Chapter Twenty-Three #2
Miss Thally shrugged. “I might have been, if the man had spoken with any kind of sense.”
“What do you mean?”
Miss Thally sighed. “I granted Francis’s request for an in-person meeting when he told me he had something that could be very profitable for the Rousers.
He spoke about his machine for nearly thirty minutes before I cut him off.
It had only taken me two of those minutes to realize that he had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
He could certainly tell me what his machine could do, and he’d clearly practiced some lines about it being a generator and a capacitor, but when I pressed him on the real details of how it worked, he completely fell apart. It was painful to watch, actually.”
“So, you told Francis you wouldn’t invest?”
Miss Thally nodded. “And I told him that if he ever shared who really ran the Rousers with anyone, he wouldn’t have hands to play around with his machine or any other machine ever again. That was the last time I saw him.”
Vesper swallowed. “And when was that?”
Miss Thally sat back, thoughtful. “Three days before he died.” She met Vesper’s gaze and smiled. “But you have another question, I can see it in your eyes.” She inclined her head. “Go on, ask.”
Vesper hesitated, then: “How does a woman become the leader of this city’s biggest gang?”
The woman smiled. “In another life, I was called Josephine.” She nodded to Maximilian.
“There are probably still a few high society people left who are old enough to remember my infamous fall from grace. Sweet Josephine Thalheimer, the last child and last hope for a respectable, old money family that has lived in Victerra since it was founded in the 1700s. I only had to do one thing to preserve my family’s legacy: marry.
” She smiled sadly, as though remembering.
“I had every intention of doing what a young respectable woman of high society is born to do, until I learned about the coverture laws.” She looked at Vesper. “You know all about them, I’m sure.”
Vesper thought of Ada and nodded.
“Basalton law says that a married woman automatically yields her rights to her husband—her money, her land, her agency. It doesn’t matter if the husband is cruel, or foolish, or both; once married, it all belongs to him. The wife has no say.
“Well, once I learned that, I pleaded with my parents. I was a quick study, particularly in areas of accounting, and I tried to convince my father that I would be more than capable of running his businesses after he was gone.” Some of the light in the woman’s eyes faded.
“Of course, he would hear nothing of the sort. When I turned twenty-one and still refused to marry, he unceremoniously cut off my inheritance and cast me out without a gild to my name. I later learned that our family’s fortune was bequeathed to a distant male cousin who squandered it within a few years of my father’s death.
My family’s impeccable pedigree and its old name, Thalheimer, fell to extinction, nothing more now than a line or two in a history book that no one will read.
But not me.” Her eyes glinted. “I flourished in this city’s underbelly.
As it turned out, my gift for accounting coupled with years of watching my father’s work in trade and finance proved quite useful.
I knew how the rich behaved because I’d once been one of them, which meant I also knew the best ways to fleece them.
In a matter of years, I had a fortune that rivaled my father’s.
Eventually, Josephine Thalheimer became “Jo Thally,” and Jo Thally created the Thally Rousers, the most successful and lucrative crime syndicate in all East Victerra.
” She leaned back in her chair, looking smug.
“It’s funny now, my mother had once hoped that I might marry some foreign aristocrat and become a duchess, or viscountess.
” She spread her arms, grinning. “If only she’d lived long enough to see that her daughter became something better: a queen. ”
Vesper thought of Ada, of the broken look on her friend’s face.
She’d thought then that to be a woman was to always live in some sort of cage, but as she stared back at Josephine Thalheimer, a woman who had sacrificed everything to maintain her freedom, she started to wonder if that was really true.
Perhaps a woman didn’t have to live in a cage if only she was brave enough to break free of it.
She found that she could relate to the old woman, that she could even respect her.
“Does that satisfy your questions, girl?” Miss Thally asked.
“Yes,” said Vesper, and to her surprise she found it did. “Thank you for your help.”
“And thank you, for your excellent journalism. I do so like to see a woman thrive in a male-dominated field.” The old woman steepled her fingers. “With that, it seems our business is concluded.” She jutted her chin. “I don’t expect to see the two of you in Rouser territory again, am I clear?”
Her words were interrupted by a crash. All three of them turned to the door, and Vesper was surprised to find Richard standing in its frame. His chest was rising and falling fast.
“Boss,” he said between gasps. “We’ve got a problem. I just heard from some of our scouts.”
Miss Thally stood at once. “What’s wrong?”
Richard swallowed. “Pierce Street is burning.”