Maybe she was lying; maybe she was just being kind. But when she smiled, it was impossible to doubt her. And when Miss Johnson reached out and took Amanda’s hand in hers, she felt her own smile creep foolishly across her face.
“Very well, Genevieve,” Amanda said. She squeezed the other woman’s hand. “Very well.”
Chapter Twelve
“SO.” THE MAN ACROSS THE DESK from Edward folded his hands and frowned. “These are rather unusual circumstances, Mr. Clark. I find myself curious to see how you will explain them.”
It had been a mere twenty-four hours since Edward and Free had hashed out a plan—twenty-four hours during which he’d scarcely slept, after running back and forth between Cambridge and his brother’s estate. He’d finally ended up here in London. That was no reason to admit exhaustion. Edward leaned back casually, resting his hand against the brocaded arm of the chair. The man across from him didn’t look as much like Free as Edward had expected. His hair was brighter: almost orange. He was a great deal taller, his features less delicate. But his arms were crossed, and his suspicious glower could have been a twin for Free’s.
Marshall frowned, and Edward changed his mind. Free was much prettier when she glared at him.
Her brother sniffed and shuffled through the papers Edward had handed him. “So, you’re an Englishman who has spent some time in France.”
“Yes,” Edward said lazily.
“You’re doing some work with James Delacey.” Marshall grimaced at that.
“If you call it that,” Edward said.
“And you’ve come to see me.”
“You do appear to have basic literacy,” Edward said mockingly. “Well done, Marshall. You read your sister’s letter. Not everyone who has gone to Cambridge could manage so much.”
Mr. Marshall’s eyes narrowed further and he set down the papers. “My sister has never before mentioned you, does not live in France, and works mostly with women on women’s issues. Would you care to explain your acquaintance with her?”
Edward considered this carefully. “No. I wouldn’t.”
Free’s older brother made an annoyed noise in his throat. The silence stretched. Edward supposed it would have been uncomfortable to another man. Every tick of the clock no doubt was intended to make him feel more and more awkward. But he was tired enough that a rest—any sort of rest—was welcome.
He simply put on a pleasant smile, and when Marshall’s expression darkened, looked about the room and began to hum.
Marshall glared at him more fiercely.
“That tactic won’t work,” Edward said after a minute. “I’m not going to volunteer any more information than you have in front of you. I’m not scared of your glowers. I can sit here as long as I please without saying a thing. It’s your time, if you wish to waste it. If it makes you feel any better, your sister said to tell you that it’s none of your business who I am to her, and that she won’t have you barbarically assuming that she’s in need of protection from me.”
“Yes, well,” the other man said shortly. “Barbaric or not, I have some small idea what my sister endures, being what she is. If I can stop it in some small way, I will.”
“That’s good to hear,” Edward said. “But so far as I can tell, you haven’t stopped anything. I have. So set aside your masculine trumpeting. I haven’t come to pass whatever test of loyalty you want to mete out to me. You’re here to pass mine.”
Oliver Marshall was a Member of Parliament, well respected, liked by many. Even his enemies spoke highly of him. Mostly.
That likely meant that he played fairly—again, mostly. He probably told the truth, respected others, and gave his word and meant it. As such, Edward held a natural advantage over him.
“I beg your pardon,” Marshall was saying in faint outrage. “Are you questioning my devotion to my sister?”
Edward undid the twine holding another clump of papers together. “It’s not my pardon you’ll need. It’s hers. Has she told you about the duplications of her columns?”
“Yes. Of course. That’s the whole point of this whirlwind affair coming up, the one that’s driving my wife to distraction. I don’t know what you’re driving at, but—”
Edward snapped a sheet of newsprint out flat and held it up. “Do you recognize this?”
“Of course. That’s my sister’s paper. The edition that came out a few days past.”
“No,” Edward told him. “That’s the advance proof she sent to you. The precise page, mind you—there’s a note you scrawled in the corner, right there. Now, did you give this to Delacey yourself?”
