The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister #4)(44)

He’d not shown her the slightest bit of skin, but the act of unbuttoning his coat sparked indecent thoughts—memories of his arm coming around her, his mouth on hers…

He stopped undoing buttons, and she realized he’d only wanted to reach the inside pocket. She sat back in disappointment.

“I stole this from Delacey the other night,” he told her, “before I became distracted by thoughts of fire and other perfidy on his part. We made those advance proofs, as you may recall, so that we could tell how they were going astray. Tell me, Miss Marshall.” He handed her the paper. “Who did you send this one to?”

She took the page from him, spreading it out on her desk.

She could see him doing up his buttons out of the corner of her eye. Terrible, terrible man. Teasing her with the prospect of more. But if he could pretend it was nothing, she could, too. There—this was the one with the transposed lines.

“This is the one I sent to my brother.”

He nodded as he did back the last of his buttons. Alas.

“Do you think there is any chance your brother is personally sending them on? Perhaps he wishes to bring you in line.”

“No,” she said automatically. “Oliver would never do that.”

“Can you be absolutely sure of it? He’s not your full brother, is he? Only half, and from what I understand, the other half-brother is a duke. He doesn’t sound trustworthy to me.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’d as soon mistrust you.” It took her a moment to understand how she’d meant that: She’d talked about mistrusting him the same way she might have talked of pigs taking flight, or hell acquiring icicles—as if it were such an obvious impossibility that anyone would scoff at it.

But he didn’t take it that way. He smiled brightly at her, as if he didn’t expect trust, as if last night hadn’t happened at all. “You’re right. I waited with the mails. Easy enough for me to filch out one copy and return with it just now.”

An untrustworthy man would have protested his innocence. But surely a trustworthy man would have been annoyed at being doubted. He was the oddest enigma: a man who neither expected nor wanted her trust. A man who kissed her, told her he wanted more, and made no move to secure it.

“If you really want to know for sure,” he said, “you can send a telegram and ask. That way you can make sure it arrived at least.”

She looked him in the eyes. “Mr. Clark,” she said, “there are six people I am sure are not at fault here. My brother. His wife. Amanda. Alice. Myself.” She swallowed. “You.”

He smiled faintly in response. “But we already know you’re too trusting. My list is one entry long: you. Are you certain about your brother? He’s an MP, is he not? How much of an embarrassment are you to him?”

“Oh, not much,” Free said. “He always bails me out of gaol. If he wanted to stop me, he would have just left me in the lock hospital. He always says that I’m extremely useful politically because I make him look like the reasonable Marshall.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Mr. Clark growled. “You’re extremely reasonable.”

“Mr. Clark, did you just use an exclamation point? I could have sworn I heard one.”

He didn’t even blink. “Of course not,” he scoffed. “I borrowed one of yours. It’s allowed, when I’m talking of you. But this is neither here nor there. You see, Miss Marshall, we know something now, and Delacey doesn’t know we know it. If your brother is not the culprit, it’s one of his staff. It’s likely someone who works closely with him.”

“That would make sense,” she said slowly.

“And while Delacey would never talk directly with an arsonist, my guess is that he might make himself known to a secretary or a man of business. And that…” He smiled, charmingly. “That, Miss Marshall, is where we can get the proof we need to publicly hold him responsible.”

“Do you have any suggestions as to how we will manage that?”

“As it happens, I do.” His smile spread, and his eyes glittered wolfishly. “It’s simple. Blackmail first, followed by a public accusation.” He glanced over at her. “That is, assuming that you don’t mind bending the rules a little?”

Odd, what a strange thing trust was. A week or so ago, she’d never have trusted Mr. Clark, not for the slightest instant. In that time, little had changed. He was still a blackmailer, still a forger. He was likely even still a liar.

But he’d saved her last night, and now they knew things of each other—things that seemed more important than such details as the name he’d been born with, or the nature of his revenge. He knew she had nightmares about the lock hospital; she knew he’d been in a fire brigade in Strasbourg.

He sketched out a plan; she pointed out where her brother would comply and where he might not. At the end, Edward took his leave. There was, after all, much more work to do. But she felt as if she’d been carrying a great burden a long distance, and the end was finally visible.

She watched him leave. Still, there was one last thing niggling at her.

She waited until he’d left the press before standing up. Stephen Shaughnessy was still on the floor, giving his column a final look-over. She gestured him over.

He came in. “Yes, Miss Marshall?”