A Study in Silks (32 page)

“The steam barons? No one accused them of a thing.”

“Who else would do it?”

“Precisely. And if they let one establishment do what it liked, anyone who could get away would wriggle out from under their collective thumb. They are greedy masters, after all. One pays once for light and again for heat and thrice if you are so lucky as to receive electricity for your business—but woe betide the customer who tries to cut costs by converting the steam to electricity or the gas to a boiler without the express permission of the utility. They might miss an opportunity to collect their fee.”

“What’s your involvement, sir?” He asked the question boldly, not like a servant to his master but man to man. As usual, the only tool he had was his pride.

Magnus studied him, obviously weighing what he saw. “Me? I am but a humble doctor who practices the art of mesmerism. My involvement counts for nothing—and yet like every man, woman, and child of the world, my involvement is everything. There are plenty of theaters in Paris, New York, Florence, Vienna, and Saint Petersburg. There are also hospitals, universities, and racetracks. The entire world is watching what happens in the Empire with avid interest. Should Europe simply sit back and watch a mighty power bleed to death? Should they go to war? The question of when to intervene on Queen Victoria’s behalf, and how much, is greatly debated.”

“And if they don’t step in?” Now Nick was actually curious. He rarely had occasion to think much beyond his own horizon, but this intrigued him.

“Someone will, eventually. I might say inevitably. But will it be too late? Your steam magnates already have tentacles in the German states. I would rather like to lop those tentacles off, and I might even be able to do it if I play my cards cleverly enough.”

Since when did a mere mesmerist interfere in international affairs? Dr. Magnus was clearly more than he admitted to. “You care about what happens in Germany?”

The man laughed, showing white teeth. “Before you accuse
me of philanthropical leanings, let me say first the barons have something I want.”

“What is that?”

“My own affair.”

Magnus fell into a red velvet wing chair that framed his head like a peacock’s fan. He waved Nick to a footstool. Instead, Nick leaned against the table and folded his arms. He wanted to stay light on his feet.

“So you will fight them?” he asked, watching Magnus’s dark face. What would the steam barons have that this creature would want?

“I’m not a rebel in the accepted sense. I work alone. But I do plan to poke a stick in their wheels. You might say that right now I am looking for the best possible stick for the job.”

Nick looked down at the stacks of books on the table. Most looked very old, the leather corners worn away to expose fraying cloth. The titles contained words he didn’t know, or maybe they weren’t even in English. “So, Dr. Magnus, do these ancient books say that Tobias Roth is a good stick?”

“He has an exceptional talent for mechanics, as well as the ideal family connections. His father, in particular, has access to Society. That is part of what I need. But I am also curious about Miss Cooper. I saw something of hers, an invention that quite took my breath away.”

Nick froze inside, but he refused to let the least twitch cross his face. “She’s barely out of school.” Relieved, he heard his voice was even, not showing the alarm he felt at the thought of Evie in this dark stranger’s crosshairs.

“She is the girl you climbed the wall of Hilliard House to see, is she not? Old enough for stolen kisses?”

Nick turned away from Magnus, pretending to examine one of the contraptions perched on the stacks of moldering tomes. This one looked suspiciously like a miniature still, but there was no way he would ever drink the greenish liquid in the tiny flask beneath the mile of tubing.

By the time he turned back, Nick had prepared his lie. “No, sir, I’m rather more interested in Tobias Roth’s sister. The fair-haired girl.”

Dr. Magnus gave a sly smile, as if he were playing along with the lie. “Ah, so the golden-haired beauty likes a bit of rough, does she?”

Nick shrugged. “She is pretty and has money.”

“And who can fail to appreciate such straightforward charms?”

Nick wandered idly down the length of the table. He wanted to put distance between himself and Magnus before his worry for Evelina showed on his face.

Halfway down, a set of plans was unfurled from a clockwork scroll. He’d seen such scroll devices before. Lengths of specially prepared silk were used like paper and could be wound down to cases no larger than a pocketbook. He leaned closer to see what the plans were for.

He caught his breath. The design was a cutaway drawing of an airship so graceful Nick thought it might float off the page. The detail was so fine, he could almost imagine walking the deck. Looking away was almost physically painful.

Magnus kept talking, his chin resting in his hand. “I would like very much to know everything about Evelina Cooper. I want to know what she’s capable of.”

“In what way?” Nick struggled to keep his voice casual.

“Every way possible. I want to know every detail about the girl, no matter how trivial.” The words came out not as a statement, but as a command.

Nick looked up sharply. “Why would I?”

The doctor’s voice grew sly. “Shall I tell the fair-haired girl that you are secretly in love with Miss Cooper? It was Miss Cooper’s window you climbed from that night, was it not?”

Nick didn’t answer. He didn’t know how Magnus knew that, or what invention of Evie’s he had seen, or what he intended to do with the information he wanted Nick to find. All he knew was that the man was a threat.

Magnus lifted one brow. “Or perhaps I should simply tell the world that Miss Cooper entertains Gypsy showmen in her bedchamber.”

Shame burned so hot that Nick flinched. His desire to see
Evie had trapped them both. “How would ruining her serve your purpose?”

“And how would it serve yours, I wonder? Would it bring her within your reach?” Magnus rose, tossing a handful of silver onto the table. “There is an advance on your wages, Nicholas No-Name. Are you going to play the cad or the truehearted knight?”

Nick stared at the silver as if it would burn him with its touch. His fingers curled, aching to grab one of those huge books and smash the doctor’s sneering face. There was no choice here. He could spy on Evie and betray her to Magnus, or refuse his silver and ruin her future.
I could refuse. I could have her then
. But that was a lie. She would never thank him for sending her back to Ploughman’s, and there was no hope of keeping it a secret. Sooner or later she would find out what Nick had done. They had never been able to hide the truth from one another.

