James made a face, as if business was a dirty word.
“But I’m glad we had a chance to speak.”
“Of course,” James said. “No matter what you’ve done, you’re still my brother.”
“How generous of you.” Edward inclined his head. “You’re too good.”
And so saying, he slid the newspaper into the inner pocket of his coat—both the Gazette and Free’s proof rolled into one. There. His primary object for the evening was accomplished. “Good night.”
“Good night.” But as Edward started to leave, his brother grimaced. “Wait.”
Edward paused. “Yes?”
“Have you separated Shaughnessy from Miss Marshall yet?”
“No,” Edward said slowly. “I haven’t. He’s stubborn.” He’d not thought that his careful lies would bear fruit so soon. He stood in place, willing his brother to say more.
James sighed. “Can you keep a secret?”
“James.” Edward shook his head slowly, patiently. “I am a secret. Who would I tell?”
“True, true. Well. In the interest of brotherly rapport, you might want to make sure that Shaughnessy is not at the press late tomorrow evening.”
“Of course. Is there some reason?”
James hesitated, so Edward fed him another lie.
“No, no, don’t tell me,” he said. “I can see there is another reason. You’ve done something rather clever, haven’t you?”
That was enough to push his brother over the edge. “Oh, not so clever,” James demurred. “It’s taken me ages to build up to this. It’s just that tomorrow is when they’re supposed to set the fire.”
FREE HAD BEEN BURIED under a veritable onslaught of telegrams—seventy-three by four that afternoon—and the courier on his cycle brought more every hour.
That number didn’t count the notices that would come in the mails. After the exposé that had been printed in the London Review this morning and echoed in papers around the country by noon, advertisers throughout England had been desperate to sever their ties with her. Subscribers would no doubt follow suit.
Free had left the headlined paper out on the front table, a reminder of what she needed to accomplish by the end of the day.
WOMEN’S FREE PRESS FOUND COPYING COLUMNS FROM OTHERS.
“Your response won’t hold up.” Amanda had come back from London that morning, and she was examining Free’s hastily hand-scrawled defense. “This piece sounds like the thinnest of excuses. I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t watched you write those columns.”
“Mr. Clark has proof,” Free said.
Amanda snorted in response. “Mr. Clark is not here. Convenient for him, is it not? Here we are, asserting that someone—and while we suspect who it is, we cannot prove it, and so we dare not name him—has taken our work early, but we are not sure how. This unknown person has done this in order to discredit us for some unknown reason. The story is so thin that it would rouse the suspicions of even our most faithful adherents. We can’t print this. We’re better off printing nothing at all.”
Free folded her arms and glared off into space. “So you think printing a bare denial is the best option.” It had been her choice to wait until she had proof before proceeding; this debacle was what resulted.
“Yes,” Amanda said.
“She’s right,” Alice said over her shoulder.
When those two agreed, they were almost certainly correct.
“Say simply,” Amanda said, “that the Women’s Free Press has reviewed its internal procedures and we are satisfied that the pieces we have printed were authored by our writers. We are looking into this matter.”
“But—”
“Add that we will allow the reporter from the London Review to examine our internal archive of advance proofs, demonstrating that earlier versions of the columns were in our possession before the other newspapers went to press.”
“But—”
“Don’t defend yourself, Free, until you can do it well. You’ll have one chance to build your defense in the public eye. Wait until your story is unassailable, or you’ll lose.”
Damn it. She wanted to do something. Free balled her hands into fists. The telegrams had come all day long, and every one she glanced at felt like a knife to her heart. Andrews’ Tinned Goods—she’d worked with them for years. It wasn’t right, wasn’t fair, that they’d not even waited to hear her explanation before jumping to the conclusion of her guilt.
“We will win,” Alice said behind her, setting her hand on her back.
She didn’t want any of this. Even if she fended off these accusations, every hour she spent defending against them was an hour not spent on issues of substance. That bill of Rickard’s, flawed as it was, was unlikely to even come under discussion unless she helped do her part to put it on everyone’s lips. The very act of spending energy on this hopeless morass was a loss, no matter how it turned out.
She set her head in her hands.
The door opened. She turned, expecting the courier again.
But instead of the bespectacled boy from the telegram office in town, Mr. Clark stood in the doorway. He looked around the room—at her and Amanda and Alice at the table, arguing over that all-important response—and his eyes narrowed.
“Where are the men, Miss Marshall?” His voice was a low growl.
“What men?”
“The men I told you to hire.” He took a step forward. “I know you don’t trust me, but with what is at stake, I’d think you could at least bloody listen for a half minute.”
“What men?” she echoed.
He looked at her—really looked at her, taking in the ink stains on her chin, the drifts of telegrams on the table beside her.
“Christ,” he swore. “You haven’t read my telegram.”
“I’ve been busy.” She glared at him accusingly. “Trying to piece together a response to this accusation without any of the evidence you claimed to have but took with you. I haven’t had time to sort through all the messages. One more person canceling an advertisement or expressing their glee at my fall from grace—what would that have mattered? Things can’t get much worse.”
“Yes, they can,” Mr. Clark growled. “I was wrong; I didn’t have the full plan. This is not just about putting you in distress, Miss Marshall. You need to be seen to be in distress by the entire world. That way, when your press is burned to the ground, everyone will believe it arson. They’ll think that faced with the certainty of financial ruin, you set fire to everything for the insurance money in a fit of desperation.”