The Suffragette Scandal (The Brothers Sinister) (22 page)

T
HE EVENING OF THE SOIRÉE
did not start out as ghastly as Free had feared. She’d expected whispers about her paper, and numerous sidelong glances. Those were certainly in evidence.

But Amanda joined her, looking stately in cream and pearls. Several of the women here had come because they enjoyed the newspaper, and she and Amanda were swarmed. They were bombarded with questions about what it had been like to have a university education. Still others asked her surreptitiously whether she thought that a lady—no, not the speaker
herself,
of course; they were all only asking for friends—might perhaps choose to take on duties that until this point had been seen as strictly within the male purview.

Yes, yes, it was all possible,
Free told them. Hard as well, but then difficulty was the seasoning of life.

She even joked about men trying to discredit her, and received laughter in response.

All things considered, it was not the worst evening she had ever had. She was even almost enjoying herself. And then, halfway through the night, she thought she saw someone.

It was a trick of the light, an impossible, unbelievable thing. But there, between the column and the terrarium, she thought that she saw Edward Clark in the room. The shape of his nose; the way he held his glass. The light glinted off his hair.

She’d not seen him this last week except in passing—a few minutes here, a few minutes there, scarcely enough time to tell each other what they’d done, and for him to take her hand.

That touch of glove on glove, hand in hand, had brought her back to the floor of her office and the dark velvet of that night when he’d kissed her. But he’d let go and left every time.

Edward wasn’t supposed to be in the ballroom. Not that he would let a thing like what he was supposed to do stop him. Not that she cared that he was upsetting the plan.

In that bare, shining moment when she beheld him, Free felt herself light from within. She couldn’t help herself—she smiled, bright and welcoming, and that was nothing to the sheer pleasure that flooded through her. Finally, someone she could have a proper conversation with, someone who would make her laugh, who… who…

He turned toward her, and all that incandescent joy became ice-cold inside her. The man wasn’t Edward. How could she have thought it? At that angle, with those shadows on his face and the light in his hair—but she’d been so, so wrong. This man was softer, rounder, completely dark-haired instead of having threads of white scattered through his hair.

He looked nothing like Edward, nothing at all. How could she have made such a mistake? And this was not just a mistake; it was a horrifying one. The man she’d mistaken for her Mr. Clark was precisely his opposite. He was, in fact, James Delacey, the soon-to-beseated Viscount Claridge, and the author of her current misery. What a dastardly illusion. It was like biting into a strawberry expecting sweetness and getting a mouthful of dirt instead. Free took a step back.

But he’d seen her. He’d caught her looking at him in that instant, caught that initial flush of happiness on her. He frowned, and then slowly, he started toward her.

She wasn’t going to flee from his presence as if she were a partridge. She’d come here tonight to defeat him; he’d learn that soon enough. Free folded her arms and watched him approach.

He stopped a few feet from her. “Miss Marshall.”

She inclined her head, refusing to pay him more than that bare courtesy.

He tilted his head and smiled, as if remembering a private joke. “Your brother has a lovely house,” he said. “When your newspaper fails, as I suspect it soon will, I know you’ll be well taken care of.”

“Fail?” Free said. “How odd. I don’t even know what that word means, except when I use it to describe you. No doubt you are more intimately familiar with the implications.”

His face grew dark. “Careful, Miss Marshall,” he said in low tones. “I will
love
it when you’re forced to depend on your brother. How badly will it rankle you to rely on a man, when you once had your own independence? Just think, my dear. You could have relied on me instead.”

An angry flush rose in her cheeks. “Is that why you wish me harm?”

“Miss Marshall, harm comes to you because of who you are.” He shrugged. “Not because of me. A woman in your circumstances should
expect
to be hated.”

“And what circumstances are those?” she asked. “So far as I am aware, the only circumstance of note is that you made me an offensive proposition and I refused. From that, we come to all of this?”

His hands clenched at his sides. “I’ve already forgotten that,” he said coldly. “I do not wish to think of it.”

“Of course you don’t want to think of it,” Free told him. “It’s obvious that you don’t want to think at all. But despite your carefully cultivated ignorance, you’ll have to comprehend that a woman has a right to say no.”

He bristled further. “That’s precisely it. You said no, so that is what I wish for you. No newspaper, no voice, no reputation, no independence.” He looked away. “
No
is apparently all you understand, and so I’ve made sure that when I talk to you, I use language that you can interpret.”

“I see.” Free glared at him. “You’re as sordid and despicable as I thought.”

He held up a hand. “It would be sordid, Miss Marshall, if I threatened to do those things to have you in my bed. As it is, I don’t want anything from you. I just want you to understand what it’s like to be humiliated. Tit for tat.”

It was hardly that. She’d told him no in private, and had only wrenched his arm when he tried to kiss her as a form of persuasion. He’d set fire to her dwelling and had tried to do the same to her business. He could have killed someone. Only the most self-centered fool would equate those two things.

Someday, she told herself grimly, someday, she’d look back at this moment and she’d turn it into a damned good joke about lords. Something like…

“So sorry to intrude,” said another man, coming up to them. “But Miss Marshall, you did tell me earlier that you wanted to be introduced to Mrs. Blackavar, and she is just over here. She mentioned she had a headache, but I told her she couldn’t possibly leave before you’d met.”

Free looked up to see the Duke of Clermont smiling at her.

Clermont was…

A lord, yes. But he was also an acquaintance. She scarcely knew him herself, although their paths had crossed quite a bit. He was her brother’s brother, and that made them…absolutely nothing. She had no idea who Mrs. Blackavar was; she hadn’t talked to Clermont in months, and then only in passing. On the other hand, she wanted to stay with Delacey about as much as she wanted to stab herself repeatedly in the eye with an ice pick.

