Masked by Moonlight (9 page)

D
exter Oakman tucked his fingers in his vest pockets and smirked. “Genius.”

“The last three issues alone have sent our second-quarter figures well above projections.” Stuart laced his own fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “A profit is a thing of beauty, Dex.”

“You’ll have more profits than you know what to do with after this new venture takes off, Mr. Waterhouse.”

Stuart narrowed his eyes at Oakman. “Are we on track?”

“A few snags, but you’ll have the cooperation you need by the end of the year.”

That was good. Stuart needed the cooperation of certain well-placed individuals. Lots of well-placed individuals, if his final plan was to be realized. Labor and commerce were simply a means to an end, tools to exert or release pressure. A port’s true value was in how it could be manipulated. And if Oakman could be believed, Stuart would be able to manipulate certain valuable markets to his whim by the year’s end.

Oakman picked up a copy of the
Herald.
“So what of your real-life Bandit? Tossing money to the poor and making you look as if you called it down on the city’s behalf. You want him to show up again?” Oakman turned and glanced at Stuart. “Or was it you who made him appear in the first place?”

It was, of course, the question everyone was asking. Had the
Herald
awakened a new hero, or simply installed one? Half the city—the optimists—believed the episodes had either driven a virtuous man to impersonate the Bandit, or had reported the Bandit’s noble adventures under the guise of fiction to protect his secret identity. The other half of the city—the skeptics and cynics—believed the whole thing to be a clever stunt designed to sell papers.

Everyone had an opinion. It was the topic of endless discussions. Stuart, for the first time in a long time, waffled on which theory to encourage. Should he take credit for this new sensation, bolstering his reputation for sales genius? Or was the wiser move to play the noble card, humbly accepting his role in bringing out the city’s inherent goodness?

It mattered not that he was, in truth, neither. Stuart had long discarded truth whenever there was profit to be made. And if profit came in the guise of a dashing swordsman invented by his sister, then who was he to turn it away?

Matthew heard the thick wooden doors shut behind him, blocking out the light as they closed. What sun still entered Grace House’s tiny chapel was washed in a warm amber by the room’s few small stained glass windows. The ornate churches in this city or in London never affected him. They were large and gracious and easy to dismiss as feats of architecture. This humble little chapel, however, seemed determined to seep into his bones. He’d walked through this chamber a dozen times during his visits to Grace House, but hadn’t realized until this morning that he avoided lingering inside. It wasn’t that he’d never had cause to be in here alone, but more that he unconsciously avoided it.

He had thought he was here to gain Reverend Bauers’s partnership in a most unusual endeavor. That was why he’d come. But the sanctuary seemed to have an agenda all its own, as if it had been silently waiting for him to show up and walk into its grasp. Matthew felt ambushed by the extraordinary quiet. The room felt full and empty at the same time. He had the unsettling sensation of someone taking his insides and shaking them gently.

He breathed in the cool, distinct scent, a mix of candle wax, wood, and the smells of ritual he remembered from his infrequent visits to the cathedral in London. He’d shared his father’s dislike of churches since he was young, being loath to suffer anything requiring quiet and stillness. Once, as a young lad, he’d slithered four pews away before his mother noticed his absence. Only Lady Hawthorne’s shriek of surprise when young Master Covington’s dusty, smiling face had peered up at her from below had given him away. His father had paddled him soundly—not for being disrespectful in church, but for sullying the family name.

Matthew figured out that day that the virtue extolled most in the Covington household was not piety, but propriety. In truth, his father cared little about the integrity of his conduct as long as its public appearance brought the family honor. If Matthew found a respectable way to enslave small children, he doubted his father would have raised an eyebrow. It all seemed so hollow.

Until Reverend Bauers and Georgia. Until here.

Matthew pulled the small Bible from his pocket. Such a tiny book with so much history and so much consequence. He’d grown uncomfortable with the thing. Like the chapel, it refused to remain a simple object. Instead, it seemed to become a force of nature. He found himself fingering the missing chunk, as Georgia had. He was constantly aware of the Bible’s presence—the weight of it in his pocket, the texture of it in his hands, the space it occupied on his desk.

You’re daft,
Matthew told himself as he stared at the simple gold cross he had saved from theft. It disturbed him to have so personal a connection to so holy an object.

Something was here. Something he imagined others felt while gazing at the vaulted ceilings of cathedrals or the gilded intricacy of altars. It was something he heard in Georgia’s voice. Something familiar, yet just beyond his recognition.

