A Study in Silks (29 page)

This time Evelina saw sparks. Smoke.
There’s something wrong. Surely he can’t mean to hurt her!
But maybe he did. There was something in the way Keating was glaring at Lord Bancroft that held a warning.

The crowd had fallen raptly silent again, except for someone who tittered. Evelina scanned the gathering. Imogen had turned pale. Bucky was gone. Lord Bancroft looked outraged, Lady B horrified. Yet no one made a move as Jackson bent to adjust some dials. The crowd all looked at Jasper
Keating, as if they understood a subtext Evelina could only guess at.

Then she heard an older woman behind her murmuring to her friend. “I would be careful if I were Bancroft. He’s been on thin ice this past week, ever since they caught him putting his money in the Harter Engine Company. Betting on the competition is hardly wise, especially with all the chitchat about the Quality throwing in with the rebels. I’d say that shock was meant for him, not his parlor maid. Keating’s just sending a warning through her.”

No one moved, no one objected. It was as if they had all silently agreed that the public torture of servants was entirely normal.
They’re all too afraid of the Gold King to tell him to stop
.

So was she. She was there at the invitation of Lord and Lady Bancroft. It would be the height of ingratitude to embarrass them in front of London’s elite. Crossing the steam barons would mean not just embarrassment, but punishment. And, unlike most of the richly clad guests, Evelina actually knew what being cast down to the gutter would mean.

But she also knew what it meant to have no power. No one had stood up for Grace Child. What would happen if no one spoke up for Dora now? Evelina’s heart pounded in her throat, afraid to move, too horrified to keep silent.

Her foot, as if with a mind of its own, was already poised to take a step off the social precipice when Tobias grabbed her wrist, pinning her to his side. He shot her a glance, shaking his head slightly. His eyes were wide with exasperation, but maybe with a touch of admiration, too.

“Mr. Jackson,” he said, raising his voice. “Surely you mean to summon the staff, not cook them.”

Nervous laughter went around the garden. Tobias slowly released Evelina’s wrist, as if he was unsure if she would bolt forward anyway to cause a scene.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

A fleeting smile touched his lips, but he turned and strode toward the machine before she could say any more. On the way past Dora, he unfastened the device from her wrist,
plucked the odd-looking tiara from her head, and gave her a gentle push toward the house. She didn’t need to be told twice.

Tobias turned to face his father’s guests. “This demonstration is done. The unit is clearly defective.”

“Tobias!” his father barked.

But the spell was already broken. A general hubbub broke out as the guests scrabbled for a sense of normality. A great many of them nearly ran for the table with the brandy. Evelina used the milling bodies as cover to get a closer look at the machine and, even more, to see what Tobias would do next.
He always surprises me
.

“Does the young gentleman care to demonstrate his superior skill?” Jackson said with a hint of insolence. He might not have Tobias’s blue blood, but he had Jasper Keating as a protector, and that counted for much these days. “Does he have some acquaintance with machinery?”

By way of reply, Tobias shouldered him out of the way and crouched down to examine the machine. He turned a dial to his left and glared at Jackson. “You idiot, you had this set high enough to give the young woman a fatal shock. Wireless technology is far from perfected yet.”

“Obviously that is not the case,” Keating said. He stood closest to Jackson and near enough to overhear Tobias’s muttered remark. “As you can see, she did not die.”

“Tobias,” Lord Bancroft said again in a low, strained voice. The single word held a world of warning.

Be careful
, Evelina thought. If Lord B was worried, so was she. Keating was in motion now, closing the brief distance to the Bancrofts.

The younger man ignored them both, intent on checking the wires connecting to the battery. Evelina knew that when Tobias was working on something mechanical, he was lost to the mortal world. “I could make this work, though,” he said.

“Perhaps,” said Keating. “Although you assume the device wasn’t set exactly the way we wished it to be.”

The furious expression on Lord Bancroft’s face sent a chill down Evelina’s spine. “Tobias is merely young, Mr.
Keating. Hot blood will sometimes outweigh good sense at that age.”

There would be words between father and son before the day was over.

“Such an independent temperament can also bring unpleasantness.” Keating laid two fingers on Lady Bancroft’s butterfly brooch, stopping its wings. The brooch’s gentle chime stuttered to a sickly chatter. She stepped back, and Keating let her. He had crossed a thousand social lines by touching her at all, but once again no one dared to utter a word.

Grace Child’s still form hovered in Evelina’s mind. Not that she believed Keating had played a role in her death or that of the grooms—why would he? Still, he and the other industrialists, with their streetkeepers and their hunger for power, had encouraged a world where that kind of brutality could happen. A maid could be slaughtered. A maid could be repeatedly shocked in front of her employers and they would make no move to protect her. A lady could be insulted at her own birthday party with her husband standing mere feet away.

Her thoughts were mirrored in the disgust stamped on Tobias’s face. He rose, his glare moving from Keating to his father and back again before he pressed the wristband against Jackson’s chest and tapped the key. The man started, but it was nothing like Dora’s violent jerk.

He cast a final icy glance at the Gold King. “I think you’ll agree that’s a little safer.”

