A Study in Silks

died. Then a wave of heat surged up from her feet, as if life suddenly returned in a glorious, delirious rush. He loves me! It was real. She’d heard it in his voice.

She raised her head to look at him. His eyes, too, were bright with tears, but he blinked them away. He no longer looked like an angel, just a weary, fallen man. She liked this version of him better. She could love him this way, not just adore him as a golden idol.

His mouth worked a moment before he spoke. “Look, things are at sixes and sevens. You might have to leave for a while, and I have to put things to rights. Keating has to be appeased somehow if we’re going to keep going. I have to try, especially for Imogen and Poppy.”

As always, she dove for the difficult question. “How?”

“I’ll put my talents at the beck and call of Jasper Keating. I know it’s dealing with the devil, but it’s up to me to help make this thing blow over. If I do a good job, we need never worry about money.”

About my pitiful dowry, you mean. “What about your own work? Whatever Magnus wanted to show you? Is there something there you could make your own?”

“He had some sort of a master plan he wanted me and some friends of mine to work on. He said he needed makers and that there was a part he was trying to get.”

The airship. Magnus would need talented makers to put it together, but he had also needed Athena’s Casket. She couldn’t imagine the mayhem the doctor would have caused if he had possessed such a powerful weapon.

Tobias closed his eyes. “But in the meantime, he had built an automaton. He meant to test us with it. Incredibly beautiful, but it was—enchanted somehow. Maybe that was the test, to see if we would balk at the magic. I did.” He visibly shuddered, wiping his face with one hand. “I never understood all the prattle about herbwives and sorcerers, but I understand it now. Evil stuff. Vile. No wonder the steam barons do everything they can to repress it. The Gold King is right about that much.”

Evelina caught her breath, unable to speak, and her joy fluttered to earth, a moth with one wing. He is afraid of magic. Not only that, but she heard the subtle shift behind the words. Magnus had been his savior before. Now it was the Gold King. He doesn’t know how to save himself. For all his talk about independence, he needs a stronger man to follow and they’re all monsters.

She took a step back, but Tobias caught her hands, keeping her close. “Magnus is done. He’s not a problem anymore.” He gazed down at their clasped hands. “All the mysteries are solved.”

But they weren’t, not by a long shot. Evelina’s brain suddenly skittered sideways, her fingers twitching in his. He released her hands. “What is it?” he asked.

“I understand now.” She took a step back, folding her arms. She had figured out the murders. She thought of Grace standing in the cloakroom with her candle and her petticoat, unaware that she was minutes from her doom. “Grace was waiting for your father to meet her and collect the gold she was carrying. The killer probably came on her by accident that night.”

Tobias looked sick and confused. “The killer? You mean my father?”

“No, it wasn’t your father.” Pieces of evidence clicked into place. “Bigelow found Lord Bancroft in the library when he went to raise the alarm. Your father had fallen asleep after drinking too much. He didn’t murder the grooms, either. It was Magnus looking for the automatons, first in the house, then on the road. He’d somehow slipped into the house. That had to be him who passed me in the hall.” And as a sorcerer, it would be no trouble to cloak his presence from sight. Excited, she went on. “The only reason his plan failed is that your father realized he was in London and moved the trunks before he got there. Magnus probably came in the side door, but when he tried to leave, Grace was there.”

Tobias’s mouth drifted open, horror mounting on his face. He snapped it shut.

Realization shocked her. “You thought your father killed Grace, didn’t you?” Memory surged. She could see him putting the pieces together during the dinner when her uncle was shot, just before he left the room.

Her face went cold, a painful ache growing in her chest. Her feet backed away from him, almost by themselves. Tobias was known as a crack shot. He had been the first to leave the dinner table. Their eyes met, each reading the other perfectly. In that moment, she saw something in him change. The man who had just confessed his love vanished in a storm of fear. He was terrified of what she might know.

Evelina’s mouth went dry. You tried to kill my uncle. You thought he had figured out your father was guilty, so you tried to kill him before he could say anything—and now you know that I’ve guessed as much.

But if she said it out loud, was he going to let her go? The unspoken dialogue between them stretched on, the fear on his face hardening to something else. There were moments when she was certain Tobias loved her, but there were also many when she was glad she hadn’t poured out every ounce of her soul. He fears magic. He feared my uncle. He would rather lash out than face the consequences of the truth. Not a comforting train of thought.

That was the difference between them, and there was no chance for either of them to grow and change now. This affair cuts love’s throat as surely as it did poor Grace’s.

And this man—Tobias—had tried to kill Uncle Sherlock. She looked away, trying to hide the mounting horror she felt. I wouldn’t have believed it of him.

Tobias watched her reaction, seeming to catalogue every nuance. His mouth twisted with bitterness. “My father isn’t a murderer? I’m so relieved.”

Yes, he knew he had made a mistake.

She felt a flash of pity, but it was mixed with fear. “Your father made a terrible mistake and things are going to change for your family. You can’t preserve things the way they are. If you do that, you let Keating pin you like a specimen in a shadow box.”

Tobias curled his fingers into fists. “I will protect the people I love.”

You’ll pick up a gun and start shooting. “At what cost to you? To them?”

He gave her a weary look. “I don’t know, Evelina. My mother has already collapsed. I’ll do whatever is required of me.”

“How far will you go?” They both knew she meant with her.

He gave her a dark look. “If I think there is a threat, I will take care of it.” Then he wavered, a little of the hardness falling from his expression. “I can’t be the man either of us wants anymore. And there’s too much between us now.”

“You said you loved me a moment ago.” But the words were pointless. He was right. You shot my uncle. That was bad enough. What was worse was that until she’d figured out the truth, he’d been willing to live with that secret every time he kissed her.

Tobias Roth was a coward and a liar. I was right. I can’t afford him.

She wet her lips, at a loss for anything else to say. There was one more mystery solved, for whatever good it did her. “I need to leave. My uncle is waiting for me.”

There was a tense moment. She had his secret. What was he going to do now?

“Then you had better go,” he said at last. There was no warmth in his voice now, as if he had made some final decision to put his fate in her hands.

Evelina didn’t want anything from him, least of all that.

She had finished packing. She picked up her bag. One foot shakily before the other, she made for the door.

“Evelina.”

“Your secrets are safe,” she said in a small voice.

“One thing you should know.”

She turned, already sure it would be a mistake. “What?”

His eyes were hollow with dread and sadness, but there was ice there, too. “My father asked me to seduce you.”

She flinched, as if his words were slender, deadly blades. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Everything I said.” He sucked in a breath, his lips pressed together so hard they turned white. “Utterly false. Always.”

Pain sliced her, bringing a flush of shame to her cheeks. She knew he was lying, lashing out through his hurt. Or maybe he was doing what he believed he had to, freeing both of them so he could save the family