Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TEN
T HIS DAY HAD NOT GONE TO PLAN. A ND IF THERE WAS ANYTHING Thomas despised in this great, wide world, it was a day that had not gone to plan.
His calamitous meeting with Miss Evelyn Cross set a snowballing chaos into motion. First, there was the matter of the newshound—who Thomas had tried and failed to track down after he’d run off with the photographs of the portrait incident. Then, he’d had to fire Emile Deschamps—their visions of The Empire’s show were at irreconcilable odds. After that, the day was a blur of half-remembered meetings with contractors and inspections and accountancies—in short, the rest of his daily to-do list all fogged by the memory of Evelyn Cross’s devastated, furious face.
The fog was broken that evening. He hadn’t wanted to go to a party at the home of one of Manhattan’s elite, but he’d accepted the invitation some time ago, and he could not be seen as a man who didn’t keep his word. So there he was, standing on the outskirts of the night with a seltzer water in his hand and (almost certainly) a scowl upon his face.
Thomas had lived in slums. He’d eaten out of garbage cans. As a boy, he’d listened at the feet of wounded soldiers as they recounted the bloody atrocities that they’d committed on the fields of Awadh and the Cape Coast. He’d known hunger. Suffered abuse. Done shameful things on his journey from the gutter.
But nothing—absolutely nothing—was worse than a ball.
It was a shame, really. Thomas spent so much of his time and resources angling his way into these parties. He’d expended a great deal of social capital so that he might be accepted by this lot, the Rockefellers and the Stanfords, the J.P. Morgans of the world. It wasn’t enough to be rich, famous, successful. He knew all too well that true power could only come from being recognized by other powerful men.
And yet that didn’t mean that he failed to realize the sham of it all.
He’d spoken to men who’d gone on safari to Africa, and the scene of a high society ball in Manhattan rather reflected their stories. Mothers on the prowl for prospective mates for their children. Fathers keeping watchful eyes on their packs, ready to pounce at the first signs of danger. Young bucks and cubs scanning the horizon for prey to devour. Mothish girls blending in with the wallpaper and preening peacocks getting noticed.
Thomas, for his part, was a human, theoretically at the top of the food chain who, standing amongst these wild creatures, felt very much like someone’s next supper.
Before long, someone pounced, flanking him from the left and trapping him in a corner.
“Ah. Just the man I wanted to see.”
The voice wasn’t unfamiliar to Thomas, and it instantly sent cold sweat down the back of his neck. He turned to spot a towering reed of a man who sported a silver walking cane in one hand and a cocktail in the other. Mr. Nehemiah Alban. The newspaper magnate.
Newspaper magnate was probably too small a word to describe him. Magnate implied enormity, but not absolute power. Titan was more accurate. Along with Hearst and Pulitzer, his compatriots and competitors in the journalism game, Alban wielded that power with great authority. He’d gotten McKinley elected in 1896. He orchestrated the arrest and sensational trial of Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh for publishing a book on contraception. He turned the nation against its favorite vaudeville performers. If he had his way about it, he was going to single-handedly get the nation into war with Cuba.
And now, he’d turned his attention on Thomas Gallier.
“Mr. Alban,” Thomas said, doing everything in his power to maintain a civil tone and keep his fisted hands at his sides instead of swinging them at the man’s jaw. “Always an honor.”
Alban smirked. “I must admit, my boy. I’m surprised that you’ve graced us with your presence.” Casually, he emptied his cocktail in one swallow, retired the crystal to a passing waiter, and withdrew something from his pocket. “Losing one of your investors and now this ? Really, Thomas. It’s no wonder we all worry after your health.”
It was only years of practiced calm that kept Thomas from crumbling when Nehemiah Alban passed him a copy of The Manhattan Daily . The ink stained his gloves, leaving behind ghosts of the photograph of him being assaulted by Evelyn Cross. Alongside ran a new story decrying the recent failures of The Empire and its proprietor.
God, he would be ruined. This would be a step too far for any investors he had left to tap.
“Has this gone out?” Thomas asked, in a voice too small.
“No, but it might tomorrow morning.”
“Might?”
All around them, the party swirled into a cacophony of joy that seemed to exist solely to mock Thomas’s present circumstances.
“Will you join me in a drink?” Alban asked, his tone still cajoling in a way that surely concealed darker intent.
“No, thank you, sir. I never touch the stuff.”
“Nonsense. Have a drink with me.”
“I’m afraid I must decline.”
“Unfortunate. I have a confession to make, and some liquor might have made the whole messy business go down a little smoother.”
“Oh?”
“Despite myself, I’ve come to admire you. I have thrown everything I could at you and your little Empire and dammit, if you haven’t knocked every curveball right out of the park.”
The baseball analogy was lost on Thomas. But so, too, was Alban’s true meaning.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“We’re both men of business. Out to get what we want—by any means necessary. For a time, I didn’t think you were on my level. But the more I see, the more I think you may well be more than I bargained for. Which is why I’ve come to decide that it would be more advantageous if we work together rather than at cross-purposes.”
