bet anything.
She had that effect on men.
More than once, Arthur had to reach out to the wall and steady himself. Scraping his hand against the rough bricks, he hoped to puncture the disorienting numbness. The aftermath of the fire and the strange emotions plaguing him since he’d left Violet’s room this morning had him mistrusting his senses.
He was in deep trouble. Matters of the heart were throwing him off his stride and leading him to doubt like he hadn’t since he was a boy.
In the years since he’d left England, there had been women, most of them more sophisticated and experienced than Violet. In all that time, he’d never been so shaken during physical intimacy. He had a limited vocabulary for interactions with other people. What to call his current state? There was a frightening softness at the center of him, as if Violet’s untutored caresses and delighted explorations had punctured some vital barrier.
His judgment was damaged. Arthur no longer recognized the inside of his own head. Calling a halt to any thought of continuing his affair with Violet was th
e smartest thing to do. Time to pick up the threads of the investigation into the Omnis and get out of the club before he did something stupid. Like go back and let her seduce him again.
“He’s a big bloke, the earl,” Winthram continued. “James said the earl was flat on his back when you left the room, and you hadn’t a hair out of place.”
“A trick I picked up,” Arthur said. “You can toss a man twice your size over your shoulder if you do it right. Not much to it.”
A group of young laborers walked by. Arthur shrank into the shadows. For two days straight, he’d run down every clue he could find, and the same name kept popping up.
Adam Winters.
This coffeehouse was a gathering place for suspected Omnis, and Adam Winters was scheduled to speak there. Winthram had insisted on tagging along to point his brother out. They examined the crowd of older, sober-looking men entering.
Winthram scuffed his boot against the crumbling yellow brick of the building next to them. Shilling-sized snowflakes sped past in a crazy spiral and settled in the doorman’s hair and eyelashes.
“Might run into trouble you don’t want,” Winthram said, gaze cast down and away. “I’ll stay for a while and help keep watch.”
Arthur frowned. “This is a rough crowd. You could get hurt.”
Winthram’s head shot up, and he scowled. “I can take care of m’self. I’ve had to fight my way out of a tight spot before.”
Arthur held his hands in the air. “I didn’t mean hurt from a fight.”
Winthram’s mouth moved as he chewed on this. Clear as day, the younger man didn’t want Arthur’s sympathy.
“I’ve had plenty of time to get used to Adam’s words to me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Arthur had been five when Deoiridh was born, a late-life surprise to his parents. He might have resented the interloper in his snug, ordered existence. Instead, he’d lost his heart to the tiny creature the first time she smiled. Arthur’s sister had opened his eyes to the beauty of the world. Her giggles broke the oppressive silence of the empty landscape, and he threw himself into the task of guiding and protecting this tiny, fragile being through life. In turn, she greeted him every morning with arms wide-open, trusting him to keep her safe.
When influenza came to their vale, she died as she’d lived, holding her arms out to her older brother, asking him to help her.
If Deoiridh had lived and made the same choice as Winthram, Arthur would have been conflicted—but he never would have abandoned her. Could Adam Winters not accommodate himself to his brother’s decision, as strange as it must have seemed at first?
Arthur knew little about love. However, he’d always imagined it grew to encompass other people, not narrowed as time passed.
“It’s his loss,” Arthur said. “He’ll come to regret it.”
Disbelief twisted Winthram’s pinched features. His shoulder jerked up and to the side to signal his discomfort with the subject. Silence settled between them as the carters shouted to one another and the crowd shuffled by.
“There he is.” Winthram pulled Arthur back into the recess of the alleyway. “The meeting must be starting.”
Sure enough, Adam Winters was descending from a hackney across the street. He resembled Winthram, with his slight build and neat features, but he was older, heavier in the jowls, and broader in the chest. A few burly men accompanied him, their heads swiveling as they surveyed the pedestrians in either direction.
“Right. I’m going in,” Arthur said. “I’ll listen to the speeches, then stay on afterward and see what I can learn about what the Omnis have planned and if anyone mentions the club or Beacon House. You stay here.”
Winthram’s slender frame sank in on itself.
Arthur sighed. “Simple physics, that over-the-shoulder move. Shouldn’t take long to demonstrate. Half an hour at most.”
Winthram lit up like a candle. Arthur wagged his finger. “One move. I haven’t time to muck about. In a matter of days, I’ll be on my way.”
* * *
“ARE WE SERFS, to labor in a lord’s fields? Why is it assumed that if we use our bodies to carry out a full day’s work, then our minds must remain blank? What do these men fear from educating their labor force? They fear accountability. They fear consequences. They fear justice.”
