For weeks, Genevieve had resisted telling her friends about her unauthorized investigation into Robin Hood, but Callie, ever insistent, had pried out a portion of the story. There were many elements she still held back: the dead man in the alley with the misshapen head, Luther’s promise to look into it, and her growing fears around the circumstances of Reginald Cotswold’s death. Her friends could not be dissuaded from hearing a full accounting of her dance with Daniel McCaffrey, however, and she found herself revealing select details from their impromptu dinner as well, to the delight of Callie and the wary astonishment of Eliza.
In truth, it was a relief to unburden herself, even partially. The weight of the information she had recently uncovered had been gnawing at her, causing sleepless nights as her brain puzzled over each new revelation.
The trio had been walking through Washington Square Park, around which they all lived. The recent bitter winds had relented somewhat, and while the day was not quite warm, at least it was sunny. There was the barest hint of January’s snow still covering the shrubbery, and patches of brown grass were being uncovered bit by bit as the crusty sheet of white that had blanketed the ground slowly melted. Despite the thin sunshine, Genevieve folded her arms around her chest, shuddering a bit as a brisk breeze stirred the still-bare branches of the park’s trees, the clacking sound returning her instantly to the recent night she had been pursued—maybe—down Fifth Avenue.
Another detail she deliberately withheld from her friends.
“Are you too cold, Genevieve?” Eliza asked with concern. “Shall we go to my house? There’s cake, I’m sure.”
Callie perked up at the mention of cake. “Yes, let’s!”
Genevieve shook her head. “I ought to be getting home.”
“Perhaps you should rest,” Eliza said, placing a hand on Genevieve’s shoulder.
“You’ve got circles under your eyes,” Callie added.
“Callie!” Eliza scolded. “That is not kind.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing she doesn’t know.”
“There is no need to be impolite.”
The girls’ familiar, friendly banter was giving Genevieve a headache. “Stop it, both of you. Can we please sit?” She sat hard on the nearest bench and rubbed at her temples.
“Genevieve,” ventured Eliza, after both she and Callie had settled themselves, “may I ask something? Do you fear Daniel McCaffrey is Robin Hood?”
Genevieve sighed. She ought to have known her friends were clever enough to divine her thinking.
Callie was nodding in agreement. “It partially adds up. But it partially doesn’t.”
Genevieve sat on the open end of the bench and gazed contemplatively at the grand, crumbling gothic towers of the old university building that dominated the Square’s east side. “Exactly.” She smoothed the skirt of her pink wool dress. “It feels tied somehow to his being made the Van Joost heir. It’s not as if the Van Joosts were known for their charity work, nor were they terribly kind to, um, outsiders,” she finished lamely, looking apologetically at Eliza. While her family and Callie’s could trace their origins to the early Dutch settlers of New York, Eliza’s merchant father hailed from Massachusetts and had made his fortune in the war manufacturing Union uniforms, afterward turning to ladies’ corsets. The Van Joosts, a terribly snobby clan, had refused to associate with that kind of “new money.”
“No, certainly not,” murmured Eliza. “One can’t imagine the old man taking in a stray newsboy or the like out of the kindness of his heart.”
“Do you recall how terrifying old man Van Joost was when we were children?” Callie interjected. “Eliza, you must consider yourself lucky that your family was not included in the annual Van Joost Christmas party, really. We children were made to stay in the main party with the adults, highly unusual and mind-numbingly dull.”
Genevieve was surprised. “You remember those parties? You were so small then.”
“I’m only four years younger than you. And yes, my fear of that house is among my earliest memories. My grandmother was such a crony of old man Van Joost’s.”
“I’d forgotten your grandmother had been close to him. Did she ever speculate as to why Mr. McCaffrey was made the heir?” Eliza asked.
“No.” Callie shook her head. “She was just as bewildered as everyone else.”
“I can’t imagine attending such an awful party—and at Christmastime, no less!” exclaimed Eliza, reaching behind her to pluck a twig from a nearby shrub, shaking off the remaining snow before twirling it between her fingers. “Of course, my father would have expired of joy to receive an invitation.”
A new thought occurred to Genevieve. “I don’t ever recall seeing Daniel there.”
“Nor do I,” agreed Callie, shaking her head slowly. “I was a bit younger of course, but even then I’m sure I would have noticed someone as good-looking as Daniel McCaffrey.”
Genevieve rolled her eyes at Callie. “Let us put aside the question of the man’s handsomeness for now. Mr. Cotswold’s housekeeper said Mr. McCaffrey spent part of his youth at school abroad. Why would Jacob Van Joost take an interest in a young boy from Five Points and pay for his education?”
Nobody had an answer for this. The tree branches clacked again in the breeze, and the friends almost unconsciously scooched closer together on the bench.
Eliza finally broke the silence. “I am glad of your new assignment, Genevieve. About Mr. Cotswold.”
“Yes, a welcome change from writing about the size of bustles, I’m sure,” Callie agreed.
“I’ve been a bit shaken by Mr. Cotswold’s passing,” Eliza confided. “He was one of the first to welcome my father into society. It made a tremendous difference to us.”
“He was a nice man,” Callie conceded. “But old as dirt. Even Grandmama is fairly sanguine about his death, and she’d known him forever.”
“Your grandmother knew everyone,” remarked Genevieve.
“They were all thick as thieves back in the sixties and early seventies,” Callie said. “Jacob Van Joost, Reggie Cotswold, John Jacob Astor, my grandfather … they were in charge of this town.” She smiled a bit sadly. “How
