The Gold King waved away Alice’s offer of another cup of tea. She set the Wedgewood pot back on its trivet and subsided into the chair opposite him at the tiny breakfast table.
She had eaten earlier and returned, it seemed, for the sole purpose of cosseting him. A lovely gesture, but he was enough of a businessman to know it didn’t come free. If she had nothing to ask, she would have left him to his morning papers.
The sunlight made her hair burn like copper fire. She was dressed to go out, neat and tidy in a fawn walking ensemble Keating had ordered from Worth in Paris. Alice wore his money well.
“A busy day ahead, Papa?” she asked sweetly.
“Exceedingly. And you?”
She folded her napkin with an air of delicate ennui that made him tense. His darling daughter used that languid air the way a leopard used its spots—camouflage to hide her stealth. All right, then. She wanted something she knew he would not easily surrender.
“My day consists of a dress fitting, a musicale, perhaps a ride in Rotten Row, and if I feel energetic enough, the heir to the Westlake fortune has encouraged his mama to invite me to the theater tonight. Some Italian opera at the Royal Charlotte.”
“I thought they were doing Wagner. Someone was talking it up to me the other day.”
“The production was eaten by a giant squid.”
Keating paused, his egg spoon poised in midair.
“I would rather be with you.” She gave him a coy glance.
He raised an eyebrow. She was definitely angling for a favor. “Not where I am going today.”
“Another brutal, bloody battle in the name of commerce?”
Sometimes he wondered if she knew how literal that was. “Several, in fact.”
“How thrilling. Then I shall leave you to muster your troops.” She bent, kissed his cheek, and made for the door.
She paused, turning slowly. Her skirts followed with a silky swish. “Not particularly. He has a title, though. And his mother’s annual ball is one of the choice events of the Season.”
Her chin tilted at a dismissive angle, and he understood the game, at least in part. She had set her sights on someone and wanted him to approve—but his Alice was too subtle to blurt out her heart’s desire. Not, at least, during a negotiation. He’d taught her to be a better businesswoman than that.
A glow of pride—and a bit of fatherly worry—warmed his chest. “Would you rather marry money or breeding?”
A ghost of a smile played across her bowed lips. They understood each other. “Both are pleasant attributes, but I’d rather have a man with a mind of his own.”
He experienced a pang just under his watch chain, as if a knife had slid neatly into his gut. Was it the sudden sense that she was looking toward a future that didn’t always include him? He slammed the feeling down, but could not help thinking she might be a bit too much like him, and too little like her poor obedient, dead mother.
Keating snorted, turning back to his egg. “Best of luck finding such a man at your musicales.”
Her blue eyes held just a spark of triumph. “Exactly so.”
He set down the spoon, growing irritated. “And pray tell, miss, what does that mean?”
“I would want someone with wits enough to help you. Someone who won’t merely lick your shoes.”
She was right, of course, but the statement shocked him. “Since when do I need help?”
A lift of her delicate chin signaled defiance. “You are a great enough man to build a legacy. I refuse to take a husband who will simply squander it.”
Keating felt the net of her logic closing in. He could tell her straight off that she would marry where he told her to, since that was the way of things, but he let her keep her pride. “Of course.”
She ducked her head, a little shyly. She thought she had won and was trying to hide her pleasure. “That’s why I have you to look out for my interests, Papa. You are a most admirable guard dog.”
“You flatter me.” He watched his daughter go, already hating the man who would take her away.
And then, eyes suddenly vulnerable, she said the last thing in the world he expected.
“I fancy Tobias Roth.”
And Alice all but ran from the room.
Pure dismay curdled Keating’s breakfast to a hard, greasy lump. He sat motionless, his mouth slowly drifting open.
And he clearly understood machines.
But Keating planned to eventually ruin the father for that Harter’s debacle. Bancroft was obedient now, but that was only because he knew he was under scrutiny. He’d try something the moment Keating’s attention wandered.
And yet—ruin wasn’t the only means of revenge. Perhaps he could be inventive and steal the heir to Bancroft’s imagined legacy right out from under his aristocratic nose. He savored the idea, cataloguing the nuances of its flavor as if it were a fine wine.
He did so like to please his daughter.
Keating was still mulling over the idea as he settled into his study on the main floor of his Mayfair address. The London house was not as large as his townhouse in Bath or even the estate he had purchased near Truro, but it had the smell of old aristocracy about it. It was the perfume of age and money, as if the pedigree of its former owners had seeped into the brick and timbers.
The rooms had high ceilings and gilt, with delicately painted panels in the bedchambers and marquetry on the floors. The fireplaces were framed in porphyry and the enormous paned windows were draped with velvet so heavy that it took two strong men to remove each panel for spring cleaning. The house had once belonged to a duke’s mistress, but she’d been old and ill and Keating had seen his opportunity to drive a hard bargain.
He’d added modern conveniences, of course—like the pneumatic tracks that ran like a narrow shelf all along the wainscoting. Tiny silver cars ran along it, much like a toy railway. They allowed food, drink, or any small item to be delivered at the touch of a button without the annoyance of intruding servants. If one really wished privacy, one had merely to place one’s order to the butler’s pantry through a speaking tube, then wait for the requested item to appear via the Lilliputian railway. It was the finishing touch on a house that was no more than the founder of Keating Utility deserved, and one that we would be proud to settle on Alice someday.
But how did he feel about the Roth boy putting his feet up on the fender? Keating expected his daughter to marry high up the social ladder, and it was worth noting that Tobias would inherit his father’s title.
And Keating wasn’t sure that he approved of her ideas about marrying a man with brains.
He’d barely finished the thought when the dark paneled door swung open, and his first appointment strolled in with the air of a man on a scenic tour. Keating studied his visitor. Tall, wearing a black suit tailored with a Continental flair. Goatee. An emerald the size of Keating’s fingernail flashing in his stickpin.
“Dr. Magnus, I presume,” Keating said. “,I saw your name in my appointment book, but I do not recall