Something that was seeking him as fast as he was running from it.

He took another deep breath and closed his eyes, then found himself wishing Reverend Bauers had given him something else—
anything
else. Something that would remain a simple token. Which made no sense, for it was a tiny old book and he was a powerful British businessman.

Matthew groaned and leaned his forearms on the pew in front of him.

“So you
do
feel it,” said a warm voice over his right shoulder. Matthew nearly leaped off the pew. Clergymen should not be able to sneak up on a man like that.

“I thought so,” Reverend Bauers continued. He must have seen the alarm in Matthew’s eyes, for he placed a hand on his shoulder and said, “Don’t be alarmed. God’s pursuit is nothing to be afraid of. Startling, perhaps, but not frightening.”

Matthew didn’t know what to say. He found he couldn’t even be sure what Reverend Bauers was talking about. At least, that’s what he told himself.

“Have you opened it, or have you just stared at it?”

“At what?” Matthew retorted, almost defensively.

Bauers smiled. “Come now, my son, what kind of man do you take me for? Do you think I give such gifts lightly?”

He knew. Somehow that made it far worse. Matthew made no reply.

Bauers sat down next to him and stared up at the cross. “What do you see up there?”

“I know what that is, but I tell you, Bauers, I’m no man of God.”

The reverend laughed softly. “All men are of God, Covington. Some just refuse to recognize it. Some are born knowing it, others come to see it slowly and late in life. And then,” he said, turning to look straight at him in a way that made Matthew’s chest constrict, “there are the few whom God goes after with both barrels blazing.”

He was certain there was no safe response to that.

“If you came to return the Bible because it disturbs you, I’ll not take it back. Have you opened it at all?”

He could say yes. But truly, only Georgia had opened it. He’d held it, touched it, kept it near, but somehow had no desire to open it again, even to find the passage she had read. He felt as if he didn’t know what would happen if he did.

“It won’t bite you. Not, at least, in the way you think. I’d begin with Exodus, if I were you. I think you’ll find Moses a man to your liking in many ways. And”—Bauers pointed to the missing chunk—“I think most of it’s still there.” The reverend’s thick hand clasped Matthew’s shoulder again and squeezed. “If you still find the need to rid yourself of it after that, we’ll talk. But not a moment before. You’re welcome at Grace House any day, at any time. Remember that.”

He started to leave, but Matthew put a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Actually, I came for another reason. One you might scarcely believe.”

Bauers raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Well then, come into my study and let’s have a talk.”

S
tuart ate his dinner with an air of deliberate calculation. This, Georgia recognized, was a sure sign of impending doom. He normally either relished his food or ignored it. Food was something he enjoyed when he felt good, or simply another task to accomplish when he felt overworked. It had become one of the easiest ways for Georgia to gauge her brother’s volatile disposition. On the days when he ate carefully, she knew it could only mean he was plotting.

“Peach,” he began as he pushed back his chair after the main course, injecting what Georgia imagined he thought was a casual tone into his voice. Did he have any idea how transparent he was? He tinkered with the heavy silver napkin ring at his left. “Are you happy?”

The question surprised her. It was an unusual opening for one of Stuart’s controlling conversations. She had best tread very carefully with her answer.

“I’m delighted you ponder the issue,” she said, avoiding the question. Years of debate with this king of secrets had built her skills in that department.

One hand went to his heart. “Of course I care about your happiness. We’re all we have in the world.”

If there ever was a classic Stuartism, “we’re all we have in the world” would be it. It was his favorite saying when he wanted something from Georgia. Usually something large and questionable. “You, me, enormous material resources, a few dozen servants, and a host of admirers?” she countered. “We’re hardly in seclusion, my dear brother.”

He waved his hand and took a large swig from a crystal goblet. “I don’t mean that. All this—” he gestured around the dining room “—is lovely, and you keep yourself enormously busy, but are you
happy?”

She considered several options before deciding on a straightforward answer. “Yes, Stuart, I am. My world is not ideal, I grant you, but all things considered, I am very fond of my life.”

He put the goblet back down on the table and ran his fingers over its silver trim. “You don’t wish for more?” Stuart did have a gift for loaded questions.

