CHAPTER ONE THE INVISIBLE SCHOLAR #4
“Third bell,” she read. “West gallery. Silent account. Bring original. Hermes sees all.”
Frances looked delighted. “That is wonderfully sinister.”
“It is also incomplete,” Eleanor said. “I do not know what original must be brought or what the silent account contains.”
Clara reached for the programme. “Account may refer to money.”
“Or testimony,” Catherine said. “An account of events.”
“Or a ledger,” Beatrice added.
The word settled uneasily over the table. The ledger recovered during Beatrice and Julian’s investigation had exposed part of Vesper’s blackmail network, but many names remained coded, and several pages had been removed before they found it.
Arabella examined the winged-staff emblem. “And today’s programme?”
“The line my father translated incorrectly repeats the same symbols: Mercury, debt and the evening star.”
“Could someone have inserted the wording without his knowledge?” Sophia asked.
“The lecture manuscript was in his possession.”
“Printers alter text.”
“Not this text. I copied the final version myself.”
Amelia’s pencil stopped moving. Eleanor felt every eye turn toward her.
She kept her voice even. “My father changed the line after I completed it.”
“Did he explain why?” Catherine asked.
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“Not yet.”
Beatrice looked as though she intended to object.
Eleanor continued before she could. “If he is involved, confronting him now would warn whoever uses the code. If he is not involved, I would be accusing him without proof.”
Frances rested her chin upon one hand. “Would that be worse than his publishing your work under his own name?”
Silence followed.
Frances straightened. “Was that a secret?”
“Not from us,” Arabella said.
“It sounded like a secret.”
“It sounded like cruelty,” Sophia murmured.
Eleanor folded the edge of one page. “My father believes work produced beneath his direction belongs to him.”
“Were you beneath his direction?” Amelia asked.
“I was beneath his roof.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“To him, it is.”
Arabella’s gaze rested upon Eleanor with quiet understanding. “Then we investigate the code first.”
Eleanor nodded. She explained the Feast of Hermes and the references overheard during the reception. Clara began making notes concerning payments to publishers, while Sophia listed possible servants who might have knowledge of the club.
“The upper gallery concerns me,” Catherine said. “Private auctions generally involve objects or information someone wishes to conceal.”
“Possibly manuscripts,” Eleanor replied. “The programmes refer repeatedly to originals and copies.”
“Then attend the masquerade,” Frances said.
Amelia gave her a level look. “How?”
“In disguise.”
“As what?”
Frances looked around the table. “A statue?”
“No one would notice if you remained still,” Beatrice said.
“I was considering Minerva.”
“You would require an owl.”
“I know a woman with an owl.”
“Of course you do.”
Arabella raised one hand before Frances could explain further. “The Mercury Club does not admit unmarried women.”
“Not knowingly,” Sophia said.
All eyes turned toward her.
Sophia’s expression remained calm. “Clubs of that nature frequently admit women whose presence would scandalise their public members. Actresses. Widows. Married women protected by discretion or indifference.”
“Companions,” Eleanor said, remembering Lord Pemberton’s phrasing.
Catherine looked at her. “You could not enter as yourself.”
“No.”
Eleanor knew how the club’s members saw her.
Miss Finch was a quiet scholar’s daughter who wore grey gowns, spoke when addressed and left rooms without causing anyone to remember she had occupied them.
She might pass unnoticed through a lecture hall, but not through a masquerade where every woman was judged according to her confidence, beauty and apparent experience.
A nervous unmarried woman would attract precisely the kind of attention invisibility had always spared her.
The concealed door opened. Gabriel St. Clair leaned against the frame as though secret libraries commonly arranged themselves for his convenience.
“My apologies,” he said. “I was told a collection of dangerous women required the assistance of a morally flexible gentleman.”
Frances smiled. “We requested assistance?”
“No. You required it. The distinction is important.”
Gabriel entered and closed the concealed door behind him. Eleanor had met beautiful men before. Beauty in a man was usually a matter of symmetry, fashionable tailoring and the good fortune to retain most of his hair beyond the age of thirty. Gabriel’s appearance was more disruptive.
His dark-blond hair had been brushed back from a face that painters would have described as classical had his mouth not suggested such modern sins.