Warped walls of pine, stained black with age, vibrated from the stomping of dozens of feet and the scraping of chairs as a group of thirty or so men shuffled around to find space in the tiny back room. The sagging plaster ceiling released the odors of the thousands of pipes smoked in here over the years and, mixed together with the smell of a roomful of unwashed men, made Arthur’s nose itch.
Adam Winters stood at the front of the crowd. Winters’s deep-set eyes and high cheekbones were the mirror image of Winthram’s, but he exuded a dark charisma that his younger brother lacked.
Sweat glistened on his forehead as he continued to speak about universal suffrage in an eloquent takedown of the Reform Act of 1832. The men followed his words with an astonished intensity, as though bemused by their own excitement for his message.
If Winters could bend this group to his will, what effect might he have on his younger brother or even an impressionable young woman? Both Letty and Mrs. Pettigrew claimed to have lost track of time when the fire broke out. Difficult to argue when he’d seen the same thing happen to Violet.
“Mark my words, he’s a man to watch,” opined a man next to him. Arthur turned in surprise to see Earl Grantham at his elbow.
“What are you doing here?” he asked Grantham in a heated whisper.
“The Crown considers the Omnis to be a threat,” the earl answered in a low voice, adopting an authentic working-class accent. “Edward Oxford’s assassination attempt on Her Majesty wasn’t a one-off. Better question is, what are you doing here?”
Arthur inspected Grantham more closely and grimaced in surprise. Dressed in a plain pair of brown trousers beneath a loose-fitting coat, his glossy hair was hidden by a felted cap, his boots as dusty as the next man’s. Other than his height, the earl fit right in with the crowd full of laborers.
Grantham nodded in acknowledgment of the scrutiny. “Wasn’t always an earl. There’s a group of us who came from like backgrounds and now can do some good with our changed circumstances. I’ve been to a few of these meetings before with them. No one will question my being here today.”
“As a spy or as a supporter?” Arthur asked.
The earl scanned the men closest to them, but they were intent on Winters’s words. He leaned over and whispered through clenched teeth. “Leave this to me, Kneland, and get the hell out of here. Violet sent me word about what you did.”
The floor dropped out from beneath Arthur, and his palms grew damp. What the devil?
“She said the fire was an accident,” Grantham growled. “You and I both know better. It happened on your watch. You failed.”
Giddiness washed through Arthur, and he nearly laughed aloud. For a terrifying few seconds, he’d thought Grantham knew what had happened in Violet’s room. Relief must have shown in his face, for Grantham’s stern mouth twisted into a sneer. “Start packing, Kneland. Your days in Violet’s presence are numbered.”
Of the fifty-two methods Arthur knew to bring a man to his knees, thirty-one of them were lethal. For a long moment, he considered the ones left to him, especially those aimed at an opponent’s nether regions.
Lucky for Grantham’s hope for offspring, common sense prevailed.
When the crowd roared in response to Adam Winters’s words, Arthur made his way to the exit, leaving an enemy at his back.
17
ARTHUR SHOOK HIS hand out, then touched the tip of his thumb to the tips of his fingers. No matter he’d worn gloves and scrubbed his hands, the shadow of ink still stained his fingers. It had taken him hours to complete the first of two letters he’d writt
en today, and he’d gone through a shilling’s worth of paper in the process.
The missives he’d penned had forced an examination of the choices he’d made since one grave sin had set him on his path twenty years ago. The process left him restless, pacing the halls while his hand settled over a tender ache in his chest.
He’d told himself to walk this particular hallway because a bank of windows at one end made it more vulnerable. This was a lie. He knew very well who was working in this wing today. In fact, if Arthur was lucky, he’d turn the corner and run into . . .
“Aaachooo!” Johnson staggered into the wall opposite an open doorway, propelled by the strength of his sneeze.
Huh. Not who Arthur had expected to see.
“Are you all right, Johns—”
“Meeerchoo!” The poor footman was gasping now, eyes red and watery. He pointed at the room and shook his head. “Can’t . . . breed . . . Ub sorry.”
“I’ll take over from here. Go see Mrs. Sweet.” Arthur flinched in sympathy as more sneezes racked the footman’s powerful body.
Once Johnson was out of sight, Arthur scanned the empty corridor, then peered up at the heavens and nodded in acknowledgment.
He knocked gently at the open door of a small stillroom. Violet stood across the room, next to a low ceramic basin set into a counter, her head bent over a sheaf of paper, her toes tapping in a furious rhythm. Her experiments must not have been going well. Soot clung to the tight sleeves of her cambric gown, and she’d discarded the apron he’d seen her in earlier.
“Come in,” she called in a low, sweet voice, never looking up from her work.
Johnson having left, Violet needed a guard with her. That was the reason Arthur stepped inside, locking the door behind him. Not the sliver of creamy skin exposed at her collarbone, where her shawl had slipped away, nor the impulse to cover that vulnerable part of her.
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