Thomas swallowed hard and pocketed the newspaper.
“You want to call a truce?”
“Make an alliance, let’s say,” Alban gently corrected.
It was impossible to halt the swell of relief that gripped Thomas. If Alban were to cease his attacks on The Empire, then the possibilities were endless. He could secure further investors, he could curate his vaudeville bill in peace, he could actually attain the success he always dreamed of. Without The Manhattan Daily constantly slinging awful press his way …
He might have a chance.
And yet.
“Forgive me if it sounds too good to be true,” Thomas replied.
Something shifted in Alban’s gaze, as if Thomas had passed some test he hadn’t known to study for. “Do you see that girl over there?”
With the silver-tipped end of his cane, Alban pointed at a stunning, slender, button-nosed blonde in a white gown, who twirled gleefully in the arms of a portly, fair-haired gentleman in diamond cufflinks.
“The one with Edward Langmore?”
“That’s my daughter. Miss Constance Alban. And Langmore … he has been an inconvenience.”
“Ah.” The Langmore family had once been amongst the most prosperous and well-connected in the city. But rumor was they’d fallen on hard times after several bad deals, which meant that now, the only virtue they had to their name was the name itself. Edward Langmore had little to offer the Alban family, at least the way Nehemiah would figure it. All of which was not to mention the man’s appearance, and the way this quarter of society had recently come to see anyone who didn’t fit the trend for lithe limbs and trim ankles.
No. It was no surprise that Alban would object to Langmore as a match for his daughter. The real shock came when Alban spoke again.
“I’m sure a handsome, clever, accomplished young man such as yourself could succeed in turning my daughter’s head. You English always seem to have such a way with the ladies on this side of the Atlantic.”
Locking his jaw to mask a wave of emotion, Thomas prompted, “And?”
Alban continued smoothly. “And I’m sure that my papers never turn their ire against my own family. In fact, they would do anything in their power to ensure my family’s continued success. Do you understand my meaning?”
Only a fool wouldn’t. The terms were simple enough. If you woo my daughter away from a man I no longer find suitable … then I will help The Empire survive—no. Thrive.
“Perfectly.”
“You don’t seem convinced.”
He trusted that Nehemiah Alban would be true to his word—the man seemed like someone who would pride himself on that sort of thing—but what he couldn’t quite accept was Constance as a kind of chess piece. From where he was standing, Constance Alban looked perfectly happy with Edward Langmore— more than perfectly happy. She practically glowed in his arms. Breaking up a romance such as that? The thought sat in his belly like a turned fish.
And then … he couldn’t help but think back to Evelyn Cross and her striking eyes, her perfect legs, the way her lips curled around a precisely timed quip at his expense. The way he, too, felt as though he glowed when she was near.
But just as quickly as those barriers erected themselves, he swatted them down. This was business. This was his plan. His future. He would not turn his back on it now. He’d sacrificed too much to get here.
“I could be persuaded.”
Smirking, Alban picked up another cocktail. “As a show of good faith, check the papers tomorrow, why don’t you? See that I’m serious. We’ll speak again soon.”
Thomas tried not to think about how much those last words sounded like a threat as the man disappeared into the crowd.
So it was that a few hours and one miserable carriage ride through the rain-drenched streets of Manhattan later, Thomas stumbled into the dark of his sitting room, thoroughly drained. He’d lost his star. And gained the chance to save his Empire from ruin.
He could do this. He could—
The moment he opened the door to his sitting room, the sight of the roaring fireplace caught his attention.
“Byrne, old man,” he called out to his butler. “I thought I told you that I would be out. That you were to take the night off. Shouldn’t you be halfway into a whole heap of trouble by now?”
“Well, I’ve been exceptionally good at staying out of trouble lately, Mr. Gallier, but I’m happy to indulge if you haven’t.”
That voice .
Thomas staggered. Like a siren emerging from crystal waters, Miss Evelyn Cross rose from his high-backed leather chair and stepped around it to face him.
“Miss Cross,” he managed, but just barely.
How was he meant to draft coherent thoughts, much less articulate them into actual sentences, when Evelyn Cross stood in his library, uninvited and unescorted, in the middle of the night ?
Oh, and she was completely soaked through, as if she’d just walked through the night’s abysmal rain to get here. Her clothing molded to her, leaving no hint of her body to his imagination.
Besides the fabric sticking to her skin and her hair hanging limply across her lovely face, she looked fundamentally no different than she had this morning at The Empire or the night before when he’d first seen her onstage. Soft, pink lips. Bright, clear eyes. A figure meant for all manner of sins. A series of curves that conjured fantasies of stripping her out of those wet things.
His mouth went dry.
He checked the clock. Nearly midnight. What was he meant to say to a woman in his private rooms at midnight?
And how the hell was he going to get her out of here before he made several errors in judgment?
“You …” he began. “You are dripping on my floor.”
“Please accept my apologies. I needed to speak with you and considering the rain, I couldn’t even get a cab to run me over, much less carry me here. I did my best to dodge between the raindrops, but as you can see, I wasn’t entirely successful.”
