Chapter Three
He was draped over an armchair, his morning coat slung carelessly over the tall back of it, his bowler hat hung on its edge.
Though luxurious, room fifteen itself was quite small—a glittering, compact treasure chest—and the door opened directly into the sitting area, so that there was nowhere to look but at him.
He didn’t seem frightened by my intrusion; rather, he was facing the doorway, his long fingers knitted together as if in patient anticipation.
As if he’d been waiting for me all along.
“Hello again.” Victor Greaves smiled, a crooked grin sharp with triumph.
Without tearing his eyes from mine, he reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pulled out a squat golden watch, the chain I’d noticed earlier sprouting from the end of it like a root from a flower bulb.
“Five-fifteen.” He tsked , glancing at it. “I was expecting you earlier.”
Crisply, he dropped the watch back into his pocket, then nodded at the threshold behind me. “That door was locked, you know.”
Inside my skull, a tinny, harried voice, which had begun howling the moment I’d glimpsed him, shrieked louder at his words.
My instincts urged me to run, but when I tried to obey, I found that my limbs were curiously frozen, like a rabbit that understands it has been caught and can fight no longer.
Move, Lovett , I hissed to myself desperately.
Do not just stand there—limp like a doll— do something—
But perhaps he had caught me in some strange Weaver magic, for no matter how I tried, I could only remain still and be observed.
From his seat, Mr.Greaves arched a brow. The subtle gesture brought me back to myself somehow, shattering the paralysis that had possessed me. “Was it?” I replied hastily, with only the slightest tremble to my voice. “How odd. I was able to open it just fine.”
He breathed a laugh. “I’m sure that you were.” My pulse skittered as he rose from his armchair, easily bridging the distance between us. His hands were tucked loosely in his pockets; I felt a burst of panic when he removed one, his fingers reaching to wrap smoothly around the doorknob behind me.
“I have a feeling you’re able to open a great many doors, Miss Lovett Tamerlane,” he went on, gazing down at me. “Perhaps you’ll even open one for me.”
Click. The sharp verdict of the door as it juddered shut, its wooden face pressing, unsympathetic and solid, against my back.
For a long breath, his hand lingered on the knob, his stare holding mine and our bodies so close, we could have almost been dancing, were it not for the dare I saw in his eyes.
A probing curiosity, like we were two opponents shoved into a fighting ring—as if already, he were awaiting my next move.
In response, I blinked, my heart unceasing in its frantic hurtle against my ribs.
Through my fearful haze, I noticed that, while Mr.Greaves had closed the door behind me, he had yet to latch it—though it wouldn’t have mattered if he had, not to a girl with my talents—and once again, the urge to flee overwhelmed me, filling my lungs like pond water.
Still…he’d just proven that he knew my name.
He knew, or at least appeared to know, the nature of my Wit.
If I left now, who was to say he wouldn’t track me down, smoke me out like a mouse from her nest?
My thoughts faded to nothing as, abruptly, Mr.Greaves shifted closer, the space between us rapidly disappearing like water slipping down a drain.
Instinctively, I pressed myself against the door—only to flush as he released the doorknob, stepping neatly away from me.
Turning, he strode back to the armchair he’d been sitting in, the fall of his footsteps muffled by the thick rug underfoot.
“Was it this that caught your eye, then?” As he sat, he palmed his watch once more, bouncing it on the heel of his hand like a fat golden egg. When I winced, he smirked. “I thought it might. Come to see what else you could nick from my hoard while I was out?”
Affectionately, he rubbed his thumb over the object’s surface, considering me.
“Do you steal from a great many gentlemen?”
I held his gaze, braver now that he’d retreated, the exit a steadfast promise behind me. No matter what else failed, my doors never did.
“Not gentlemen, no.”
A lift of his mouth, ever so slight. “Ah. Only on behalf of them, then.”
From his other pocket, he produced something—I caught only the flash of a bronze chain as he tossed it in my direction, letting the item fall with a soft thump on the floor.
My blood ran cold when I saw that the object was a necklace, its locket unclasped to reveal a tuft of blond hair within, the strands curled and as white as a fingernail clipping.
I recognized the pale dried-wheat color almost before I did the pendant which had held it; the hue was an exact match to Mrs.Catherine Pierce’s own.
