A Study in Silks (16 page)

Keating was that fist. He regarded it as his duty.

And the whole sorry business reminded him how badly he needed to get his hands on Athena’s Casket, and that Holmes was the best detective that money apparently couldn’t buy.

“Sir?” a gentle voice asked.

He looked up, remembering that his daughter, Alice, sat across from him now. She had thick, curling hair, more copper than gold, and cornflower blue eyes, her face the heart shape of a porcelain doll’s.

Alice was much like her mother, and not only in her looks. She was obedient and soft-spoken, attuned to Keating’s every wish. The perfect daughter, just as her mother had been the ideal wife until the hour of her death. Keating was well aware how absolutely he had been blessed.

“A penny for your thoughts, sir?” Alice said in her quiet way.

Keating realized he was gripping his cane like a club. Self-conscious, he relaxed his hand, easing the strain on his finely stitched gloves of Spanish leather.

“I could use your advice, my chick,” he said, his mind still on Holmes. “There is a man whose favor I would win, though he does not wish to give it to me.”

“Why not?” she asked, as if that were the strangest notion in the world.

“He is like a growling dog. He will need a demonstration of power.”

“You mean to ruin him, sir?” Her chin tilted down so that her gaze was bent on the ivory lace of her gloves. Demure, even as she cut to the quick of his thoughts.

“Tempting, but not yet. He has agreed to work for me, but grudgingly. It will take more than one show of force to keep him in line. As that is far from an economical use of resources, I would prefer to win him over with a show of generosity. He’s not expecting that, and I won’t get anywhere unless I surprise him.”

Her bow mouth curved in a half smile. “What would a growling dog want, besides the opportunity to bite?”

Behind that pretty face and bright curls is a clever mind. There is no doubt she is my daughter
. Even if that quick wit and frankness made Alice a bit too blunt sometimes, for all her feminine airs. “Something for himself would be too obvious. He has a niece about your age—from all reports an intelligent girl, but without your advantages.”

“So you will do something for her?”

“And undo it, if he crosses me. The greater the pleasure, the more immediate the pain. My little gift will have to count.”

“Poor girl.”

“No girl matters but you. If you were this young creature, what would you wish for?”

“I do not know her, so that is an impossible question.” Alice fiddled with the pale blue ribbons of her tiny and largely useless bonnet. “I, at the moment, hope my gown is ready for the presentation. The Season will get off to a bad start if it does not fit just right.”

She had dodged the question, but then she had a soft heart. He’d indulged her and kept her close, perhaps too close. “The presentation is the thing for you young lasses, isn’t it?”

Alice’s eyes widened with exasperation. “Of course it is, Papa! Without that, what use is the rest of the Season? No one will look at a girl twice unless she’s kissed the queen’s hand.”

The carriage came to a stop. Alice hitched forward on the seat. “This is the dressmaker’s. I shall leave you here, sir, unless you have further need of my sage advice.”

Keating gave her an indulgent smile. “No, my chick, you’ve quite inspired me.”

The door opened, letting the sun stream into the carriage. The fog was gone now, and the April day was in full bloom. Alice’s maid already stood outside, looking a little windblown from her ride up front with the coachman. Keating watched thoughtfully as the footman handed his daughter down to the street. The Season meant suitors, and Keating would have to watch his only child and heir with the vigilance of a raptor.

The thought filled his gut with ice.
I should not worry so much. She is no fool
. And yet all fathers worried, because that was the natural order of things.

The carriage took off again, the
clop-clop
of the horses gaining momentum, as did Keating’s thoughts. Alice
had
given him a very good idea about what to do for the detective’s niece. The Lord Chamberlain and Queen Victoria herself
checked the list of eligible young ladies each Season, and only those who passed muster were presented at Court.

Daughters of scandal-ridden mothers were not received. Unless, of course, the Lord Chamberlain could be persuaded? It would take some finesse—the man was wound tighter than his hopelessly out-of-date cravat—but Keating had the means and a great deal of motivation.

I want Holmes very badly
. No, he wanted Athena’s Casket. Maybe to destroy it. Perhaps to keep it for himself.

If he were the only member of the Steam Council with access to the secret of combining magic and machines—even his mind boggled at the possibilities. What was a sop to the Chamberlain compared to that? He’d see every chit in London curtseying at Court if that’s what it took.

The carriage stopped again, this time outside the Steam Makers’ Guild Hall. Keating got out. No sooner had his foot touched the marble steps that swept up to the hall’s monumental double doors than his aide, Mr. Aragon Jackson, exploded from the door in an officious fury. Jackson was tall and thin, with features as sharp as a weasel’s. Although his talents as an inventor were beyond doubt, he thrived in the position of favored lackey.

A flock of other hangers-on trailed after Jackson in a frantic train, somber in their unofficial uniform of dark wool and sharply pressed linen. Keating liked his people tidy, and they knew it.

Jackson pulled out his watch midstride. The case flipped open at the touch of a button, releasing a puff of steam into the air. It was a most impractical trinket. Although it was something to possess the smallest steam engine on record, the heat from the case had entirely ruined the watch pocket of Jackson’s waistcoat, discoloring the fabric and making it sag. It was only a matter of time before the silly thing melted its way clear through to Jackson’s pink flesh.

