The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister 4)

It would.

“Could be one of the staff,” Alice suggested.

“It could be anyone who comes through the building.” Amanda looked down. “Or anyone who gets one of our advance proofs. None of us have made an attempt to hide our work.”

No, they hadn’t. Free sighed and put her head in her hands, rubbing at her aching temples. Why should she have acted so mistrustfully? She didn’t want to suspect the women who worked with her, didn’t want to turn the friendly business that she had painstakingly built into a place of wariness and disbelief. It was hard work, making a place where women felt safe enough to trust one another. This sort of black suspicion could ruin everything they had accomplished.

No doubt that was why someone had done it.

“We’ll need stricter rules,” Amanda was saying. “Keep your drafts locked up, Free. No more circulating of the opinion pieces for wide comment among the women.”

“Make a list of people who might be responsible,” Alice said. “And we’ll think about how to determine who’s at fault. Once we know that, we can decide how to proceed.”

The door behind them opened, and a gust of wind entered the room. Free set her hand on the papers, holding them in place. The incoming air was fresh and sweet; they’d printed proofs that morning, and the steam engine had warmed the room enough that the breeze was welcome.

She recognized the man standing in the doorway. She’d spoken with him at the race the other day. He was tall, his hair salt-and-pepper, his eyes dark, moving about the room before coming to rest on her. Hard to judge his age; by his hair, she might have guessed as high as forty. But he hadn’t spoken like a man in the middle of his years. And he had a handsome bravado that would better fit a younger man.

He looked around the room with an air of interest, glancing from the tables in the front, where Free and her chief editors stood, to the troughs on the side of the room where they wet the paper, from the drums of press ink to the dark metal of the silent rotary press. One eyebrow rose, ever so slowly, in question.

Free straightened and came forward, holding out her hand. Not palm down, like a lady angling for a dance, but as a gentleman would under similar circumstances. Would he try to wring her bones to dust, to demonstrate his strength? Would he take her hand as if they were about to dance together? It was a test of sorts.

This man didn’t hesitate at all. He took her hand in his and gave it a firm pump.

“Mr. Edward Clark,” he told her.

She tried not to raise her eyebrows. Edward Clark was a solidly English name; his speech, while perfectly fluent, was tinged with the mildest hint of a French accent. She’d assumed he’d been born in France, but had lived in England long enough to lose all but the slightest hint of his native tongue. Maybe that was wrong.

“Miss Frederica Marshall,” she responded, although if he’d found his way to her place of business, he likely knew that already. “Can I help you?”

His gaze traveled to the table behind her. They’d been poring over the inner page of the newspaper; the printer’s plates sat on the table next to the proofs for anyone to see.

Amanda was right. Their next issue of the paper was hardly shrouded in secrecy. Anyone really could walk in and see it. But Mr. Clark didn’t remark on the paper. Instead, his mouth quirked up at the corner.

“You were being literal,” he said, gesturing at the cart that stood beside the table. “You do have a box of exclamation points.”

Now that he’d spoken a bit more, she found herself thinking him English. An Englishman who had lived in France awhile, perhaps?

She smiled. “Along with colons, semicolons, and commas. All the punctuation a girl can dream of. But let’s start with the question mark. Surely you didn’t come here to ogle my movable type. Is there some way I might be of service?”

He looked back at her. She had the feeling that he knew precisely what he was doing—that when his eyes twinkled at her so merrily, he knew exactly the effect it had deep in her stomach.

Free rather enjoyed the feeling. There was nothing wrong with a man who enjoyed a light flirtation, and Mr. Clark was no hardship to look at. So long as he understood that it would go no further, they’d get on famously.

But he simply said, “I have a business proposition to put to you.”

She pursed her lips. “As a preliminary… This is a newspaper by women, for women, and about women. I’m unlikely to hire you to write a column.”

“I don’t write columns,” he said. “I can do some creditable illustrations, but I would make a dreadful employee. It’s not that sort of proposition. Is there somewhere we might discuss this in private?”

She gestured to the side of the room. “I have an office in here.”

He followed her. Her office was nothing more than a converted storage room—one where she’d had a portion of the wall adjoining the main room knocked out and replaced with glass, so that she might be able to have privacy for business meetings precisely like this while still leaving her safely in her employees’ view. He took in the surroundings—the old, chipped desk that she placed herself behind, the stack of grammatical texts and population reports on the bookshelf behind her. She realized, with a hint of chagrin, that a draft of yet another column—one that was scheduled to appear in three days’ time—sat out in plain sight. She placed a stack of blank paper on top of it and sat behind her desk.

But he was looking through the window out to the floor of her business. “The lady in the light blue,” he said in an idle tone, “I presume is Lady Amanda. And the woman with the pinched expression must be Mrs. Halifax.”

“Should I have performed introductions?”

“No,” he said. “I’m only making a point. I’ve done my research over the last few days. I know who you are.” Those last words came out low, and his eyes cut back to her as he spoke. They had a startling effect on Free—as if he were making a declaration, one that made her feel just a little fluttery inside.

It had been so long since anyone had made her feel fluttery. It felt like winter sunshine—something to be savored because it surely wouldn’t last. She hoped he didn’t say something awful to ruin it.

“Consider your point made,” she said with a nod. “You know who I am.”

“And when I came in,” he said, “the three of you were no doubt discussing the plot to discredit you. You’ve at least discovered what they’re doing with your editorials, then. Good for you, Miss Marshall. You’ve made my work that much easier.”