Chapter Twenty-One
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A FTER LEAVING T HE E MPIRE THAT EVENING, T HOMAS HAD SLIPPED into a tuxedo and top hat and joined Dr. Samson in some grand mansion near the park, where the polished floors reflected his own pale face back to him and the electric light shone so painfully on the room’s gilded finishes that he could barely see for the glare.
And he’d danced. Between chatter about horse racing and the attributes of various hunting rifles, he’d swept the room and collected women, gliding them across the parquet floor as though he were born to do just that.
He was a success. A charmer. Remote and aristocratic, yes, but the people forgave him that considering his fine English breeding. He threw all he had into this fiction, into thinking of nothing but the next dance step or bits of idle talk before him.
The clipping from a test printing of tomorrow morning’s Manhattan Daily was as good as a threat. If he didn’t follow through with Constance Alban … her father would see to it that Thomas’s life crumbled all around him.
He was right to hurt Evelyn Cross. To leave her. To devote himself to earning Nehemiah Alban’s good graces. This was all that mattered. Not the broken expression on Evelyn’s face, not the scent of her perfume disappearing on the air as she fled his presence, not her cruel but accurate assessment of him.
As his entry on Constance Alban’s dance card approached, Thomas excused himself from the ballroom. He required a moment alone to think and compose himself. In the quiet of the hallway, he inspected himself in a looking glass. He adjusted his tie, smoothed his copper hair—
“Don’t worry. You look fine enough for this rotten crowd.”
A vision in green silk materialized beside him.
He started when he realized the figure was a familiar one. Her pointed scowl, too, had become a regular sight around The Empire lately.
“Miss Matterly?”
Thomas understood the woman’s reputation. She’d been something of a fixture at parties just like this one, once upon a time, as the mistress to some long-faded tycoon. It wasn’t hard to see why. Even without the benefit of servants to set her hair or a wealthy escort on her arm, she set the rest of the party to shame. Her gown clung to her and, in another time, if she were out on the dance floor, she would have been the toast of the night.
But that didn’t explain her presence. According to Dr. Samson, who collected gossip like stamps, once she’d spurned her last lover and converted their love nest into a boarding house, she’d vowed never to step foot in a mansion, much less a party held in one, ever again.
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong, perhaps. A woman of such obvious conviction as Miss Beatrice Matterly didn’t go back on her word without extreme provocation.
“I thought you’d left this particular social scene,” he said.
“Yes, so did I. But don’t you worry, I plan to leave this viper’s pit just as soon as I speak with you.”
“What is it?”
“Evelyn has been arrested.”
Arrested.
“Where is she?”
“Seventh precinct. Pitt Street. By the old synagogue.”
Thomas opened his mouth to reply, but the sound of his name distracted him.
“Mr. Gallier!”
Turning on his heel, Thomas came face-to-face with Mr. Nehemiah Alban. He straightened and did the usual bow, though he could feel the muscles in his face were unusually tight.
In his periphery, Thomas almost missed Beatrice Matterly vanishing into a nearby closet.
“Mr. Alban,” he said. “What a pleasure it is to see you again.”
“I’m grateful you found the time in your busy schedule to partake in a little extracurricular excitement,” Alban replied.
“I wouldn’t have missed it, sir,” Thomas lied with a smile. “Not for all the world.”
“And you’re dancing with my daughter, aren’t you?”
“If she’ll have me.”
“I’m sure she will. And once you’re done, please,” Mr. Alban gave him a companionable slap on the shoulder, “do come and see me. We’ll talk business.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll be there.”
Mr. Alban returned to the ballroom, leaving Thomas reeling. This was what he’d wanted. He’d left Evelyn today to protect The Empire. He’d denied his own feelings for her to secure this dance and Mr. Alban’s esteem. Tonight, he could secure his theater. No more distractions. No more entanglements. No more fixations. Just him and his brilliant future.
But a sharp, betrayed voice behind him knocked him back.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing?”
“Miss Matterly—”
A ferocity surfaced in her. “Evelyn could be fighting for her life as we speak, and you’re—what? You plan to remain here and dance quadrilles with Constance Alban?”
Thomas swallowed. That was the choice before him, wasn’t it?
He found himself torn between the man he wanted to be and the man he was behind his mask. He wanted to help Evelyn. But he needed Alban.
“There isn’t anything I can do for Miss Cross at the moment,” he said at last.
“Untrue,” Miss Matterly said. “And you know it.”
Thomas tried to assuage Miss Matterly. And his own conscience. “The police commissioner is here. He’s just in the next room. Perhaps Mr. Alban will introduce us and he can help—”
Her rage twisted into disgust. “I was right about you.”
“I beg your pardon? What could you possibly know about me?”
“Evelyn’s told me all about you, I’ve seen the way you act at The Empire, and now I’ve seen you in your natural habitat. You are a spiritless coward. Just like the rest of them.”
“And what makes you say that?”
Something in the air told him there were many answers she could have given to that question. But the one she settled on was the most devastating of all.
“Because you’re willing to throw people away if it will put even a penny more in your pocket.”