It was a mistake to ask her any follow-up questions, he knew. The closest he should have gotten was May I call you a cab ? But curiosity got the better of him.
“You needed to speak to me? And it couldn’t wait until more sociable hours?”
“I happen to do most of my finest work during un sociable hours, Mr. Gallier. Don’t you find the same?”
“I won’t be much of a host.”
Abrupt. Short. Unwelcoming.
In his pursuit of greatness, Thomas had taught himself to don the costume of a gentleman. Not just a suit and a top hat from the finest ateliers, mind you, but a physical and mental costume as well. His posture, his attitudes, his turns of phrase, the way he interacted with and treated people were all part of it, various accessories that marked him as the man he wanted to be.
But that costume didn’t fit him very well. If he moved indelicately, it was likely to split and reveal the real man behind it all.
So when an occasion arose that threatened to rip him at the seams, he stood very still, spoke very little, and deferred to a cold, almost awkward, state.
One that could be seen as rude. One that should rid him of complications such as Evelyn Cross.
Should . But Evelyn didn’t spook. She began a slow, deliberate circle around the room. Her focus was not on him, but on the walls around her.
Unwilling to take his gaze from her for even a moment, he turned slowly in place, his eyes following her path. He was dull Earth to her brilliant sun, trapped in the pull of her gravity.
“I don’t need a host,” she replied plainly. “I need you.”
“You made it clear to me today that I’m the last person you need. If you’ve come for an apology—”
“Would I get one, if I asked for it?”
Yes.
“You assaulted me,” he said instead.
“You deserved it.”
Yes. He supposed she was right on that score, too. He should have stood up for her. Should have done what he did best—made himself a nuisance of everyone who worked for him and gave his brutal, unfiltered opinions. He should have protected her.
“But as it happens, no,” she continued. “I’m not here to flagellate you—thrilling as I believe you might find such an activity. No, I’m here because our business isn’t concluded. And because your friend Dr. Andrew Samson intimated that you might not be quite as fickle and weak-willed as you’ve shown yourself to be thus far. In fact, Dr. Samson tried to tell me you’re a good man .” She pronounced the words as though they had been taken from a foreign language. “As far as I’m concerned, a good man is like a mermaid at a carnival sideshow—surely fake, but still, a rare and singular attraction not to be missed. How remarkable to see one in person.”
He both admired and hated how she could make even an insult glitter.
“More to the point, he said you were a good man so enamored of me that you could deny me nothing. Which puts me in an excellent position to negotiate, vis-à-vis our unfinished business, particularly after the disaster you forced me to endure this afternoon.”
“He’s wrong,” Thomas said, once again attempting to wrest control of this situation. “I could deny you a great deal.”
“You’re assuming I don’t enjoy being denied, Mr. Gallier,” she taunted.
What a mental image. His lips twitched upward, but he ran his hand over his mouth to hide the gesture. Laughing at her jokes was halfway to enjoying her company, and enjoying her company with his clothes on was nearly halfway to enjoying her company with his clothes off . And dropping his clothes was halfway to dropping his pretenses and guards, and that was more than halfway to seeing his life crumble before his eyes.
Quite an imaginative journey from point A to point Z, he realized, but he could take no chances.
“What is it you want? Why have you really come here?” he asked.
“I will save your Empire,” Evelyn said magnanimously. “I will make its vaudeville show a success. I will put it on the map. I will be your star. I will pack the houses every night until every last one of your bills is paid and you’re the king of Manhattan. Oh, and I’ll forgive your atrocious treatment of me this afternoon. But I’ll want a return on my investment.”
“What is that?”
She smirked, and he knew that part of himself was lost forever to her in that moment. “Everything.”
A NOTE FROM THE HISTORIAN
If this were a real history book, or if I were still trying to impress the puffed-up tweedy professors who deigned to grade my graduate school papers, this would be the part where I dryly printed the contract that Thomas Gallier and Evelyn Cross signed that fateful early October night. I would then quote legal scholars and experts to give the full context for what that old-timey handwriting said, and what it might have meant for the early days of Thomas and Evelyn’s relationship.
If I were feeling especially cheeky, I might have thrown in a half-innuendo about inkwells and pens or binding contracts or the body of law, but only in a subtle, understated way so none of my stuffy old professors could fail me.
I’m sure this is where Armitage would have wanted me to go the stuffy and boring route here, rather than the “imagining what Thomas Gallier’s dick was up to” one I took earlier.
Two small problems with that, though.
One? I don’t want to. The best thing about not being in grad school anymore is freeing myself from the tyranny of the Chicago Manual of Style and any lingering shame I might have felt about wanting to give history a little glow-up.
And two? I don’t have the contract. I know that one existed. It was referenced heavily in contemporaneous materials, and a signature page does survive. But the rest of the contract has been lost to time.
That means this is one corner of the history where I can let my imagination fill in some of the gaps. Given what I know of Thomas, given what I know of Evelyn, and given what I know about where their relationship and their professional partnership went after this point, I imagine what transpired between them that night went at least something like this …