Jackson snapped it shut again, drawing himself up to greet Keating. “Good afternoon, sir. It’s a pleasure to see you, sir. The members of the Steam Council are gathering. I have your files in hand, if you’ll follow me, sir.”

The aide fell into step beside Keating, the skirts of his
coat swirling behind him as he moved to pull open the guild hall door. The entourage followed, a school of hopeful remoras following the shark. Jackson’s steps were quick and eager, his gaze darting ahead to anticipate the steam baron’s every need. Keating both loved and hated the subservience, but despised Jackson. Like a dog trained to do tricks, the man performed with one eye out for possible treats.

Not like my streetkeeper
. Striker waited for them on a bench in the hallway, standing only as Keating drew near. He was ambitious, prepared to break bones if Keating asked it of him, but he wasn’t interested in being liked.

“M’lord,” Striker said, touching the brim of a disreputable brown hat that perched on top of his spiky brown hair.

Keating was not a lord, but he had the sense it was all the same to Striker, a matter of indifference more than respect. The stocky thug was a blunt instrument at best, a gutter rat trained to keep Keating’s subjects in line. He wore a long overcoat, covered in bits of metal that resembled an improvised kind of armor. On the streets, where materials for fixing and building were scarce, the metal was a sign of wealth, and Striker was never seen without his portable hoard. The weight of it would have crushed a smaller man. He fell into step behind the others, the coat jangling slightly as he moved.

“What’s the betting on the Reynolds woman, Striker?” Keating asked.

“Odds are in favor of cutting her open for a look inside, m’lord.” It was long rumored that magic users had different organs than the rest of humanity. To be honest, Keating had wondered himself.

They moved as a unit down the broad corridors of the club, the soft carpet muting the sound of their feet. Once, the walls had hung with spears, scimitars, and other exotic weaponry from the Empire’s far-flung holdings, but those had been removed as a precautionary measure. Sometimes these meetings became heated. Now, portraits of shaggy highland cattle glowered moodily from the walls.

When they neared the meeting room, Keating gave the order to Striker to deploy men around the perimeter of
the building. No one would be allowed to make an unauthorized exit today. It was going to be an interesting meeting.

Keating checked his pace a degree, a sense of caution cooling his mood. King Coal and a half dozen of his Blue Boys were approaching from the other end of the hall. The enormously fat man reclined in a wheeled chair powered by an engine and steered by three strong retainers. As they drew near, Keating saw the contraption shed a cinder on the carpet, leaving a burned patch of wool like droppings in its wake. King Coal, too fat to look down or turn his head, didn’t notice. A steady stream of sweat poured from the folds and mounds of the man’s pallid flesh, as if the heat of the chair’s engine were melting him like tallow.

If the Blue King was the picture of gluttony, the members of his entourage were the image of want. Striker was ragged, but nothing like the threadbare Blue Boys, their pinched faces and hollow eyes a mask of dull anger as they looked around at the club’s opulence. Perversely, those starvelings not pushing the chair carried food and drink, since the Blue King lived in horror of starvation. He slept in the room next to his kitchens and had been known to fly into a panic at the notion of a missed meal. The man was a brilliant schemer, but in other ways quite mad.

And King Coal’s boilers supplied the worst of London—the docksides and Whitechapel, the criminal dens, tenements, and stinking alleys where even the spiders starved—yet he ruled the area by choice.
What does he find there to eat?
Keating mused, eyeing the covered dishes the servants carried.
His tenants?

They reached the conference room at the same moment. The two barons eyed each other, Keating wondering whether to assert precedence over the disgusting splot of lard or conspicuously flaunt good manners.

King Coal broke the impasse. “I think today would be the day to teach Green a lesson, don’t you agree?” The man’s voice wheezed like a punctured concertina—a high, thin death rattle incongruous with his massive size. “I want that bridge.”

Keating gave a slow shake of his head. “She will not take it quietly. Besides, Green is ambitious. That can be turned to our advantage.”

“You came with a plan for this meeting, something tasty and not on the agenda. I knew you would.”

Keating was not sure if he was pleased because they were thinking along the same lines or annoyed for the exact same reason. “I have an idea. Perhaps we can strike a bargain and deliver justice at the same time.”

His counterpart harrumphed, his gaze flicking greedily around them. “Do tell.”

“Surely you know where they found the supplies for the Harter Engine Company?”

“Which you no doubt have under lock and key?”

“We don’t want them falling into the hands of the rabble. We don’t want them making their own engines, do we?”

King Coal made a wry face. “Definitely not, but I still want my cut of the proceeds.”

“Of course,” Keating said silkily.

A beat passed, in which the two men eyed each other like rival tomcats. The fat man rumbled with dark laughter, and Keating forced a smile to his lips. The tension broke with an almost audible pop.

“Then there will be tasty pickings before the day is out. I do love pickings.” King Coal gave a ghastly, brown-toothed grin as he waved at his three cadaverous servants to roll him through the wide doors to the conference room.

And a merry old soul was he
. Involuntarily, Keating shuddered, waiting until the last of the Blue Boys had passed before he led his own retinue into the room.