“Delacey? That ass? Why would I give him this? Why would he…ah.” Free’s elder brother stopped talking and frowned, reaching for the paper. “Ah,” he repeated. His eyes grew darker. “Someone in my household is passing things on.” He shut his eyes and grimaced. “That’s extremely unfortunate.”
It was almost sweet how good-natured the man was. That all he could see was inconvenience in such a thing, instead of opportunity.
Edward smiled. “No. It’s going to be extremely useful, as soon as we can figure out who it is. If it isn’t you—and Miss Marshall believes it is not—then the number of people it could be is small. And we can use them.”
Mr. Marshall nodded. And then he frowned. “I still don’t understand. Why did my sister send you to tell me all this? Who are you?”
“She’s busy,” Edward said shortly. “As for me? I’m the one who is going to figure everything out. Let me tell you how.”
MISS MARSHALL’S BROTHER had the most comfortable wardrobe that Edward had ever hidden inside. It was spacious enough to fit two people, and, as it was apparently used as extra storage space for Mrs. Marshall’s gowns, was filled with colors so bright that the space seemed welcoming even in the dim light filtering in through the doors.
Not so the man who crouched next to him. He’d known her brother was a Member of Parliament, which was already one strike against him. From what Free had said, he’d expected a stodgy stickin-the-mud who constantly frowned at his exuberant sister.
Instead, he’d seemed genuinely concerned for her welfare. He’d absorbed the details of the fire, and Edward’s role in it, with a darkening expression. When Edward had told him about Delacey, he’d growled and offered to beat the man into a pulp.
No; he wasn’t feigning that deep protectiveness for his sister. It was all the more obvious because he clearly treated Edward with suspicion. Which meant he was in possession of a working mind, something Edward could hardly begrudge him. He had volunteered to watch the study in secret with Edward when they’d left it empty—tantalizingly empty. They’d left the next advance proof that Free had sent along from Cambridge resting on his desk as bait.
That was how Edward found himself in a small, enclosed space with Oliver Marshall. Small, enclosed spaces still made him uneasy, but this one didn’t smell of smoke, and no choking plaster dust hung in the air. The door to the wardrobe was cracked open, letting in fresh air and light.
For the first few minutes, they sat in silence.
Then Marshall leaned forward and whispered. “If you hurt my sister, you’ll know pain like you’ve never known pain before.”
Edward glanced back at the man, amused. Marshall was soft. He probably thought that a few cross words and a fist in the face were the worst that humanity had to offer.
“I sincerely doubt that,” he answered in a low voice. “I’ve known a lot of pain.”
And yet he suspected that what the other man had said was true on some level. He wasn’t sure when all of this rigmarole had stopped being about revenge and started being about her. Hurting Free would be its own peculiar sort of pain.
Marshall growled.
“Really,” Edward responded, “you ought to save your breath. There’s no point threatening me. You’ll never be as good at it as your sister, and threats only work on men who fear. I don’t.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of doing.”
Edward smiled, and reached over and patted Mr. Marshall on the knee, being sure to turn his face so that the light caught the condescending edge of his smile. “There, there,” he said comfortingly. “You’re very frightening, I’m sure. But I’ve met your sister, and trust me, if Free doesn’t scare me, you can’t.”
He deliberately used her pet name to provoke the other man. He wasn’t sure why. He could have charmed the other man, smoothed his ruffled, outraged feathers. Instead, he was doing his best to avoid any sense of camaraderie. The last thing he needed was to earn the approval of Free’s brother. Once he had that, well… It was a short road to thinking that he could be a part of the family. Best to keep things at arm’s length.
Edward looked off through the crack in the wardrobe. “Free does many things well.”
There was a long pause. “Are you trying to provoke me?”
Edward didn’t answer.
“You are. I swear to God, I will never understand my sister.”
“Hardly surprising, as her understanding is superior to yours.”
