The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister #4)(24)

“What are you doing?” he growled.

There were no words at all in his notebook—just a simple drawing of a bearded man in an office. “That is exactly Peters from the Review,” she breathed.

“Yes.” His hands twitched. “I make sketches. It helps my memory.”

“You’re good.” Free turned the page. There was a penciled drawing of a café in Edinburgh, gray clouds threatening overhead.

“Of course I’m good,” he told her. “I’m excellent. I should think you would have noticed by now. Might I have that back, or are you not done violating my privacy yet?”

“When you put it that way, then… No. I am not finished. Ah, here’s Chandley.” She smiled. “Oh, you got his mustache just right.” She flipped the next page. “And here’s a train car.” She flipped it again and then stopped. The next page was her—a pencil sketch of her standing on a stool, wearing one of her favorite walking gowns, and leaning forward.

She swallowed. “Right. This.” She flipped the page again.

But that was her, too, head bent over her metal type, her fingers closing around an exclamation point. The next was her gesturing at some unknown person, smiling. And the next was her, too.

He reached forward and smoothly took the notebook from her. “I had to keep sketching you,” he told her, his tone mild. “I never could get any of them to look right, and I do hate failing at any endeavor.”

Her mouth was dry. “On the contrary.” She did her best not to sound shaken. “They seemed…very well done, to my eye.”

“Yes.” His mouth twitched up. “Of course they are. I am something of a genius, after all. Likely the only reason I found the drawings inadequate is the sexual attraction.”

She felt her stomach twist. His eyes met hers, held them for far too long. But no, she wasn’t looking away.

“It’s rather more difficult for me to grapple with than it is for you,” he said politely, almost courteously. “You see, you don’t have an abysmal personality.”

She’d heard the expression playing with fire before. She’d never before been tempted to employ the expression. Fire was a dangerous enough tool; any reasonable person kept it safely locked away when they could. But this was a heat she could enjoy.

She had to say something, anything, to bring back that necessary distance between them. It was a game between them, nothing more. She’d challenged him, and naturally he’d responded.

“You’re right,” she heard herself say. “That must be difficult for you. I’m pretty brilliant myself.”

“I had noticed. You’re both pretty and brilliant.”

She shook her head, clearing away all that heat. “All of this is why we need more proof.” She let out a breath. “We need to embarrass Delacey. Publicly. And to do that, we need to demonstrate conclusively that he has been deliberately trying to discredit me for his own purposes.”

He didn’t argue. He simply nodded. Free could get used to the notion of having a scoundrel to help out around here.

“And luckily for us,” she said, “I know just how to do that.”

IT WAS THREE IN THE MORNING by the time Free cut the last sheet off the press. The pages were still wet, and the ink that had been transferred to them was still susceptible to smearing. She handed the paper to Alice, who took it from her and hung it up to dry. Behind her, Mr. Clark unlatched the drum that held the type. He’d remained behind, lifting and carrying without complaint. He set the drum to the side, removed the roll of heavy paper from the press, and hung it over the trough to drip dry.

“They’re going to be shipped still damp,” Alice warned.

There was nothing Free could do about that. So the sheets would be a little wrinkled on arrival. It didn’t matter.

“Go home,” Free said wearily, letting her head sink into her hands. “Go home and go to sleep. We’ve still to produce the paper itself tomorrow.” After that, it would be Sunday and they could all sleep.

She’d never thought her twenty-six years made her old, but she felt old now. Five years ago, she’d thought nothing of staying up till all hours, talking with her fellow students about anything. But if she wanted to figure out how Delacey was obtaining her advance proofs, first she had to figure out which one of them was going awry. They’d taken to burning the sheets that Free and Amanda marked up, but Free had been in the habit of printing off a few extras, sending out early copies to friends and family.

Only one way to know which was going astray—and that was to send out three different proofs to the people who received them. She’d made small changes only—a misspelled word in one, transposed sentences in another.

Still, making those false proofs—setting up the machinery for each one—had been exhausting.

“Thank you all,” she finished with a yawn.

“It’s our press, too,” Alice told her.

Free felt her cousin’s hand on her shoulder, a brief touch. She reached up blindly and held it for a moment.

“I’ll go home soon,” she said. “I’ll just wait for the sheets to dry a little, and then pack them up for the mails. I can rest my eyes here.”

Alice and her husband lived in the attached building behind the press. Alice usually supervised the running of the press at night; she was never asleep when the press was running. That also meant she was near enough that Free could call out if anything went wrong. The errand boy would come by in half an hour for the mails, which he’d cycle down to the train for later delivery. She buried her head in her arms, almost drifting off. She could hear the others gathering their things, feet shuffling against the floor. Then a cool draft of night air came as the door opened, cutting through the humid steam let off by the press’s engine.