He forced his hands to relax, joint by joint. There had to be a way to outwit Magnus. He couldn’t afford pride. Not right then. He would plan, first. He was a hawk, and would carefully select his moment to strike.
You owe me one, Evie
. He scooped up the silver and made a show of counting it.

Magnus’s lip curled in disdain as Nick fondled the coin. “There will be more if you bring me something I can use.”

“For what?”

“That is not your concern. You wouldn’t understand even if I took the time to explain.”

It was one insult too much. For a second, Nick’s vision went white with fury, and his fingers clenched around the coins, trembling with the urge to throw them in Magnus’s face. Evelina might not want him in the way that he had hoped, but she was his—friend, sweetheart, the closest thing he had to a sister. And no refusal of hers could stop him loving her in every way a man might love a woman. Nick might have had little more than the clothes he stood in, but he had loyalty.

If Nick had entertained any ideas about walking away from Evie, they were gone. She still needed him. He forced his face into a nonchalant mask. “Whatever you say, sir.”

“See what you can have to me in the next few days. There is a dinner party at Lord Bancroft’s that I shall be attending. I would like to go equipped with as much information as possible.”

Nick gave a mocking little bow. “Very good, sir.”

“Now get out of my house.”

Nick glanced around, memorizing everything he could, before sauntering for the door. Magnus did not realize it, but he had just declared war.

BANCROFT LEFT HIS USUAL CLUB—THE APOLLONIUS NEAR
Grosvenor—at his usual time and strolled into the clammy spring night. As always, the warmth and comfort of the smoking room clung for half a block, dissipating slowly under the plucking fingers of the breeze. The only difference between this night and any other was that instead of turning left to go to the theater—the excuse Bancroft gave for dismissing his carriage—he turned right and went to find out what Harriman wanted.

For once, he had waved away the offer of liquid refreshment. He wanted a clear head to aim the Enfield revolver that sat comfortably beneath his coat. Tension sparked in his blood, both exhilarating and frightening. There was something about the prospect of danger that took a decade off a man’s age.

Bancroft’s thoughts paused as a scatter of raindrops drummed on his hat. He opened his umbrella, angling it against the breeze. Showers had come and gone all day, the pavement barely drying before the sky grew dark again. Now the rain flashed across the golden globes of the Keating Utilities gaslights—bright needles that disappeared into the dark. The air had that heavy feel that promised fog before the night grew much older. Bancroft quickened his step.

If tonight’s trip was to retrieve his last share of the gold,
this was likely to be his only visit to Harriman’s lair. That meant he had to absorb every detail, catalogue every nuance of the operation he saw. Harriman, despite the boldness he showed by participating in this scheme, lacked experience. And Bancroft knew from his own past mistakes one didn’t end an enterprise like this with a toast and a fare-thee-well. There were always an astonishing number of details to tidy up, beginning with the servants who knew—literally or figuratively—where the bodies were buried.

Grace would have been just such a loose end
. He tried to imagine her face, but all he could remember was her body when he’d taken her in his private dressing room, her white limbs draped languidly across the red velvet of the chair. Her hair had smelled of Cook’s baking bread, and for a week afterward his dinner rolls had carried an erotic thrill.

Bancroft turned a corner, hiding his face with his umbrella as he passed a crowd of young officers. Here and there dark shapes lurked in doorways and voices called softly from upstairs windows, enticing him to linger awhile. Bancroft walked on, doing his best to appear a busy man with things to do when he really wanted to stop and forget the cold and rain and memories. There was no room for weakness now.

Does my situation make me so vulnerable that I must do what Harriman says?
Before he even finished the thought, he knew he wouldn’t like the answer.
Yes
. The twin devils of Need and Greed made him hungry enough to risk all for success. His family, his career, and his private plans demanded it. Without those, there was no Bancroft—and he wanted that name to mean something. Talk was flying about a coup against the steam barons, a plot that went all the way to the throne and that was organized under the code name of Baskerville. A shadow government was being hand selected, and a place at that table was everything that he had been scheming for. He wanted in, and that would never happen if he were perceived as vulnerable.

And God knew, he needed to make a move if he was going to survive Keating’s wrath. The steam baron had hit him hard by cutting him off from the network of pipes and valves
that ran like life-giving veins beneath the London streets. No steam or gas meant cold and darkness—and, more important, invisibility.

So far Keating’s official fiction about a faulty gas line had held, half disguising the truth like a sheet covering a corpse. Everyone knew Bancroft was on notice, but so far the clubs were still open to him, and the merchants who sold meat and vegetables still delivered to his kitchen on time. At a word from Keating, though, the period of grace would end, and he would be finished. Without the ubiquitous blaze of light around Hilliard House, he was marked as beyond the pale, no better than the beggars hiding in the alleys—and his dreams of a political career would be utterly obliterated.

He had to fight back—against Keating, against the barons, against everything that stood between him and his future—and if that meant playing Harriman’s games tonight, so be it. And there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do to achieve his ends. As an ambassador, Bancroft had sat down to dinner with men who had slaughtered villages for sport and bartered their virgin daughters for a strip of barren land. He had always been willing to face the unthinkable if that meant getting the right result.

Bancroft stopped, having reached the end of the civilized portion of his journey.
And I am about to enter the underworld
. The mouth of the alley was a narrow crevasse between two buildings off Bond Street—one the first in a row of shops, the other the offices of an insurance broker. Behind the respectable facades was a seemingly uneventful string of small warehouses and other utilitarian structures. Those needing access could enter by a large gate kept locked at night by a watchman, or this small gap between the buildings.