“My apologies, Delacey,” Clermont said with a little bow, “but if you’ll excuse us…”

“Of course.” Free took Clermont’s arm. “Thank you.” She allowed him to conduct her away.

When they’d gone a short distance, he leaned down to her. “I’ll take you back, if you like,” he whispered. “But you had gone bright red here.” He indicated a semi-circle on his cheek. “When Oliver looks like that, it usually means he’s on the verge of punching someone in the face.” He glanced at her. “I… Maybe I presumed a little, but…”

They were a little more than nothing to each other. She found it difficult to believe in the other half of Oliver’s life—but here was proof that it existed anyway.

It was odd, sharing her brother with this man. He knew Oliver as well as she did. Perhaps, she admitted to herself,
better
than she did. It was so strange, her brother having a brother, one whom she scarcely knew.

“No,” she told him. “You were perfectly right. If I’d had to stay one more minute in his company, I would have clawed his eyes out. Which isn’t a problem, but there would have been witnesses.” She glanced over at him. “It was good of you to intervene, Your Grace, especially when you have no obligation to me.”

He smiled oddly at that. “Oliver had to leave the room momentarily,” he told her. “If he’d been here, he’d have walked over himself and done the same thing. I was just acting in his stead.”

Maybe the Duke of Clermont felt that same strangeness that she did, that they ought to mean something to one another, because he cleared his throat and looked away. “I’m not your brother, but I’m still an interested party. And if there’s ever anything you need, anything I can do for you, please ask.”

“I should hate to put you out, Your Grace.” She smiled. “Besides, while I was listening to Delacey, I was developing a theory that all lords were self-centered. You’re smashing that to bits, and it was my only comfort.”

“No, no,” he told her, taking her hand and threading it through his arm. “Keep your comforts. We are all self-centered, Miss Marshall. It’s only that some of us are better at hiding it. Now, let me introduce you to Mrs. Blackavar. You’ll like her.”

Free glanced behind her.

James Delacey glared at her still. But it was the grandfather clock behind him that she noted, its face showing twelve minutes to nine.

Delacey could glare all he wanted. But in twenty minutes, the show would start—and after that, he’d regret everything.

I
N THE END,
it was even more glorious than they had planned.

Oliver’s undersecretary, looking pale and frightened, came into the ballroom. Free had been watching for him; he stole through a servants’ door, sweating profusely. His forehead shone in all that crystal light. He plastered himself against the wall, looking about the room until his eye fell on Delacey.

He inhaled, straightened his spine, and then did his best to slink to the man through the crowd.

That was Free’s cue. She signaled, and a servant brought her a sheaf of papers.

Andrews, meanwhile, bumped into everyone as he moved. He ducked his head in apology every time he did, jumping away and inevitably jostling someone else as he did it, necessitating yet another apology. Free would almost have felt sorry for him had he not been part of the plot to destroy her. As it was, her sympathies were low.

“Pardon,” she heard him mutter as he moved by her. “Pardon. So sorry. Argh.” That last happened as he knocked a wineglass out of a woman’s hand.

By the time Andrews found Delacey, half the room was pretending not to watch him. Free had situated herself a strategic ten yards away, with a perfect view of the coming storm.

“Sir.” At least, that’s what she assumed Andrews said; from here, she could see only the movement of his lips.

Delacey turned to Andrews and then turned a little pale. But he harrumphed creditably and narrowed his eyes. “Do I know you?”

“Sir.” This, she could hear. Andrews spoke a little louder, but just as importantly, those around him had stopped talking, the better to overhear. “Yes, sir. Of course. We’ve
never spoken before.”
He said that with a little flourish, as if he were winking at the man. “But the thing we’ve never spoken about…”

Delacey took a step back. “What part of
I don’t know you
escapes your understanding?”

“Yes, I know, that’s what we say, but—”

Delacey scowled. “I do not know you, you idiot.”

“But things have changed. I’m suspected, and I must give you this because—” Andrews leaned in close, whispering.

“What did he say?” someone nearby asked. Those closest murmured to their neighbors, and they to theirs.

“He said…there’s a horse in the grain?” someone near Free said in confusion.

“No,” another man contradicted. “He said he’s being called out.”

But by that time, the poorly understood whispers were irrelevant. The little undersecretary removed a sheaf of papers all bound up in twine from his jacket.

It was Delacey’s own file. Mr. Clark had stolen it that very morning. Delacey must have recognized the contents, because he took a step back, his eyes growing wide. “How did you get that?”

Andrews held it out helpfully. “You gave it to me?”

“I didn’t! I never!”

One of the few protests Delacey had made that was actually true, Free mused. Poor man. He had no idea what was happening to him.

“Take it,” Andrews gestured. “Here, before they find me—”

Delacey stepped back just as Andrews lunged forward. The papers slipped from the secretary’s grasp, scattering widely over the floor.

“Here,” a nearby man said. “Let me help you gather those.”

“No!” Delacey said, leaping on the pile. “Nobody look at them!”

Naturally, of course, everyone did.

“I say,” a man near the papers said, “Delacey—this is a draft of a letter to the
Portsmouth Herald,
asking them to print a column.”

“By God,” another voice said. “There’s a statement of account here—according to this, he’s…” The rest of that sentence was caught up in a swelling murmur.

Free didn’t ask questions. She didn’t ask how Edward had stolen a file that had notations in Delacey’s own hand. The details of his plan, while not spelled out, were hinted at in such detail that it became clear what Delacey had been doing—that he’d filched early copies of her columns and paid others to reprint them to discredit her, that he’d hired the man who had set fire to her home.