Georgia thought about the humble mission, the families like Quinn’s, and the abundance surrounding her here at the estate. More? She didn’t need half of what she had. But that was Stuart at his core: always trying for more. More power, more influence, more money, more satisfaction, more
more.
She mused that if the Waterhouses ever commissioned a family crest, the motto need only be
More.

“I should like to see more of my brother, but I fear I will have to wait in line behind his many minions.” She hadn’t entirely objected when he’d sent word about missing the exhibit at the conservatory. It had been a most extraordinary afternoon with Matthew Covington. Still, enough of those “coincidences” and there’d be talk. Stuart craved talk, but she did not.

He caught the hidden meaning in her reply. She was forcing him to be direct, and he knew it. He folded his napkin and laid it on the table.
Ah,
thought Georgia as she leaned her elbow on the arm of her chair,
now we get to the heart of the matter.

“What do you think of our Mr. Covington?”

Georgia smiled.

“So you
do
like him!” Stuart pounced.

She held up her hand. “My smile, brother, comes from my amusement at having guessed your real question ten minutes ago. Honestly, do you find directness so appalling that you cannot even manage to be forthright with your own sister?”

Stuart planted his elbows on the table. “Where’d be the fun in that?”

“We’ll never know until you try.”

“We’ll never know what you think of Covington until you answer my question,” he insisted.

“He seems a good and decent man. And so very important. Not to mention so very British.” Georgia gave him his answer, but threw Stuart’s own agenda back at him in doing so.

“I could pursue Covington on your behalf, you know. I want you to be happy.”

There it was. The tender, brotherly side the rest of the world never saw. People always asked her what it was that enabled her to endure all of Stuart’s larger-than-life tendencies. That quiet tone of his voice let her know that despite his questionable methods, he often had shreds of good intentions. She believed he truly did want to see her happy, though his vision of what it took to achieve that was sadly distorted. After all, despite several past chances to wed her off to someone highly advantageous, he’d never done so against her wishes. Nor would he. He might try mightily to persuade her, but would never override her decision.

“I’ve no wish to haul off to England and play lady of the castle, Stuart. My home is here. Should I be swept off my feet anytime in the near future, however, I’ll be sure you are among the first to know.”

“Among?” he cried in mock alarm. “
Among
the first?”

“A lady does need a few secrets in this world,” she teased, glad to have that rough patch over with. “Especially a Waterhouse.”

He rose from his chair and went to pull out hers. As he did, he leaned over and pecked her on the cheek. “Speaking of secrets,” he said into her ear, “I’ve a request to make of George.”

Stuart shut the library doors a moment later. “We’re getting near the end of the quarter and I need a firecracker of a Bandit episode.”

Georgia gazed up at him. He looked so much older when he slicked his hair back, close to his head like that. It made him look sleek and severe. Stuart’s personality almost demanded a headful of unruly curls, not the razor-straight white-blond hair they’d both received from their mother. Their father had had dark, wavy hair. Stuart had his eyes, but mostly her efforts to see her father reflected in Stuart went unrewarded. He neither looked like him nor acted like him. Still, Stuart was her brother, and no matter how much he liked to exploit the phrase, he was indeed “all she had in the world.”

“I think you overstate my…
George’s
influence,” she replied. “It wasn’t the words that created the sensation. It was whoever duplicated them in real life.”

“Never underestimate the power of the word, Peach. It’s all in the words.” He tapped a succession of books on the shelf behind him.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning give our mysterious imitator something to work with,” Stuart replied. “Write an episode that just begs to be imitated.”

Georgia sat down. Write an episode designed to be acted out? The idea felt absurd. Why not simply hand out white ribbons with each issue of the
Herald
tomorrow? Goodness, she’d best not suggest that—Stuart might actually seize the idea. She stopped and stared at him. “You’re serious. You actually want to encourage such a thing?”

“You’ve been encouraging people to do noble deeds your entire life. Why stop now?”

There was some odd logic to his notion, but it still felt horribly wrong. Unscrupulous and manipulative. “Stuart, I couldn’t.”

He pointed at her. “You could. And that’s what scares you. You’ve hidden behind your lack of influence for too long, Peach. Now you’ve got it. Use it.”

She didn’t know how to respond. “
George
has it,” she replied, mostly because she couldn’t craft another answer.

“What’s in a name? ‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Shakespeare said that. And that man knew the power of words. Come on, Peach. Stir up a crop of heroes. Who knows what will happen if you do?”

Who knows indeed,
Georgia thought.