The Suffragette Scandal (The Brothers Sinister) (2 page)

She wagged a finger at him. “You’re mispronouncing that word.”

“Your pardon?” He groped, trying to remember what he’d said. “Suffragette? How does one pronounce it, then?”

“Suffragette,” she said, “is pronounced with an exclamation point at the end. Like this: ‘Huzzah! Suffragettes!’”

The moon could ignore the earth more easily than he could turn away from her. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to smile at that. Instead, he gave her a level look. “I don’t pronounce anything with exclamation points.”

“No?” She shrugged this away. “Then there’s no time like the present to start. Repeat after me: ‘Let’s hear three cheers for the women’s vote!’”

He could feel his amusement spilling out on his face despite his best efforts. He clamped his lips into a straight line and lowered his voice. “No,” he told her. “Cheering is entirely beyond my capabilities.”

“Oh, too bad.” Her tone was sympathetic, but her eyes were mocking. “I see now. You’re a womanthrope.”

He’d never heard the word before, but the meaning was all too clear. She’d judged him to be just like every other man in England. Foolish to protest that he was different. Foolish to care what this unknown woman thought of him.

He spoke anyway. “No. I am a realist. Likely you’ve never met my sort before.”

“Oh, I’m sure I have.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard everything. Let me see. You believe that women will vote for the handsomest candidates without using their faculties of reason. Is that the size of your
realism?”

He met her accusing gaze with an annoyed look of his own. “Do I look like a fool? I don’t see any reason for women not to vote; you’re no stupider, on average, than the typical man. If there were any fairness in the world, suffragettes would succeed in all their political aims. But the world is not fair. You’re going to spend your entire life fighting for gains that will be lost in political bickering ten years after they’ve been achieved. That’s why I won’t spare you three cheers. They’ll serve no purpose but to waste my breath.”

She looked at him for a moment. Really looked at him, as if she were seeing him for the first time rather than imagining a man-shaped…womanthrope in his stead.

“Good heavens.” She reached into a pocket in her skirt. “You’re right. I haven’t met anyone like you.”

She looked him over again, and this time there was no mistaking that slow head-to-toe perusal. His heart gave an odd little thump.

And then she smiled at him. “Well, Monsieur le Realist. Call on me if you ever find yourself in need of an exclamation point. I have an entire box of them.”

It took him a moment to realize she was handing him a card. She slipped it between the gloved fingers of his right hand; he caught it with his left before it could fall to the ground. The type was plain and unassuming, with none of the little decorations or curly scripts one expected from a woman’s calling card. But then, this was a card of business; no woman had ever given him one of those before.

Frederica Marshall, B.A.

Owner and Editrix-in-Chief

Women’s Free Press

By women—for women—about women

When he looked up, she’d already gone. He caught a glimpse of her yards away, wending her way through the crowds, her stool under her arm.

And then the swirling throng swallowed her and he was left with nothing but her card.

Kent, later that evening

T
HE HOME WHERE
E
DWARD
had grown up hadn’t changed at all.

A deer track ran through a nearby wood; a windswept meadow of wild grasses, carefully constructed so as to give a natural appearance, abutted the south wing. The river, a quarter mile distant from the house, made scarcely more than a comfortable murmur of passing water from here.

The house stood at the end of a long road a mile from the center of town. The ruins of a onetime fortress, the gray stones silver in the moonlight, loomed from the swell of a hill. A battle had once been fought here; he and Patrick had always been unearthing bits of armor and decaying sword hilts. Now there was little left but the battlements up high and, down by the river, a collection of stones that had once been a ferry. Those sad remains guarded a sandy ford that had long since been replaced by the bridge a mile upstream. After nearly ten years of absence, Edward was about as relevant to this scene as those abandoned battlements.

The modern house lay before him, the picture of utter tranquility.

That tranquility was a lie. On that field near the stable—that was the place where Edward’s father had ordered Patrick and Stephen whipped.

The windows of the house cast a golden, illusory light on the scene of that memory. Edward shook his head, dispelling his grisly thoughts, and stole his way to a glassed side door.

Moonlight spilled into the library. Through the windows, he could make out a desk stacked high with papers. Edward had received his share of reprimands in that room. He’d held his head proudly there, refusing to break, refusing to
lie,
no matter what the consequences.

Pah. He’d learned better now. The notion of morality was relative. For instance, he intended to break into this house. Some might call that “burglary.”

It would be, in the moral sense: The current residents of the house would not welcome his intrusion.

From a legal perspective, however, there was one small and yet salient difference: This house, and everything in it, still belonged to him. It would be his for four more months, until he was declared dead once and for all.

He couldn’t wait.

He pulled a thin piece of steel from its hiding place in his coat sleeve, crouched beside the lock, and listened for the telltale click. He’d known a man who could open any door in a few seconds flat. Edward, by contrast, had only rarely needed to break and enter, and so the skill was all too rusty. It took him three uncomfortable minutes to persuade the door to let him in.

The scent of old cigar smoke assailed him immediately—dark and pungent, a rancid smell that had seeped into the curtains, into the walls. It was an old smell, as if nobody had smoked in the room in months. Edward found the matches, lit an oil lamp on the desk, and turned the screw until a dull glow illuminated the desk. There were stacks and stacks of papers to go through. If Patrick was right, the proof would be here.

