by Kate Belli
Genevieve’s face, which had paled at his first statement, was now marked by high spots of color on her cheeks. He instantly felt guilty but kept his head high and his shoulders back. Best to take the coming—and well-justified—torrent of anger like a man.
“How, how dare you,” she sputtered, so angry, it seemed, that she could barely speak. “I was terrified. I thought I was losing my mind. I have lost weeks, weeks of sleep over this. What on earth possessed you to have me followed?”
“I was trying to keep you safe.”
“By scaring me half to death?” she yelled.
“Frankly, my tactics were necessary,” he replied, his own anger at her disregard for herself beginning to replace his guilt. “As one of the few places my associates couldn’t keep an eye on you, your office, was where you were attacked.”
Her mouth opened and shut a few times, but she didn’t seem able to think of a suitable response. Daniel’s rage burned bright as he thought, as he had so often over the past weeks, of the unknown assailant’s hands closing on her vulnerable throat.
“This isn’t over yet, Genevieve,” he continued. “You are convinced of the danger Tommy Meade poses, aren’t you?” Her breath was coming in fast, angry huffs. She clenched her jaw but nodded once.
“You’ve already been targeted not once, but twice,” he reminded her. “You were physically attacked, and now someone has left that Russian box for you as a message.”
“It has to be Clive,” she muttered, letting out a deeper breath.
“My guess is Tommy has been cultivating Clive for some time,” he said. “You know we can’t go to the police, not yet. Commissioner Simons is involved, and we don’t know which officers are corrupted. I need irrefutable proof I can take directly to the mayor. With what you’ve found, we’re nearly there.”
“Exactly, with what I found. It was my research, my hard work, and frankly, my neck, that got us here.”
“I know that,” he angrily replied. “And so do they. That’s why it’s not safe for you anymore. Dammit, woman, why can’t you see that?” Daniel pushed himself away from the credenza and paced the room again, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “I thought perhaps the ruse of our courtship would be enough …” A sudden idea popped into his head. A crazy, wild idea, mostly in its unexpected, almost visceral appeal.
Before he could think too hard about it, he blurted, “Maybe we should get married.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could claw the air and take them back.
Not that he didn’t want to marry Genevieve. It sounded, suddenly, like the most reasonable, tempting suggestion in the world. His brain snapped to a memory of her, languid on the love seat in a sumptuous hotel room, in a dress fit for a goddess, long tangles of honey-golden hair cascading past her bare shoulders.
But the look of complete shock on her face indicated that she felt otherwise.
Indeed, he would be hard-pressed to decide who looked more shocked, Genevieve or Rupert.
“I’ll just step in here,” Rupert murmured, giving Daniel a wide-eyed stare as he slid back toward the kitchen.
“Don’t leave this house, Rupert,” Genevieve snapped. He nodded at her wordlessly before disappearing into the darkness of the back of the house.
Genevieve crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re already trying to curtail my activities. Why would I want more of that?”
“I’m trying to keep you alive,” he said through gritted teeth.
“So your solution is to get married? To keep me under your thumb?”
“No,” he protested, groping for the right words to say. “I understand word is circulating you spent the night in my hotel room. A marriage would end the gossip.”
She waved a hand at this. “Gossip comes and goes. You’re not really suggesting we marry only to stop a few tongues wagging?”
“That’s not the only reason. Genevieve, I … I admire you,” he finally admitted. A knot of feeling was pushing at his chest, one he couldn’t quite untangle. This was either the best idea in creation, or the worst. “I find myself wanting to keep you … safe.”
Her manner seemed to soften a bit. She uncrossed her arms and folded her hands in front of her waist instead.
He allowed a few beats to pass, waiting. Half fearful, half hopeful.
“But we don’t love each other,” she finally said. “Do we?”
The question froze him. His mind struggled to wrap around the concept. Genevieve Stewart was beautiful and witty and brave. He did admire her, as he had said. But did that equal love? He was so far removed from the notion of what love was, he wasn’t sure.
In the wake of his silence, Genevieve smiled gently. He thought he caught a glint of some unnamed emotion in her amber eyes—regret? resignation?—but in the dim light of a single lamp, he couldn’t be sure.
“I appreciate the offer, Daniel.” Her voice was kind, but firm. “But I must decline.”
* * *
The inky predawn darkness swallowed Daniel and Rupert as they retreated east into the park, undoubtedly either heading toward Rupert’s bachelor quarters at the Benedick, on the Square’s east side, or planning to walk uptown to Daniel’s mansion on Gramercy.
No matter. She would wait fifteen minutes, then make her own way south. Genevieve dropped the dark-red damask drape on the window in her parent’s front drawing room back into place and checked the time on the brass clock ticking away on the mantelpiece, just visible in the light of a single candle.
She had promised Daniel she would remove herself from the investigation henceforth, but had crossed her cold toes within her boots; it was never a promise she intended to keep. This was her story, and she would see it through until the end.
Both men had been anxious about whether she planned to turn Rupert over to the authorities, but Genevieve knew better than that. These crimes went deeper than Robin Hood, all the way to the very heart of the machinations that made the city tick. The story of a British earl suffering from some kind of mental illness that drove him to thieve was compelling, but nothing compared to that of the city’s top officials scheming for riches at the expense of children’s living conditions.
