by Kate Belli
Privately, he disagreed. Not about which colors suited a summer wedding—he didn’t give a hang about weddings—but about how she had looked. She had glowed like the rising sun in her bridesmaid’s dress.
“The bride certainly looked beautiful,” he said, switching to a safer topic. And Esmie had, in a gown of icy-blue satin that suited her pale coloring perfectly. “I hear from Rupert she has you to thank for it.”
Genevieve smiled. “Some time ago, she asked for my help in choosing new clothes. We’ve spent quite a bit of time at the dressmaker’s this past year.”
“I quite liked your recent article as well,” he ventured, referring to her column on Rupert and Esmie’s wedding.
Genevieve’s mouth tightened. “The behavior of this city was a disgrace. It was the least I could do.”
“I quite agree. You handled it well. I suppose it’s for the best they’re off to the continent now, though I will miss Rupert,” he said. And he would. Rupert’s imminent departure was making him realize how few friends he had. “Do you plan to visit once they’re settled in England?”
“Perhaps. In time,” she replied, glancing toward the ship again. “I hope Esmie likes England. She deserves some happiness.”
“Rupert will be good to her.”
Genevieve narrowed her eyes. “He’d better be.”
“I daresay she’ll enjoy Italy.”
“Everyone enjoys Italy.”
“Yes.”
Was this all there was between them now? Awkwardness and polite conversation? Was that cord that had once existed between them severed, torn apart by the weight of what they had endured together the previous winter?
We helped people. The thought was sudden and fierce. Helped people, and seen—some, at least—justice done.
Not enough, of course. It would never be enough. The article Arthur and Genevieve had written based on what she and Daniel had discovered had reverberated through the Astor 400 with the force of a bomb. Andrew Huffington, dead, a bullet to the skull, and whether he or someone else had pulled the trigger was a secret he had carried to the grave. Sarah had tearfully pleaded that she was simply an investor, with no idea of the true nefariousness of the organization. It seemed that Andrew and Ernest were the only ones who could have contradicted her, and with both gone, the investigation had yielded nothing incriminating and she was never charged. The Stuyvesants and Ted Beekman, by all accounts, really had been innocent of knowledge of the true purpose of Lexington Industries and were now regarded with sympathy by much of society.
Though people still whispered behind their hands, as they would.
Deputy Mayor Manfort and Commissioner Simons had both stood trial, a lengthy, histrionic affair the press dubbed the “case of the century.” Daniel wished the papers would come up with a more creative moniker; it seemed they were labeling at least one trial a decade as such. Both men had been convicted, but Commissioner Simons had chosen to follow Andrew Huffington’s lead, though he’d opted for the rope instead of the pistol.
Tommy Meade had maintained his innocence in the whole affair, claiming that he was also simply an investor with no knowledge of the real scheme to thwart housing reform. But due to his background, the whispers around him had been louder, and he had eventually been forced to abandon his mayoral bid. Neither Deputy Mayor Manfort nor Commissioner Simons had ever implicated Meade, but Daniel suspected that this was due solely to the fact that they knew what fate would await them if they did. Indeed, Daniel was far from convinced that Simons’s death by hanging was a suicide, just as he was suspicious of Huffington’s gunshot to the head.
Still, some justice had been served.
But both he and Genevieve, he knew, bore scars. How could they not?
“There they are,” Genevieve said suddenly, pointing to the upper deck of the ocean liner and waving. Rupert and Esmie waved back enthusiastically.
“I think they’re pleased to be leaving,” Daniel murmured. Genevieve did not respond but shot him an enigmatic smile.
Rupert pointed downward, then held up a finger, indicating that they were going below momentarily but would return in a moment. Daniel and Genevieve nodded dramatically to show that they understood.
A silence stretched between them. Daniel stole a look at Genevieve’s clear, expressive profile as she continued to scan the decks of the giant boat, waiting for their friends to return. An emotion he couldn’t quite place gnawed at his insides, making him want to huff impatiently. Suddenly it hit him: he’d missed her.
Could they not, perhaps, be friends again? It was summer, after all. Daniel thought of warm nights and the pleasures of a soft breeze and cool drink in one of the city’s many rooftop bars. Perhaps she would agree to accompany him. Tonight. Just for a glass of champagne, to toast Rupert and Esmie’s sendoff. He drew a breath.
“Genevieve,” he began, but was interrupted by a resounding scream coming from the liner.
She looked at him with wide, startled eyes. “I think that was Esmie,” she said, sounding shocked.
From a lower deck, Rupert’s head suddenly popped up. Even at their distance it was obvious that his face was drained of color, his expression frantic.
“Daniel!” he yelled. “Come quickly!”
Without pausing to think, Daniel grasped Genevieve’s hand and began to run toward the gangplank. The sounds of more shouting emerged from the boat. Passengers about to ascend halted, looking worried.
He shoved around them, causing someone to yell, “Watch it, man!” in their wake, but he kept running, tugging Genevieve behind. And a second realization hit him: her hand in his felt exactly right. The connection between them, the odd synchronicity they had sometimes shared, that is what he had missed, and just by holding her hand, it was back, as if it had never left.
Halfway up the gangplank, he paused for the barest of moments to glance back at her.
Did she feel it too?
Genevieve’s face was full of determination and courage, her amber eyes blazing, and underneath it all lay an undeniable hint of excitement.
“What are you waiting for? Go,” she urged, gesturing with her head up the narrow gangplank.
It was all Daniel needed. He began to run again, her hand still securely in his, not needing to turn back again. He knew she could keep up.
Author Biography
Kate Belli lives in the mid-Atlantic region with her husband and son. When not writing, she works as a professor or a yogi, depending on the day. Deception by Gaslight is her first novel.
This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Kate Belli
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.
Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.
ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-464-9
ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-465-6
Cover design by Nicole Lecht
Printed in the United States.
www.crookedlanebooks.com
Crooked Lane Books
34 West 27th St., 10th Floor
New York, NY 10001
First Edition: October 2020
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