The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister #4)(32)

She didn’t want any of this. Even if she fended off these accusations, every hour she spent defending against them was an hour not spent on issues of substance. That bill of Rickard’s, flawed as it was, was unlikely to even come under discussion unless she helped do her part to put it on everyone’s lips. The very act of spending energy on this hopeless morass was a loss, no matter how it turned out.

She set her head in her hands.

The door opened. She turned, expecting the courier again.

But instead of the bespectacled boy from the telegram office in town, Mr. Clark stood in the doorway. He looked around the room—at her and Amanda and Alice at the table, arguing over that all-important response—and his eyes narrowed.

“Where are the men, Miss Marshall?” His voice was a low growl.

“What men?”

“The men I told you to hire.” He took a step forward. “I know you don’t trust me, but with what is at stake, I’d think you could at least bloody listen for a half minute.”

“What men?” she echoed.

He looked at her—really looked at her, taking in the ink stains on her chin, the drifts of telegrams on the table beside her.

“Christ,” he swore. “You haven’t read my telegram.”

“I’ve been busy.” She glared at him accusingly. “Trying to piece together a response to this accusation without any of the evidence you claimed to have but took with you. I haven’t had time to sort through all the messages. One more person canceling an advertisement or expressing their glee at my fall from grace—what would that have mattered? Things can’t get much worse.”

“Yes, they can,” Mr. Clark growled. “I was wrong; I didn’t have the full plan. This is not just about putting you in distress, Miss Marshall. You need to be seen to be in distress by the entire world. That way, when your press is burned to the ground, everyone will believe it arson. They’ll think that faced with the certainty of financial ruin, you set fire to everything for the insurance money in a fit of desperation.”

Free felt her hands go cold.

“He could be lying, Free.” Amanda came to stand by her. “These so-called men he wants you to hire—who knows who they might be? Men under his control. And once introduced, they’ll be here. Protecting us, so they say, but who knows what other master they’ll serve? Do you really trust him?”

Mr. Clark’s lips thinned, but he said nothing in his own defense. He simply folded his arms and glared at her, as if willing her to make up her mind—as if daring her to trust him now, when she had every reason not to.

But it wasn’t his silence that decided her in his favor. It wasn’t the memory of the last time she’d seen him—of the touch of his glove whispering along her jaw. It wasn’t even the perilous thud of her heart, whispering madness in the back of her mind.

No. Her trust, such as it was, was won on a far more practical basis.

“On this,” Free said, “I believe him.”

He let out an exhalation, his arms dropping to his sides.

“But—” Amanda started.

Free turned grimly and went to the window. “I believe him,” she said, “because I smell smoke.”

Chapter Eight

THERE WERE NO MEN PRESENT, only the half-dozen or so female employees who had remained to run the printing off the press. Cambridge, with its fire engines, was a full half-mile distant. By the time Edward had made his way out of the door of the press, it was already too late. Smoke had begun to seep out of the door of the small house down the way in light wisps.

He opened it anyway. A wave of heat hit him, followed by an outpouring of choking, eye-stinging smoke. Gray clouds billowed in the front room; fire crackled. He looked up; flames were already eating into the beams of the ceiling overhead. There’d be no putting this out on time to save the structure. There was no sand and only a few buckets.

Free was right behind him. She squared her shoulders and shoved past him.

He grabbed hold of her wrist, yanking her back.

She pulled against his grip. “We can put it out.”

“We can’t,” he told her. “I’ve seen more fires in my life than you could dream of. The smoke will kill you if you try.” His throat was already irritated, and he’d only been standing on the threshold.

“But—”

“Is there anything in there that is worth your life? Because that is what it will mean if you go in now.”

“My Aunt Freddy’s letter.” He could feel her whole arm trembling in his. “She left it for me when she died.”

“Would your Aunt Freddy want you to risk your life for a piece of paper?”

“No,” she whispered.

Her eyes were watering. If anyone ever asked him, he’d say it was the smoke irritating them. He didn’t think that Miss Marshall would be willing to admit to tears.

He took off his cravat and handed it to her. “Wet this and wrap it around your mouth and nose. It’ll help. We’ve work to do.”

She’d not taken the time to put on a hat; her hair was coming out of its bun and trailed down her back like an angry braid of her own fire.

She took the cravat from his hands. “I thought there was nothing to be done.”

“For your home? There isn’t. But we need to set a firebreak to make sure the flames don’t spread to the press.”