Besides, with Commissioner Simons’s involvement in the Lexington Industries scheme, to whom could she turn with this news of Robin Hood? The police were not an option at present.
She chewed her lower lip and looked at the clock again. They were surely far enough away now.
As she slipped back into her warm cloak, Genevieve’s mind returned, as it had repeatedly, restlessly, since she had been alone, to Daniel’s proposal.
She paused, closing her eyes and pressing a hand to her chest. She couldn’t seem to wipe the moment from her mind; he had looked so sincere.
He had also looked terrified.
A small, secret part of her had leapt in joy at the words. The life they could have together had passed through her mind in a flash: a true partnership, but enveloped in the type of love she’d never thought she’d be able to experience. Being with Daniel made her feel alive; Every sense was heightened when she was with him. She had dismissed the sensation as a reaction to their work together, to the thrill of the hunt, but at his proposal, she’d known in an instant it was also his presence that made her nerves tingle. Being with him made her feel as though the sun were shining especially and only for her.
But he didn’t love her. His hesitation in the face of her question had been answer enough. He admired her, he’d said. After the heated looks he thought he’d hidden in the hotel room, she believed he was attracted to her as well. But if she had learned one thing since her near marriage to Ted, it was that if she ever came that close to matrimony again, it would be for love.
A cold, miserable rain had begun. Icy wind nipped at her nose and tugged the ends of her scarf as Genevieve slipped from her house, helping drive thoughts of Daniel’s proposal from her mind. She began to cut diagonally southeast across the park—a cab might be
hard to find at this hour, but surely if she walked along Broadway, one would pass sooner or later. It was imperative that she get to the offices of the Globe before it was too populated, to venture—once again—into the records room. Her employment status at the paper was still in question, but she was friendly enough with most of the staff that if there weren’t many people about, she could go about her business with a friendly wave. Something niggled at the back of her brain; she knew she had read about a tavern in Five Points that was the Oyster Knife gang’s stronghold. It was the only logical place Daniel’s meeting could occur, and she planned to be there.
Lost in thought, she almost didn’t notice the sound of heavy footsteps behind her. Gooseflesh prickled her arms as soon as they permeated her consciousness. Dawn was perhaps a half hour away, and while the sky was slightly less pitch-black than it had been before, the park, under its canopy of trees, was still deep in shadow. Risking a glance over her shoulder, Genevieve could just make out a shadowy figure, hat pulled low, about twenty paces behind her.
She now dearly wished she had walked due east along the park’s north edge instead of following its wending paths in her haste to get to the office. The stately townhomes lining that side could have provided more than a measure of security. But it was too late: she was under the bare tree branches, which continuously rattled their saberlike branches in the cold March wind.
Foolish, foolish, foolish, she cursed herself. Her heart accelerated in time to her increased pace. The footsteps behind her, predictably, quickened as well.
Suddenly, a realization struck her so forcibly that she stopped in her tracks. Relief edged out her panic, and a short laugh escaped before she could stop it. Of course, this was one of Daniel’s men, probably the same one who’d tailed her in the park earlier. Whoever this was, he could carry a very pointed message back to one overbearing Mr. Daniel McCaffrey. She was tired of being followed around the city, scared out of her wits.
She wiped the rain from her face and turned on her heel, ready to deliver a scathing setdown to Daniel’s lackey, only to find the man mere inches from her, filling her entire field of vision. There was no time to scream, only a moment for shocked recognition as the blurred features under the hat resolved into those of someone she knew, before a blinding pain exploded on the left side of her head, and darkness descended.
CHAPTER 22
Low voices permeated the edge of Genevieve’s consciousness, the tones strained. What were they saying? She couldn’t quite make them out.
Her head was pounding. She was so tired and would happily go back to sleep if these men—and it would be men, wouldn’t it? women were so much more considerate when others were trying to sleep—would just stop talking.
Who was it? Her father and Charles? It would have to be Charles; Gavin was abroad. That didn’t seem right, though. Her family didn’t quarrel like this, in quietly seething voices. They yelled properly when they argued.
Genevieve tried to swallow. Her mouth was horribly dry, an unpleasant accompaniment to her aching head. Had she had too much champagne at a function?
One of the voices became harsher midsentence: “Foolish to bring her here.”
“What was I meant to do? It was starting to get light. I bundled her into the carriage and came to the only safe place I could think of.”
“You were meant to get her out of the way.”
“I didn’t have time.”
Memory flooded back, cruel and swift. She had been trying to get to the newspaper office. She had been followed. She had been hit on the head.
She moved her head gingerly, and pain radiated from the back of her skull and circled it in response. A low breath escaped before she could help it.
The voices abruptly stopped. The distinctive sound of a careful foot on a creaky floorboard rose in the air.
Genevieve kept her eyes closed, hoping she could feign continued unconsciousness and learn more. The light behind her eyelids shifted; someone was standing over her.
“She’s awake,” a voice said, in a tone of amused disgust. “Though she’s pretending not to be.” A hefty sigh from farther away followed.