He turned away, letting the wristband fall. Jackson reflexively caught it, giving himself another shock. Tobias let him fumble, then stalked back toward the house in the same direction Dora had gone.

Evelina wanted to cheer.

Survey of household indicate all were accounted for on that night except Tobias.

—
From Evelina’s private notebook

THEY’D BEEN DISCONNECTED
.

Evelina’s stomach was in knots. The heat had gone off five minutes after Jasper Keating departed, leaving the kitchens and baths cold. The cooks had been forced to wash up in frigid water. Then the gas had gone out the moment dusk fell. Fortunately, candles were one staple that was still easy to get, and there were plenty on hand. Lord B had never run gas to the upper floors, only lighting the rooms that guests were likely to see.

Apparently, Tobias’s outrage had warranted retaliation. There was no need for raised voices or displays of temper. All Keating had to do was send workmen out to turn off the lines running to Hilliard House, and his point was made for all to see. It was hard to miss a pitch-black house among all the brilliantly lit yards.

Of course, no one had said
Disconnected
out loud—the Gold King was too crafty for that. So just as Dora had been the screen for Keating’s first retaliation against Lord Bancroft, a mysterious—and simultaneous—failure in the gas and steam lines disguised his second. “Just one of those things,” said the mystified leader of the repair crew from Keating Utility, loudly enough for all to hear. “It’ll be fixed just as soon as the right part arrives.” Which meant five minutes hence or never, depending on the Gold King’s pleasure.

The less suspicious guests who overheard the crewman accepted that the failure was a malfunction. The cynical looked askance and said nothing. The only question in Evelina’s mind was how long a house could be “out of order” before it became officially “Disconnected.” Not long, she guessed. As warnings went, the situation was abundantly clear. Bancroft had better watch his step.

To top everything else, Inspector Lestrade and his men arrived just as the bulk of the guests were leaving. Evelina was fairly sure the Gold King had arranged that, too, because Lestrade seemed unconcerned about either the party or the Gold King’s move to cut the power. Normally, the police trod more carefully around the gentry than this.

“It’s just routine, you understand,” he promised.

Lestrade sat on the chair opposite Evelina’s place on the sofa, not mentioning the Disconnection by word or deed. She couldn’t guess whether that was strategy or sensitivity. They were in the same drawing room where she had met her grandmamma, but there was no tea and biscuits this time. Just some candles, the rat-faced inspector, and her. Normally, a young lady would have a chaperone, but everyone else was dealing with the utility crisis.

The inspector had out his notebook and pencil. “Tell me again exactly how you came to be with the deceased.”

If he was speaking to her, that meant he hadn’t found more promising leads. Evelina wondered about her bird. It had been gone three days. It was supposed to have spied on Lestrade, but it hadn’t come back. Worry made her stomach knot.

“What were you doing when you heard there was trouble in the house?” he asked.

She’d been with Nick in her bedroom, wanting him to stay and wishing he would go. Her mind cast about for a different answer. Anything to deflect the question. “You don’t have a recording cylinder?”

“I don’t need one, miss,” he replied a little testily.

“But you can get verbatim statements from the punch rolls.”

“Sometimes it’s not the words that matter, miss. It’s what lies between ’em.”

The look he gave her chilled her to the bone. Uncle Sherlock might cow Inspector Lestrade, but Evelina related the events of the night—the ones she saw fit to tell him, anyhow—without further ado. It would be little more than he already knew.

“If you don’t mind my saying miss, you don’t seem terribly upset by all this.”

Evelina stared at the candle on the side table beside her. “Swooning won’t help you or Grace.”

“No, miss.”

“You think me unladylike.”

“I find you an unusually calm young lady.”

Whatever his opinion, Lestrade was a good listener, taking
copious notes. When she was done talking, he reread them silently, tracking his progress down the page with the tip of his pencil.

“You say you heard voices outside earlier that night. When was that?”

“I heard the church clock strike eleven.”

“You’re very precise, miss. I appreciate it.”

She gave a small smile. “I have it on good authority that cases can be solved by the observance of trifles.”

He gave her a sour look. “You sound like Sherlock Holmes.”

“He is my uncle.”

“I know.” He lifted a brow. “He told me to pay special attention to what you might say, and promised to be my undoing if you came to harm before this case was done.”

“Really? He knows about this case?” Chill dread rose.

“Oh, aye. He had to go haring off to the Continent, or he’d be here, I’m sure.”

Panic engulfed her, making her shift restlessly in her chair. She’d meant to get ahead of Lestrade, solve Grace’s murder, and steer the police away from Lord B and his automatons, but every tick of the clock seemed to make matters worse. At this rate, there would be nothing left of the family before she had her first real break in the case.

Suddenly the shadows in the candlelit room oppressed her.

“By the by,” Lestrade said casually, “do you happen to know when young Mr. Roth came home that night?”

He nearly caught her off guard. “I didn’t see Tobias come home.”

“Did he tell you when he came home?”

The scene by the clock came back to her. The kiss. His nonconfession about coming back from somewhere that night. Somewhere he wasn’t going to speak of. And the kiss. If she was smart, she’d give him up. Tell Lestrade everything, and show Tobias she wasn’t a stupid girl who could be silenced with a few soft words and a grapple in the shadows.