“People like you?”
“Not like me.” The half smile, the one she remembered from the alley, lifted the corner of his mouth. “I prefer to stay behind the scenes. Those working publicly.”
He leaned in a few inches closer, and this time she didn’t have the urge to flinch back. Instead she leaned in too, closing the distance between them, mesmerized by the intensity of his voice.
“Follow the money, Genevieve. That’s your story. That’s always the story.”
In a carriage bound for Washington Square, Genevieve held tightly to her satchel containing her notebook with its precious information. Scant though it was, it was still enough to earn her a major story. There was no way Mr. Horace could ignore her now. And Daniel being from Five Points … another piece of the puzzle toward the even bigger story: the possible unmasking of Robin Hood.
But her mind kept looping back to Daniel’s words. Follow the money.
She knew most of the men on the mayor’s committee. They ran in the same circles as her family. It was unsettling to think that people she’d known her whole life could be involved in something potentially immoral or illicit.
Including someone she’d almost married.
Despite her best efforts not to think about it, memories of her six-month engagement to Ted Beekman came flooding back. His sincere, ardent protestations of love for her. The long minutes they’d spent kissing in secluded gardens, behind half-closed doors, in cabs like this one. Behind the curtains in the darkened box of a theater.
She had given Ted her heart, freely and willingly, enjoying her status as an engaged young woman of means, enjoying the intricacies of planning a major society wedding. She was so caught up in the excitement of it all, thought she was so in love, happily would have given him her virtue before the wedding had the opportunity arisen, and it very nearly had.
She remembered the moment all too well: Ted had had her clasped in an enthusiastic embrace in the darkened sitting room of her parents’ house after a late soiree. Her parents, oblivious to basic propriety as usual, had retired to bed, assuming their soon-to-be son-in-law was on his way home as well.
Ted’s cool, smooth lips had pressed firmly against hers as he stroked her hair and back, occasionally breaking free to murmur “My darling” before reuniting their mouths. Genevieve had never felt so happy, so desired. Everything was so delightful until Ted lunged forward, pinning her down on the settee with his weight, and then began thrusting his tongue inside and around her mouth in vigorous strokes. Genevieve gave a little squeal of surprise, which quickly turned to one of dismay. It was like being licked by an overenthusiastic mastiff and left her feeling not desired but as though she was being overpowered. She was pushing on his chest, trying to wrest his heavy form off her body, when her brother Gavin walked in.
Ted jumped up quickly and smoothed his hair while Genevieve sat up, dazed and trembling slightly as she tried to make sense of the riot of emotions coursing through her. Gavin’s gaze swept the room, quickly taking in the scene. “Beekman,” Gavin greeted her fiancé coolly.
“Gavin, good to see you,” Ted blustered, moving forward to shake her brother’s hand. Gavin regarded it for a moment distastefully.
“You have exactly thirty seconds to leave this house,” her brother responded, the menace in his voice very clear.
Ted drew himself up taller and tried to look affronted. “Now see here, Gavin, you know we’re to be married next Saturday. Sometimes young couples get carried away.”
If anything, Gavin’s voice grew icier. “You’re not married yet.”
Giving Genevieve a quick peck on her flushed cheek, Ted quickly took his leave. Gavin then sat down and put his arm around her, giving his only sister a worried look.
“Are you all right?”
Genevieve wasn’t sure why she was still trembling. Her fiancé had kissed her. A bit more roughly than she had liked, but it was just a kiss.
“Yes,” she finally responded.
“You know, Muffy, you don’t have to marry him.” Muffy was the pet nickname her other brother, Charles, had given her when they were children, short for Little Miss Muffet. When she was four, Gavin had grown tired of his baby sister dogging their steps and had tried to scare her away from their games with an actual spider, held by one wriggling black leg and waved in her face. Genevieve had grabbed the spider in her own chubby fingers and deposited it into a glass jar that housed a toad she’d caught that morning in the park. She had intended for the toad and the spider to be friends, but the toad promptly ate its new tenant, much to the delight of her older brothers.
“Guess she ain’t little Miss Muffet after all,” Charles said admiringly, and the nickname stuck. From then on, her brothers had treated her as one of the boys.
Though unafraid of spiders, the adult Genevieve was shocked and, truthfully, a bit terrified at her brother’s suggestion. Of course she had to marry Ted! Invitations had been sent, orange blossoms purchased that couldn’t be unpurchased; bridesmaids’ dresses had been designed and created specifically for the event. Three hundred fifty individual tulle bags filled with sugared almonds and each tied with a tangerine-colored ribbon were piled in boxes in her father’s study, waiting to be distributed. If she didn’t marry Ted, what would become of all those sugared almonds?
That was exactly one week before the wedding.
Four days later, her mother’s highly publicized arrest and jailing during a march for women’s rights and birth control caused a furor throughout New York society and escalated into a ridiculous scandal. The day after that, Ted claimed he had no choice but to succumb to pressure from his parents and break off their engagement.
Genevieve hadn’t quite been left at the altar, but it
