by Lisa Maxwell
“I’m standing right here,” Jack said darkly. He felt out of breath just standing there, but thankfully, the morphine he’d taken before he came down had eased the pain in his arm and in his head.
“As though that matters in the slightest,” his uncle sneered. Then he turned back to his son, Jack’s cousin. “We’ll demand a retraction.”
“From the Herald?” His cousin shook his head. “It’s not much more than a gossip rag these days. They don’t care whether the story’s accurate, so long as it sells. It might be better to meet them on their own terms. Get another story out there, one that sheds some doubt on this one. I can talk to Sam Watson, if you want. You remember, I introduced you at the Metropolitan. He’s been a great friend to the Order, first with the theft at the Met and then in the past few weeks with his editorials about the dangers of a certain criminal element. I’m sure he could do an interview with Jack and reframe the story.”
“I don’t want to do any damn interview,” Jack said, but no one was listening.
“Do that,” his uncle said, pacing. “It’s a start, but it’s not enough. Retracting the story doesn’t change the fact that this Reynolds has made the Order look like old fools.”
Which you are, Jack thought. But even with the morphine loosening his mind, he managed to keep his mouth shut tight. He didn’t need to worry about his uncle or the Order any longer now that he had the Book.
“It sounds to me like what you need is an engagement,” his aunt Fanny ventured.
Morgan turned to her, impatient. “Thank you, dearest, but this matter doesn’t concern you.”
His aunt ignored the dismissal. “If you’re trying to neutralize unwanted gossip, you need something more exciting for the press to focus on than an interview, Pierpont. Trust me. The world of gossip is one I am intimately familiar with, and I have far more experience at controlling it than you do. When a girl’s reputation is soiled, the best thing her family can do is to get her engaged, and quickly. There’s nothing like a big society wedding to distract the gossips. Isn’t that right, Mary?” she asked, turning to Jack’s mother.
His mother, a small, weak woman who’d become even more so with age, looked troubled. “I don’t think Jack’s in any condition to court anyone,” she said tentatively, “though I suppose the Stewart girl might be interested since she had such a dismal season.”
“I am not being shackled to some failed debutante,” Jack said. He certainly wasn’t going to allow his mother and aunt to arrange a marriage to save his reputation, like they might for some ruined girl.
“No, dear,” his aunt told his mother. “I would never do that to some poor girl.”
Jack opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn’t figure out what to say. He didn’t want to be married off, but his aunt’s flippant dismissal was insulting.
“We don’t need an actual wedding. If you want to stop gossip, you give them something else to talk about. It must simply be an event. A spectacular event.” His aunt turned to Morgan. “A party or a gala of some sort. The Order could host it, which would make it a show of your continued strength.”
“It’s hardly the time for a party, Fanny.”
His aunt tsked. “One does not hide from the world when tongues begin to wag, Pierpont. One shows up at the opera wearing the finest gown one can find.”
“It is also no time to think about shopping,” Morgan growled.
“Mother has a point,” Jack’s cousin said, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. “The Order could host a gala—something large and elaborate. Even better if it’s an exclusive event. That would get the papers interested in covering it.”
“And where would we host it?” Morgan asked darkly. “Khafre Hall is a pile of rubble and ash, if you remember correctly.”
“Use our ballroom,” his aunt said. “But you can’t simply throw a ball. You need something more original than that.” She considered the problem for a moment. “What about a tableau vivant?”
“Aren’t they a bit risqué?” his mother asked.
“They’re perfectly appropriate, if they’re depicting great art,” his aunt said primly. “But yes. They’re often considered quite risqué, which is the entire point. News of it would cause a stir. There would be speculation for weeks about which artworks would be selected and who would be posing for each of the scenes.”
“Not simply art,” his cousin said, shaking his head. “Scenes from some flouncy rococo paintings won’t do. If we’re to restore the Order’s reputation, we need to present great works that show the Order’s strength and importance. Scenes of the dangers of feral magic and the power of science and enlightenment to protect the people. It could work.”
“Possibly,” Morgan said darkly, considering the proposition. “But we would have to make sure this one doesn’t muck everything up again,” he added, nodding toward Jack. “We’ll have to make sure he’s well out of sight.”
“This one is standing right here,” Jack muttered again. And again they ignored him. He’d had enough, he thought, and began to retreat to the relative sanity of his room. They could figure out whatever they wanted to do as long as it didn’t include parading him around as a bridegroom. He had other, more important matters to attend to.
“Oh, no,” his aunt said. “You can’t hide him away.”
“Why the hell not?” Morgan asked.
“Every society wedding needs a bride, Pierpont. That’s the entire point,” his aunt said.
Jack stopped in his tracks and turned back to the room.
“Everyone shows up to the church to see the chit dressed in white and redeemed,” his aunt continued. “Everyone wants to know if it was truly a love match, or if the groom looks ready to dash. If you want to discredit this article, you need to show you’ve nothing to hide.”
“I am not marrying some girl,” Jack said again, his voice clipped and barely containing his frustration.
“I’m not talking about you taking a bride, dear. I’m talking about you being the bride,” his aunt said with a dreamy smile.