Not Mrs. Pierce’s , I mentally corrected myself. The lock of hair belonged to her daughter, Emmeline Pierce.
And not even an hour ago, I would have sworn it was safely on its way back to her.
I raised my eyes to Mr.Greaves’s. “That is not yours.”
He canted his head, still seated in his chair. “Isn’t it?” he parried. “It is in my possession. And until recently, I believe it was in yours. Tell me, Miss Tamerlane, does that mean it belongs to you?”
I watched as, lazily, he wound the chain of his watch fob around his right index finger, the motion like a clock ticking down in the silence. Wordplay and teasing—so he was the type, then, to toy with his food before he ate it.
Fine. Perhaps if I encouraged him to give chase, I could slip away before he’d realized the game had ended. “What a curious theory of ownership,” I replied evenly. “Is this hotel room mine, sir, simply because I am inhabiting it currently? If so, I think I shall have to ask you to leave.”
Mr.Greaves chuckled blithely. “I must admit, I was a bit disappointed when the Pierces’ valet knocked on my door earlier,” he continued, as if I had never interjected at all. “I assumed that you, more than anyone, would realize how cheaply desperate people may be bought.”
Slouching back in his chair, he regarded me curiously.
“How much did Catherine Pierce pay you to purloin the proof of her daughter’s affair, I wonder? Seventy twills? Eighty?” He tsk ed. “Surely, you would have come dressed in something finer than that, had it been more than eighty.”
I stiffened as, in his hands, the watch chain fell ominously still.
So he didn’t only know my Wit, then—but all the rest of it.
Everything. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, berating myself furiously.
I should have known better than to trust Guillaume, but I’d assumed, as I always did, that the sensitive nature of my work would keep him honest. It was the same tentative bargain I’d lived under since Mrs.Clemmens first approached me in the street after I’d been tossed from the ball we’d both attended, offering to pay me if I stole evidence of her husband’s embezzlement back from their blackmailer’s house.
They’d tried other methods of retrieval, of course—most of my clients tried everything before they came to me—but the man refused to accept any bribes less than his asking price, and his locks were sound.
Without a key, there was no forcing their way through his doors.
That was where I came in. For I could go places where others could not.
Yet now, it seemed, one of my former clients had cracked.
Which of them had it been? I wondered. Or perhaps it was Mrs.Pierce herself who’d sold me out.
I saw her thin lips in my mind, her features forever contorted with displeasure.
It would make sense; she seemed like the kind of woman who was eager to reflect the sins of herself and her offspring upon others, like some kind of malevolent mirror.
“If you are going to arrest me,” I said to Mr.Greaves with feigned confidence, “I would prefer you get on with it.”
That angled smile was back, pulling higher this time, like a fishhook. “I am not going to arrest you,” he replied in a level tone. “I simply wish to get to know you.”
For some reason, I liked that response even less. “You seem to know a great deal about me already.”
“Aren’t you going to finish that thought, ‘And yet I, almost nothing about you’?” He tilted his head to the left, stowing his watch back inside his waistcoat, out of sight. “Or are you not curious?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Excuse me, sir, I seem to have forgotten my line. Perhaps if you were to hand me a script, I could better comprehend my part in this conversation.”
At that, he let out an amused snort and looked down toward his lap. The motion felt like an admission, somehow, as if we’d finished a round of whatever odd tournament we were engaged in and he was conceding defeat. “Clever,” he said quietly. “I thought so back in the lobby, too.”
A minute passed in silence: him seemingly lost in thought, me attempting to recover from the disorienting swell of satisfaction I felt roll through my body at his compliment.
I gave myself a mental shake as Mr.Greaves shifted forward in his chair, both his feet coming to rest solidly back on the rug.
“I have a friend,” he began again, suddenly, and I tensed at the abrupt resumption of speech.
“We’ll call him Evans. Bit of a troubled fellow, but a good laugh, you know.
He always wondered how his mother was able to obtain proof of his drinking after he’d sworn up and down that he’d quit.
Said she must have sent a silkwitch to spy on him, so careful had he been to keep the habit hidden.
” He smiled at me, the emotion in it as chilly and knowing as a pair of eyes in the dark.
“My friend never meant anything by his claims, of course…Imagine his reaction if he learned there’d been some merit to them. ”