Proof was one of the two reasons he’d come.

The file he was looking for turned out to be hidden in the leftmost drawer, underneath a sheaf of mortgages. Edward untied the twine wrapped around the papers and sorted through a mess of little notes and tantalizing bits of correspondence. But the series of newspaper clippings particularly caught his eye.

The first was just over six months old.

Ask a Man,
he read.
The inaugural release of a column of weekly advice by Stephen Shaughnessy.

So. Patrick had the right of it. Someone here
was
paying attention to Stephen. His friend had mentioned that Stephen wrote for a paper, but Edward hadn’t realized he had a regular column—and a column of advice, at that.

Frankly, the thought of taking advice from the twelve-year-old he’d once known sounded rather horrifying. But even Stephen must have matured somewhat in the intervening years.

There was a note of explanation before the column started.

It has come to the attention of the editorial staff that our newspaper, with its determination to be “by women, about women, and for women,” cannot possibly impress anyone as we lack the imprimatur of a man to validate our thoughts. To that end, we have procured an Actual Man to answer questions. Please address all inquiries to Man, care of
Women’s Free Press,
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. —F.M.

It took Edward a moment to check the head of the paper. Indeed.
Women’s Free Press,
it read. That was the name of the business on the card he’d received that morning.
F.M.
was almost certainly Frederica Marshall, the spitfire he’d met on the banks of the Thames. It made sudden sense of her behavior. She was Stephen’s
employer.
There was no reason that should make Edward feel glad; he was unlikely to ever see her again, and even if he did, he’d no intention of entangling himself in any sense. A kiss, a cuddle, a quick farewell—that’s all a man like him ever hoped for.

Still.

He shook his head and read on.

Dear Man,
someone had written.
I have heard that women are capable of rational thought. Is this true? What is your opinion on the matter?

Breathlessly awaiting your manly thoughts,

A woman

Edward tilted his head and shifted the paper so that the answer lay in the dim circle of lamplight.

Dear Woman,

If I were a woman, I would have to cite examples of rational thought on the part of women, which would be awfully tiresome. Once we got through the example of the ancient Greeks, matriarchal rulers in China, Africa, and our own country, once we passed from Aglaonike the astronomer, to Cleopatra the alchemist, and on through our very modern Countess of Chromosome, we’d scarcely have time to talk about how great men are. That simply won’t do.

Luckily, I am a man, so my mere proclamation is sufficient. Women can think. This is true because a man has said it.

Yours,

Stephen Shaughnessy

Certified Man

God. Edward stifled laughter. Stephen hadn’t changed one bit. It had been years since he’d seen him, but Edward could still hear his voice, irrepressible as ever, always arguing, always
winning,
pushing everyone to the very brink of rage and then defusing the anger he’d aroused with a joke.

It was good to know that Edward’s father hadn’t managed to completely crush his spirit.

It was even more interesting that Miss Marshall had chosen to print this particular column.

He flipped to the next clipping, dated one week later.

Dear Man,

Is this column a joke? I cannot honestly tell.

Signed,

Another Man

Dear Other Man,

Why would you think my column a joke? A paper written by women, for women, and about women obviously
needs
a man to speak on its behalf. If it is a joke for men to speak on behalf of women, then our country, our laws, and our customs must all be jokes, too.

Surely you are not so unpatriotic as to suggest
that,
sir.

Yours in one-hundred-percent-certified seriousness,

Stephen Shaughnessy

Verified Man

Ah, he was going to enjoy reading these. Edward flipped to the next page. This would be an excellent way to pass the time while he waited.

Dear Man—

The door to the room opened. Edward’s pulse leapt—this was, after all, the second reason he had paid this visit—but he did not move. He sat in the chair that had once belonged to his father and waited.

“What is this?” The man in the doorway was just a silhouette, but his voice was achingly familiar. “How did you get in?”

Edward didn’t say anything. Instead he turned up the lamp, letting the light flood the room.

The other man simply frowned. “Who the devil are you?”

For a moment, Edward was taken by surprise. He’d been gone more than nine years, and he’d been thought dead for the last seven. But he had always assumed that his own brother would at least
recognize
him. They’d had their differences, more than most brothers did. The years that passed had severed any sickly bond that might have subsisted between them, leaving them to wobble away on their own separate paths. But until this moment, Edward hadn’t realized how physical those differences had become.

Once, they’d looked much alike. James Delacey had been a shorter, younger version of himself. James’s hair was still dark and glossy and his face was soft and smooth. By contrast, Edward’s once-dark hair was shot through with strands of white. His hands were all calluses; he suspected that the only skin on his brother’s hand that wasn’t soft was a little rough mark from holding a pen.

And then there was the fact that Edward had spent his last years at manual labor and had gained the shoulders to match.

James wore sober black. He was in mourning, Edward realized with surprise. Odd. Edward’s father had been lost to him years ago. For James, it had only been nine months.

“The last time I saw you,” Edward said gravely, “was on the London docks. You told me that it was for the best that I left and that you’d keep Wolf exercised until I changed my mind and was allowed back.”

Silence met this proclamation.

“Well?” Edward leaned back in the chair, affecting laziness. “It’s been almost a decade since then. How is my horse, James?”

James set his hand against the doorway as if to hold himself upright. “Ned?” His voice shook. “My God, Ned. I must be dreaming this. You’re not here.”