“Like hell—” Jack started to say, but his aunt was still talking.
“You must make Jack the focus,” she told his uncle.
“Absolutely not,” Morgan growled, his nose twitching with disgust at the idea.
“It’s the only way,” his aunt said, looking at Jack with a dangerously thoughtful expression. Nothing good ever came of meddling women when they started to think. “Yes. I can see it now,” she told Morgan. “You make Jack the man of the hour, the celebrant of the night. The event will show that the Order isn’t afraid or weak or even laid low, and you can use this story to your advantage. You can’t retract what’s been written any more than a girl can reclaim her virginity, but you can use it to help your cause. Recast Jack as a hero who discovered the danger on the train, a danger that reveals the continued necessity of the Order.”
“I don’t like it,” Morgan said.
“That’s not the point, dear,” his aunt told Morgan. “What poor girl likes being forced into marriage because of one little indiscretion when men get to have as many as they like? The point is in the necessity. You must take the story and make it your own. It’s the surest way, and it will shore up the Order’s power at the same time.”
“I’m not some pawn to be used,” Jack growled. His head felt light and heavy all at once from the morphine in his veins, but his anger felt like something pure. How dare they try to arrange his life. How dare they treat him like some stupid little chit being traded between men. “I deserve to have a say in this.”
Morgan turned to him. “From the evidence in this article, you’ve already had your say. Now your choice is to listen or to leave. Do I make myself clear?”
He was clenching his teeth so tightly that he suspected they would crack at any moment, but Jack gave his uncle a tight nod. “Crystal.”
They turned back to their planning as though he were no more than a misbehaving child, scolded and dismissed. Fine. Let them think that. Let
them believe that he would bow and scrape to win their favor again. They didn’t realize that already they were becoming unnecessary. The world was spinning on without them, and so would Jack. While they fussed like women over linens and china patterns, he would be learning and planning, and when the moment was right, he would step into their place and make the old men who thought they ruled the city obsolete.
But until then Morgan wasn’t the only one who had contacts and people who could do him favors. Jack would use one of his to find this R. A. Reynolds. He’d met Paul Kelly a few weeks back, and from all he’d heard, Kelly wouldn’t have a problem with delivering a message for him. He would make sure that damn newspaperman was sorry he ever crossed Jack Grew.
CONSEQUENCES
1904—St. Louis
Had Esta not been trained since she was a child to suppress every flicker of emotion when faced with some sudden danger, her jaw might have dropped at Julien Eltinge’s words. Instead, she kept her features placid, the combination of boredom and cool poise that never failed to evade attention. As much as she now loathed the man who had raised her, she was grateful in that moment for her ability to hide her reaction so completely. But inside, her instincts were on high alert, and her stomach felt like she’d just been sucker punched.
“Infamous?” Esta asked. “I’m not sure what you’ve heard about me, but surely infamous is overstating things, Mr. Eltinge.”
Julien’s mouth hitched up around his cigar again. “Oh, I don’t think it’s overstating things at all,” he replied, his dark eyes glittering. They were too sharp. Too perceptive—and she had a feeling that so was he. Setting the cigar back in the ashtray, Julien turned back to the mirror and began removing the makeup on the other side of his face. “After all, you can’t destroy a train and not expect to get a reputation, you know,” he said as calmly and easily as someone talking about the weather.
Destroy a train?
The dressing room seemed to fall away, and all at once Esta felt as though she were back on the train out of New Jersey. The stone that she was wearing against her arm almost felt warm at the memory of how hard it had been to grasp the seconds, to find the right moment to pull them through to get away from Jack. Though she was on solid ground, Esta’s legs felt suddenly unsteady, just as they had when the ground beneath the train had seemed to quake, like the train was about to run itself off the rails. And even in the warmly lit dressing room, the darkness that had tugged at her vision and her consciousness haunted her.
No . . . that’s impossible.
“But please, let’s not stand on ceremony. You must call me Julien.” He glanced up at Esta in the mirror, smiling slightly as he wiped more of the makeup from his face. “After all, a friend of Darrigan’s is a friend of mine.”
“What are you going on about, Julien?” Harte asked. “She didn’t destroy anything—certainly not a train.”
“I suppose it would be the sort of thing one would remember. . . .” Julien gave her another of those too-perceptive looks. “It’s what all the papers claimed, though.”
“And you believed them?” Harte asked, scorn coloring his tone. “You of all people should know not to trust those muckrakers.”
Julien’s affable expression flickered slightly, but he didn’t immediately respond. Esta noticed that he was still watching her, and he continued to study her for a few moments longer, before turning back to the dressing table. He took his time wiping the rest of the cold cream and makeup from his face, erasing the woman who had commanded the stage until all that was left was the man beneath, a man who was no less compelling.
There was nothing remotely feminine about Julien’s features without the light base or the brightness of the rouge on his cheeks and lips. Instead, he had a rugged, almost Mediterranean look to him, with olive-toned skin, sweat-damp black hair that held the hint of a curl, and coal-dark eyes that were as perceptive as a raven’s. He picked up the cigar again—an affectation, Esta realized—wielding the thick stump of it like a sword.