Instead of taking offense at that blatant insult, Mr. Marshall looked greatly amused. He shook his head and looked away. “Of course. I should have realized what was happening the first time you attempted to insult me by complimenting my sister. She got to you.” It was Marshall’s turn to give Edward a condescending clap on the shoulder. “Don’t feel badly; she does that often.”
Edward managed to keep his face devoid of all expression.
“This may be the first time she’s had one of Delacey’s thugs following her about like a baby duckling, though. I take it all back, Mr. Clark. No pain for you. You’ve given me material to tease her with for years to come.”
One of Delacey’s thugs. That’s how he’d introduced himself to this man. Better that than telling him the truth.
“I object to being called a duckling,” Edward replied smoothly. “I consider myself a full-grown mallard.”
Marshall smirked. “How long did it take her? People usually react to her fairly swiftly—either love or hate, there’s rarely an emotion between. A day? A week?”
He thought of Free the way he’d first seen her: standing on the bank of the Thames, leaning forward.
“Two to five,” Edward muttered.
“Days?”
“Minutes.”
Marshall let out a crack of laughter.
“Hush, you,” Edward growled. “We’re being clandestine here.”
“So we are.” The other man dropped his voice back to a low whisper. “It’s almost sweet. Here you are, sitting in a closet, trapped with a man you dislike, stricken by adoration for my little sister.”
Edward supposed he deserved that after needling the man earlier. Marshall was trying to provoke him right back.
“Yes.” Edward rolled his eyes. “It’s a terrible secret, that. I am trying dreadfully to conceal it. I openly altered my life for weeks on end for your sister. I single-handedly stopped an arsonist from setting fire to her business. When confronted with that evidence, it took you a mere three hours to determine that I harbored an affection for her. Truly, you have a massive intellect.”
This was met with a long pause. “Are you really left-handed?” Mr. Marshall asked.
“No. I’ve just been pretending to use my left hand my entire life because I enjoy never being able to work scissors properly.” Edward rolled his eyes. “What do you think? My father tried to encourage me to use my right more but it never did take.” Thankfully. He’d hate to rely on his right hand now.
“I was just wondering if it was an attempt to worm your way into the Brothers Sinister. It won’t work; you had to be at Cambridge with us to be a member. Or be Violet.”
Edward looked at the other man. “Marshall,” he said levelly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but any organization that claims you for a member doesn’t get to call itself sinister, whether you’re left-handed or not. I would be insulted to be offered membership in such a namby-pamby organization. It would be like the Archbishop of Canterbury calling a select club of his compatriots ‘Bad, Bad Bishops’.”
Marshall sniggered.
“Watch out for the clergy,” Edward said. “They’re absolutely wild. Sometimes they have an extra biscuit at tea.”
Marshall gave him a look that seemed faintly like approval. “You’re awful,” he said. “I finally begin to understand my sister’s interest.”
That was when Edward heard a faint noise from outside the closet. He reached over and clapped his hand over the other man’s mouth. Marshall went still. The door opened on a soft sigh, and then closed with quiet deliberation. Footsteps padded across the room. Edward smiled to himself. Whoever they were dealing with was a complete amateur. Sneaking about in a surreptitious manner drew far more suspicions.
Edward took his hand away from the other man’s mouth and held a finger up to his own lips.
A man crept into view, and beside him Marshall gave a low growl in his throat. Well he should; Edward had seen the man in the halls earlier. He’d been on the list of suspects that he’d drawn up with Free. It was Mark Andrews, Mr. Marshall’s undersecretary.
Andrews crept to the desk, looking from side to side as if he were a spy in a stupid novel. The little secretary reached out and took hold of the advance proof on the desk. This he folded, and then slid in his pocket.
“You’d better go,” Edward muttered.
Mr. Marshall swung the wardrobe door open. “I say, Andrews.” He stepped out as if he removed himself from wardrobes on a regular basis.
Andrews jumped at his appearance and emitted a high-pitched yelp.
Marshall straightened, patting his jacket into place. “What are you doing?”
