Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

“We will get through this,” he said in his best comforting tone. “We always do.”

But rather than accept his words, she gave him a scathing look. “Do you expect me to be content with that?”

He dropped her hands, now wary. “What would you have me say?”

“Do you realize that he would never have been at risk if he had not been working for the Gold King?”

“There is hardly a direct line of cause and effect between the two,” he said somewhat defensively. He walked to the sideboard to pour a whisky, and then remembered he no longer drank. Damn .

“But there is,” she said in a calm, quiet voice she rarely used but he knew better than to challenge. She only ever used it in private, but it had been coming out more often since the debacle that had ended with their thankfully short-lived Disconnection.

He turned to face his wife with his most dignified expression in place. “How so, my dear? I did not arrange for Tobias’s job with the Gold King.”

“But it’s your fault he’s there.” In the dim lamplight, with her back straight and eyes flashing, she might have been twenty years younger. “You are far too clever to need me to recount every step down into this pit of folly, and I would not sully my tongue with the retelling of it. Suffice it to say that where your ambition leads, we are all forced to follow.”

“You enjoy the fruits of that ambition.” He made a gesture that encompassed Hilliard House. “Your father is an earl, and it was my responsibility to keep you in style.”

“Don’t lay this at my door. I was happy to be an ambassador’s wife,” she said in that same dangerous tone. “I played the gracious hostess, even when it required that I welcome killers and madmen at my table. I smiled pleasantly while men I knew kept torture rooms pressed their slobbering lips to my hand. I even looked the other way while you conducted diplomacy of a different kind in your private bedchambers.”

Bancroft flinched at that. How had she known?

“But leave my babies out of your machinations. I only have one left to me, and Poppy is too innocent for your games.” Her voice cracked with a sound so painful that Bancroft felt it in his gut.

He felt a tingling anger rise through his body, as if he were surrounded by a magnetic coil. When he spoke, each word came out crisp and exact. “This is not my fault!”

And yet she went on. “You allowed Tobias to bear the brunt of your useless animosity toward Keating, and now see what has happened. If you do anything to jeopardize Poppy or Jeremy, I will strangle you in your sleep!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped.

But she had gathered steam. “Can you honestly tell me that you wouldn’t sell either of them to a slave trader if it got you a position that had the prime minister’s ear?”

“That fool?” The queen’s ear, perhaps .

“Don’t be coy.” She sounded weary, as if her last outburst had taken the remainder of her strength. “I’m going to my room.”

“Adele!” The note of resignation in her voice stung like vitriol. It was like her cool recital of his failings—hard to wrestle with because of its complete lack of passion. That rather describes our entire marriage . But the cynical voice inside him faltered. “I’m worried about Tobias, too.”

She paused, her body angled slightly away from him, shutting him out. “I thought you said there was no need for concern.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. I’m his father. He’s too”—Bancroft searched for the right word—“good. No, a purist. He refuses to play the game.”

That brought her gray-eyed gaze to his face. “I know. He drives me to distraction. But that’s not what he was made for.”

And then she turned and left, leaving him standing alone in the room, fidgeting with the coins in his pockets. The argument had left him shaken. I shouldn’t have told her I was worried . That wasn’t the sort of thing the man of the house was supposed to say—but it was true. I can’t think about this. There’s too much at stake to take my eyes off the mark .

Bancroft left the drawing room and went up to his study. He opened the door, allowing the scent of tobacco and old leather to waft over him as he walked in. Not so long ago, he’d done the same thing to find Tobias sitting at his desk. The memory of his son wrenched him unexpectedly. He’d damned well better be fine!

Bancroft shut the door behind him, taking a deep breath and letting it out a bit at a time. Solitude and silence settled over him, slowing the pounding of his heart. The privacy of the room held half its value to him. The other half was the memory of all the plots, feints, and victories he’d orchestrated from behind his desk. There had been failures, too—his investment in Harter Engine Company, for starters—but he’d won his share of hands. Here, in this room, he was in control.

Calmer, he sat down at the desk and shuffled a stack of papers to one side, squaring the edges with an authoritative thump . The volatile state of the Empire screamed for prudent diversification, and over the last few days, he’d been transferring assets out of London banks and into accounts he held in France and the United States. He knew it was a smart move, and that certainty released the tense knot forming at the back of his neck.

But relief didn’t last. Beneath the financial papers was the note he’d received at Duquesne’s. Annoyed, Bancroft picked it up, tempted to toss it into the dustbin. Nothing more had come of it, and he had enough complications to wrangle without cryptic threats.

Then he paused, remembering the difficulties he’d had dealing with the Chinese traders. He wondered again about Harriman and the goldsmiths. The episode felt like ancient history, even though it had not been two years past. No doubt he was worrying for nothing. He hadn’t personally met any of the Chinese workers, outside of Han Zuiweng. Engaging and directing the help had been Harriman’s job. By rights, no one involved with hiring the Chinese should even know Bancroft’s name.

He turned over the note, studying the Chinese character on the reverse side. Again, he thought it looked familiar, although that might have been his imagination. Bancroft shrugged his shoulders, shaking off the sensation that he was being watched. Nonsense . The only other pair of eyes in the room belonged to the stuffed tiger’s head fixed to the wall above his desk. Figure this out and get it out of your brain. You can’t afford the distraction .

He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a file of correspondence he’d received from merchants in the coal trade. Leafing through the thin stack of pages, he wasn’t sure what he hoped to find. When he’d taken on the task of finding a source of coal for the rebels, he’d done much of the legwork in person. In part, he’d become personally involved because of the delicacy of the mission. One didn’t simply march up to the sales desk asking for contraband supplies for a group of traitors. Bancroft had needed all his ambassadorial skills, building personal relationships with the merchants who came and went among the ever-shifting population in the Limehouse area.

But there had been a few letters, most in English. His idle flipping began to take on purpose, and he turned the pages faster. The ones that interested him were the few that had come on paper stock with the company crest printed at the top. He pulled them aside one by one until he found the one he wanted—a letterhead with ornate Chinese dragons down the margins. The note itself had been a polite but brief apology from a merchant who was closing down his operation to return to his own country.

Bancroft shoved the note with the hand-drawn character closer to the letter. There it was: a match to the character that formed part of the design. Even though he couldn’t read the script, Bancroft had long ago trained himself to remember shapes and ornamentation. In the diplomatic business, remembering the details of a piece of jewelry or the crest on the side of a coach could be key. After a while, it became habit.