Julien turned to face the two of them then, and his voice was serious when he spoke. “To be honest, Darrigan, I didn’t pay attention to the story when it first happened. There’s always some accident or another the papers are going on about. But then that one fellow claimed it wasn’t an accident. The only reason I even noticed it really is because he claimed you were there.”
“What fellow was that?” Harte asked.
“What’s his name—the one who always runs with Roosevelt these days,” Julien said, wagging the cigar in the air as he tried to think. “Grew, I think it is. Gerald or James . . .”
Esta’s stomach went tight. “Jack.”
“That’s it.” Julien pointed the cigar at her. “Jack Grew—one of the Morgans, isn’t he?”
“J. P. Morgan’s nephew,” Harte supplied, but his voice sounded as hollow as Esta suddenly felt.
Julien nodded, apparently not noticing either of their reactions. “Yes, that one. He got caught up in the mess. A few days after it happened, one of the papers came out with this whole story about how the derailment wasn’t an accident. Jack Grew claimed that the two of you were the ones who set some fire and burned down the headquarters of the Order of Ortus Aurea in New York to cover a theft and that he’d tracked you to the train and had almost apprehended you when you attacked him—”
“I attacked him?” Esta didn’t even try to hide the disgust in her voice.
“And blew up half the train to escape,” Julien finished. “A lot of people died in the crash, you know. After Grew claimed it wasn’t an accident, the powers that be started paying attention—oh, don’t look so offended, Darrigan. I’m just telling you what the papers said.”
“You’re accusing us of destroying a train, Jules,” Harte said, his voice lower and more dangerous now. “Of killing innocent people.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. You’re supposed to be dead, after all. Nasty fall off a bridge, from what I heard.”
“So you’re accusing me?” Esta asked, still trying to make sense of the strange person that was Julien Eltinge.
She knew men like him, men who used their good looks and easy confidence to get their way. Men like Logan, who she’d thought was a friend and a partner until he’d turned against her. Men like Harte, too, if she were honest with herself. Julien’s charm was a warning of sorts—a sign that she had to be on alert. But there was something else beneath the charm, and that part of him was still a puzzle.
“I’m not accusing anyone,” Julien said.
Harte let out an impatient breath. “You’re trying my patience, Jules.”
Julien gave Esta a wry look out of the corner of his eye. “You know, he can be a jackass sometimes.” He paused to consider what he’d just said. “Actually, he’s a jackass more often than not, isn’t he? But I never knew him for a murderer. You, on the other hand . . .” He looked at Esta full on now, a question in his darkly perceptive eyes. “I don’t know you at all.”
“She’s with me.” Harte stepped forward, slightly in front of her, to assert himself physically as he spoke. “That’s all you need to know.”
Esta barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes in exasperation. Harte had pretty much ignored her since they’d left New York, and now he was suddenly interested? Typical. But in front of Julien, she let him have his little moment.
Jules gave Harte an inquiring look. “I see,” he said, amusement brightening his expression when he finally looked at Esta again. Then he let out a soft chuckle. “Harte Darrigan . . . I never thought to see the day. . . .” He laughed again.
Esta lifted her chin slightly and affected what she hoped was a look of utter disinterest, even as she was still trying to process everything Julien had just told them. Something had happened to the train they were on after they had slipped through time—something that had never happened before.
“Tell me about the train,” Esta demanded.
Julien held Esta’s gaze a few moments longer before he began
to speak. “There was a big derailment a couple of years ago. The accident tore a gaping hole into a section of track just outside the station in New Jersey. From the reports in the papers, the track was gone. Utterly demolished, and half the train with it. The inspectors said that damage like that could have only been the result of an explosion. At first they thought it was one of the anarchist groups that are always blowing things up when they don’t get their way, but then a couple days after, the Herald broke the story about this Jack Grew character. Apparently, he claimed that the two of you were responsible. Of course, most people thought he was cracked, seeing as how Darrigan here was supposed to already be dead—no offense—”
“None taken,” Harte said, but his jaw was tight, and Esta had a feeling he didn’t like to be reminded.
“And then there was his claim that it wasn’t a bomb. He said you used magic.”
“Magic?” Esta asked, pretending to be surprised.
“Claimed that you were Mageus,” Julien said, implying the unspoken question.
“We’ve known each other for ages, Jules. If I were Mageus, don’t you think you would know?” Harte asked, bringing Julien’s attention back to him. “If either one of us were Mageus, how would we have gotten out of the city?”
Esta tried not to hold her breath as she waited for Julien’s answer.
“That was the question everyone was asking,” Julien said finally. “Dangerous magic outside the protection of the Brink? It should have been impossible. But they never found your bodies in the wreckage, and Grew continued to swear you had both been there.
“Of course, his people used the whole thing as proof that the Order’s work was still important. The Order denied that magic could escape the confines of the Brink, just as they denied that the fire at their headquarters had been anything but an accident—faulty wiring or some such thing. Nothing could have been stolen from them because only the devil’s own thief could have broken into the Order of Ortus Aurea’s vaults. As you can imagine, the public loved that. The Devil’s Thief.”