“Sir!” Andrews scrambled a pace back from the desk. “I was just—straightening? Yes, I was straightening. Your desk. Because it was…not straight.”
“You were taking the advance proof my sister sent this morning,” Mr. Marshall said with a shake of his head.
“I—uh—no, see, the corner had ripped, and I intended to mend it.”
Marshall clucked sadly. “It’s no good, Andrews. We know you’ve done it before. You’ve been working with Delacey for months, and we can prove it.”
There was a long pause. Edward watched, curious to see if Andrews would manage to be more competent than he’d thus far observed. But no. The man sank into a chair and set his head in his hands. “Oh. That’s bad,” he muttered.
“I won’t press charges,” Mr. Marshall said gently, “so long as—”
Edward had—quite deliberately—not talked strategy beyond apprehension with Mr. Marshall. It was best to nip this in the bud. Edward stepped out of the wardrobe, interrupting this benevolence. “So long as you do as I say,” he said smoothly.
Mr. Marshall turned to him, scowling. “Wait. What are you doing?”
Edward waved his hand. “Free and I didn’t tell you the full plan. You’d have objected.”
“I’m objecting now.”
Edward ignored him. Instead, he walked up to his quarry.
“Here’s what you’re going to do to avoid a prison sentence, Andrews.” He let his voice drop to a deceptively gentle register. “First, you’re going to take this advance proof.” He tapped Andrew’s pocket. “And you’re going to deliver it to…who is it that you normally deliver these to?”
“Alvahurst,” Andrews said. “Delacey’s secretary.”
“Good. You’re going to give it to him, just as you always do.”
Andrews looked puzzled.
“But you’ll tell him that you’ve heard plans that might interest Delacey. Mr. Marshall, see, is holding a soireé in a few days—one for his sister, who as we all know, is terribly beleaguered. You’ve heard that she’s desperate, and you think that Delacey would find the gathering amusing. When Alvahurst asks you to see if you can obtain an invitation, give him this.” Edward handed over a thick card.
“I say. Where did you get that?” Mr. Ma
rshall asked. Edward ignored him again.
“You’ll have more duties on the night of the gathering,” Edward told him. “But we’ll discuss those later. Now, are we clear on what you’re to do?”
Andrews winced. “But—sir.” His hands shook. “I don’t think I’ve the nerve for it.”
“Of course you have the nerve for it,” Edward said, pitching his tone to warm comfort. “You have the nerve right now to be contemplating telling Alvahurst that you’ve been discovered. If you have the nerve to lie to my face, you can lie to his.”
Andrews went green.
“But then, you’re a clever fellow. What can Alvahurst do for you, aside from offer you a few extra coins? I can do much, much more. You see, stealing from an employer is a bad business. I doubt the magistrates will show you an ounce of pity. Mr. Marshall’s sister here runs a newspaper. Your reputation will be ruined. Even if you escape imprisonment, you’ll never work again.”
“Wait,” Mr. Marshall said. “Are you blackmailing him? That’s illegal.” He looked frustrated. “I’m an MP now. I can’t support that.”
“No, you draw your ethical line at two biscuits with tea,” Edward said with a scoff. “I know you won’t support this. That’s why we didn’t tell you. Your condemnation, irrelevant as it is, is noted.”
Marshall took a step forward. “Don’t listen to him, Andrews.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Edward responded smoothly. “He’s no threat to you. He was willing to let you off at the first opportunity, that’s how understanding he is. The person you should be afraid of is me. I’m the one who knows where your banking records are kept. I can ferret out every payment that Delacey has made to you, match it up with the corresponding draft from his accounts.”
Andrews swallowed.
“I know all about your mother,” Edward said. “And your wife. Claudette, is it?”
Andrews paled.
“Marshall here is vaguely upset. He might talk sternly to you. I, on the other hand, am a very bad enemy to have, and a lovely friend. So tell me, what are you going to do?” Edward held out the invitation once more.