“Well, what should we do with her?” the second voice whined.
“You are getting rid of her, as you were meant to do in the first place.” The floorboard creaked again as the footsteps retreated, followed by the sound of a door shutting. Alarm reverberated through Genevieve’s chest, accompanied by a brief, forceful wish that she could retreat to the comforting, dark stillness of oblivion from which she had so recently emerged.
Enough. Enough of that, you. If she was going to get out of this alive, she needed to see where she was and who she was up against. Gathering her courage, Genevieve peeled her eyes open.
A dirty, wooden ceiling greeted her vision. One old, dusty cobweb hanging from a rafter swayed gently in a draft, and a sudden chill shook her body. Wherever she was, it was not well insulated.
She tried turning her head to one side so she could further investigate her surroundings. The dull pounding sharpened to a lance of pain behind her left temple, and Genevieve closed her eyes for a moment, letting the pain pass. Moving more slowly, she tried again, looking first in one direction, then the other.
It appeared she was on the floor of a small, windowless space that was uniformly coated in grime. A rickety looking table, topped with a bottle and two dirty glasses, and a pair of rough wooden chairs squatted miserably in the center of the space. The only light came from a low-burning gas lamp hanging from a hook on one of the walls.
Distant laughter and an underlying hum of chatter floated in from somewhere nearby, and Genevieve had a sudden certainty that she knew where she was.
A dark amusement washed over her. She had left her house hoping to discover the name of the bar that served as the Oyster Knife gang headquarters and had a feeling she’d been brought to the exact place she had wanted to go.
Moving delicately to minimize the agony in her head, Genevieve pushed herself to a seated position. Once there, she leaned against the dirty wall and stilled, allowing the steady beat of pain to recede.
The door she’d heard shutting earlier reopened, the unmistakable raucous sounds of a tavern swelling. Clive’s face twitched slightly at the sight of her awake and sitting, but he seemed to recover quickly, shutting the door behind him, again muffling the noise beyond.
A mixture of emotions arose: fear, certainly, as her unruly brain replayed the moment directly before she was struck on the head. It had been Clive following her in the park, Clive whose face loomed the moment before the blinding pain. But she also felt contempt. He had been a good journalist, and a successful one, but had allowed himself to get caught up in the games of the wealthy.
Underlying her dread, a sharp stab of hope jolted through her chest. If she could get to the noises of the tavern, could she find help?
Clive, keeping his eyes on her, sat at the table and poured himself a drink. He sipped, giving her a contemplative look.
“Well?” he prompted, taking a deep pull from his glass. Genevieve pressed her palms against the rough boards behind her. Ignoring the pangs that throbbed through her head, she slowly pushed herself upright, leaning back for support. Clive gestured with the glass toward the empty seat, but she elected to remain against the wall, taking a few deep breaths until the ache lessened.
“Well, what?” she finally responded. Her voice was unfamiliar to her own ears, scratchy and hoarse. She managed a swallow, desperately wishing for water.
“Anything to say? You’ve brought this on yourself, you know. If you’d just stayed out of it …”
Genevieve gaped at him. “It’s my fault you hit me on the head and brought me to a dirty room to die? Is that really what you’re saying?” she croaked.
An angry flush flooded Clive’s face. “You were asking questions you shouldn’t have. I tried to warn you away.”
“Who brought you into this, Clive? It seemed you had a good life. Why get involved with al
l … this?” Genevieve waved a tired hand around the room.
His jaw tightened. “You wouldn’t understand, having been born with that silver spoon in your mouth. Some of us have to make our own way in this world.”
“But you had made your way.”
Clive barked a short laugh. “Had I? You were nipping at my heels, as were others. Arthur would have listened to you sooner or later, begun to assign you some better bits. He’d already started.”
Was it the blow to the head, or was Clive not making sense? What did story assignments at the newspaper have to do with corruption and murder? Her head was ratcheting up its pain, and she longed to slide down the wall and sit again, but another, deeper part of her knew that to do so would be tantamount to giving up. To death. “I don’t understand,” she said instead.
“Robin Hood, Genevieve. I told you it was my story. It was meant to make my career.”
Her confusion deepened. “But you fingered the wrong man.”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Right, wrong, who cares? It was a damn good story.”
Even with her sore head, Genevieve was starting to put together the pieces. “Someone approached you,” she said. “Said they’d give you the identity of Robin Hood, the scoop of the year, in exchange for … what?”
He gave her a beady look and propped his legs up on the table, causing it to sway. “Never you mind what.”
Her curiosity stirred. “But how were they planning on making the story stick? Daniel McCaffrey is not Robin Hood; I proved that. Arthur’s already printed a retraction. And if I hadn’t given Daniel an alibi, he would have had them for the other crimes …” It suddenly became clear. “Oh,” she said faintly.
Clive smirked. “Catching on, are you?”
She was. They weren’t planning on Daniel being alive to defend himself. “You’d kill an innocent man for a false story?”
“I wasn’t going to kill anyone. But if others want Mr. McCaffrey out of the way, and I get the story of the decade out of it …” Clive spread his hands. “Everybody wins.”