His eyes were an unusual blue-green and permanently amused, though Eleanor had occasionally glimpsed something colder behind them.
He wore evening clothes of deep blue, cut closely enough to emphasise broad shoulders, a narrow waist and the physical ease of a man entirely comfortable inside his own body.
Women became foolish around Gabriel. Some men did as well.
Eleanor regarded him as she would a particularly elegant manuscript containing several suspicious omissions.
Beatrice leaned back in her chair. “Julian sent you?”
“He said the Society had questions concerning the Mercury Club.”
“Requiring information is not the same as requiring you,” Eleanor said.
Gabriel’s gaze found her at once.
The amusement in his eyes sharpened. “The distinction is frequently misunderstood, Miss Finch.”
He moved toward the table, greeting Arabella with a bow and accepting the glass of wine Catherine poured without asking whether it was intended for him.
Gabriel had appeared often during the final stages of Beatrice and Julian’s investigation.
He and Julian shared the unspoken understanding of men who had once faced danger together, though no one had explained precisely where or how.
Society believed Gabriel incapable of serious purpose.
Eleanor had begun to suspect society was wrong. He looked down at the programmes.
“You have found the cipher.”
“I have found part of it,” Eleanor said.
He read her notes. His expression barely changed, but the lazy angle of his shoulders disappeared.
“Third bell,” he murmured. “That confirms the timing.”
“You knew about the Feast?”
“I know it is held in three weeks.”
“And neglected to mention it?”
“No one asked.”
Eleanor looked at him.
Gabriel smiled. “You disapprove.”
“I have not yet decided whether you are careless or deliberately obstructive.”
“I should hate to limit myself.”
Arabella tapped one finger against the table. “Tell us about the masquerade.”
Gabriel took the empty chair beside Eleanor. There were several other chairs available. She noticed his choice and disliked noticing.
“The Feast of Hermes is an annual entertainment for members and invited guests,” he said. “The public rooms offer gaming, music, drink and enough mythological decoration to make restraint appear historically inaccurate. The private rooms are more interesting.”
“What occurs there?” Amelia asked.
“Exchanges. Auctions. Negotiations conducted by men who prefer not to be recognised while purchasing what does not legally belong to them.”
“Documents?” Eleanor said.
“Sometimes. Letters, debts, political information, manuscripts, private drawings, stolen jewellery and occasionally people’s futures.”
Catherine’s expression cooled. “And women?”
“Not auctioned, if that is what you mean.”
“Does the distinction comfort you?”
“No.”
The single word held none of Gabriel’s usual amusement. Eleanor looked at him more carefully. He lifted the wineglass, and the rake returned.
“The club admits widows, actresses and discreet married women as companions,” he continued. “Unmarried ladies are forbidden, largely because the members enjoy vice but dislike responsibility.”
“Could a woman enter under a false identity?” Sophia asked.
“Yes, with the right escort and a convincing history.”
“Could you take her?” Frances asked.
Gabriel glanced around the table. “Which her?”
Frances pointed at Eleanor. Gabriel’s eyes moved to her. For the first time that evening, he looked genuinely surprised. Eleanor felt heat rise beneath her collar and despised her body for betraying her over nothing more than a man’s attention. Gabriel set down his glass.
“No.”
She had not proposed the arrangement, yet irritation moved through her.
“Why not?”
“The Mercury Club may be filled with fools, but they are experienced fools. Miss Finch would be recognised as an unmarried woman before she reached the second room.”
“I have attended masquerades.”
“You have attended respectable masquerades where people pretend not to recognise their cousins. This is different.”
“In what way?”
Gabriel’s gaze moved over her face, not rudely, but with an attention more intimate than touch.
“The women admitted to the private galleries are expected to appear comfortable with desire.”
Frances leaned forward.
Arabella said, “Do try to breathe.”
Frances sat back.
Eleanor folded her hands. “What does appearing comfortable with desire require?”
Gabriel studied her for a moment before answering.
“Confidence. Experience, or a convincing imitation of it. The ability to receive attention without appearing startled. The ability to refuse without looking frightened. The ability to stand beside a man with a reputation and behave as though whatever he might have done to you in private was entirely your decision.”