The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister #4)(8)

“Someone is going to notice,” Amanda said quietly. She chewed her lip nervously, and then sighed. “More than one someone. Once they do notice, they’ll talk.”

Well might Amanda be nervous. This was the third time that something like this had happened in the last month. The first, Free had dismissed as coincidence. The second had left her suspicious. But this? This looked like confirmation.

“I know just what they’ll say,” Alice said. “They’ll say women are capable of only aping men, that we do nothing but take the words that men write and put ‘not’ in front of them. They say it enough as it is.”

They’d say it in public this time though, with something that looked like proof. Free would get another spate of angry, accusing letters. Some of them would no doubt be ugly indeed. She shook her head, dispelling that thought. Ugly letters were inevitable. They came no matter what she did; they were the price for accomplishing anything. There was no point worrying about them.

“We need to figure out how this is happening. Three different papers echoing words that I’ve written, printing counterpoints to my pieces before we’ve even gone to press.” Free shook her head. “If it’s not a coincidence, it’s a deliberate attack. And if it’s a deliberate attack, someone has access to what I’ve written.”

“It could be someone going through our rubbish,” Amanda said. “Finding your drafts—that would do it.”

It would.

“Could be one of the staff,” Alice suggested.

“It could be anyone who comes through the building.” Amanda looked down. “Or anyone who gets one of our advance proofs. None of us have made an attempt to hide our work.”

No, they hadn’t. Free sighed and put her head in her hands, rubbing at her aching temples. Why should she have acted so mistrustfully? She didn’t want to suspect the women who worked with her, didn’t want to turn the friendly business that she had painstakingly built into a place of wariness and disbelief. It was hard work, making a place where women felt safe enough to trust one another. This sort of black suspicion could ruin everything they had accomplished.

No doubt that was why someone had done it.

“We’ll need stricter rules,” Amanda was saying. “Keep your drafts locked up, Free. No more circulating of the opinion pieces for wide comment among the women.”

“Make a list of people who might be responsible,” Alice said. “And we’ll think about how to determine who’s at fault. Once we know that, we can decide how to proceed.”

The door behind them opened, and a gust of wind entered the room. Free set her hand on the papers, holding them in place. The incoming air was fresh and sweet; they’d printed proofs that morning, and the steam engine had warmed the room enough that the breeze was welcome.

She recognized the man standing in the doorway. She’d spoken with him at the race the other day. He was tall, his hair salt-and-pepper, his eyes dark, moving about the room before coming to rest on her. Hard to judge his age; by his hair, she might have guessed as high as forty. But he hadn’t spoken like a man in the middle of his years. And he had a handsome bravado that would better fit a younger man.

He looked around the room with an air of interest, glancing from the tables in the front, where Free and her chief editors stood, to the troughs on the side of the room where they wet the paper, from the drums of press ink to the dark metal of the silent rotary press. One eyebrow rose, ever so slowly, in question.

Free straightened and came forward, holding out her hand. Not palm down, like a lady angling for a dance, but as a gentleman would under similar circumstances. Would he try to wring her bones to dust, to demonstrate his strength? Would he take her hand as if they were about to dance together? It was a test of sorts.

This man didn’t hesitate at all. He took her hand in his and gave it a firm pump.

“Mr. Edward Clark,” he told her.

She tried not to raise her eyebrows. Edward Clark was a solidly English name; his speech, while perfectly fluent, was tinged with the mildest hint of a French accent. She’d assumed he’d been born in France, but had lived in England long enough to lose all but the slightest hint of his native tongue. Maybe that was wrong.

“Miss Frederica Marshall,” she responded, although if he’d found his way to her place of business, he likely knew that already. “Can I help you?”

His gaze traveled to the table behind her. They’d been poring over the inner page of the newspaper; the printer’s plates sat on the table next to the proofs for anyone to see.

Amanda was right. Their next issue of the paper was hardly shrouded in secrecy. Anyone really could walk in and see it. But Mr. Clark didn’t remark on the paper. Instead, his mouth quirked up at the corner.

“You were being literal,” he said, gesturing at the cart that stood beside the table. “You do have a box of exclamation points.”

Now that he’d spoken a bit more, she found herself thinking him English. An Englishman who had lived in France awhile, perhaps?

She smiled. “Along with colons, semicolons, and commas. All the punctuation a girl can dream of. But let’s start with the question mark. Surely you didn’t come here to ogle my movable type. Is there some way I might be of service?”

He looked back at her. She had the feeling that he knew precisely what he was doing—that when his eyes twinkled at her so merrily, he knew exactly the effect it had deep in her stomach.