“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “Will this be too difficult for you?”
“No,” she said instantly. “Whoever sent the masked person to kill me is probably here. We have to figure out who that is and how they’re connected to Robin Hood.”
Daniel glanced back at the crowd, and Genevieve followed his gaze. “Unless whoever sent the masked man works for the newspaper. They wouldn’t be here.”
“Perhaps,” she said. She scrutinized the guests from afar, trying to ascertain who was who beneath their costumes. Some she could guess; others were more difficult. “Like Clive.”
“Or your friend Luther.”
She instantly shook her head. “Not him.”
“Who else knew you would be on the tenth floor late at night? We have to keep all possibilities open, Genevieve, no matter how unpleasant.”
“We’ve been over this,” she retorted. And so they had, endlessly, it seemed. “Only a secretary named Verna saw me on the elevator that night. I told her where I was going, and I assume it was she who told Luther, who came to check on me.”
“Awfully convenient.”
“You sound jealous.”
“You think very highly of yourself.”
“Doth the gentleman protest too much?”
He snorted a laugh, and she felt some of the tension she had been carrying around for days begin to ease. It was good, this rapport between them. It made the coming task feel easier, more manageable.
“Even if someone from the paper did organize the attack,” she continued, her breath catching slightly at the unbidden flash of memory of the masked face inches from hers, of the hands circling her throat, “they weren’t working on their own. This goes deeper than one disgruntled newspaperman.” She swallowed, willing the ghost of those fingers on her neck to dissipate.
“You’re right,” he conceded, then tipped his head toward the entrance. “Once more unto the breach?” Daniel’s eyes gleamed in the dim light of the alcove. Her heart began to pound, in anticipation of the danger they were in, in excitement of what they might uncover. Without thinking, she grabbed his hand and squeezed it once, hard.
“We few, we happy few,” she said, then dropped Daniel’s hand, stepped past the curtain, and joined the fray.
Two hours later, Genevieve felt both wrung out and pleased with herself. Her costume might not have been as inconspicuous as Daniel would have liked, but she thought rather smugly that it certainly had been useful. She hadn’t found herself the object of so much male attention since her debut, when the Stewart family fortune had brought suitors by the droves, despite her family’s reputation for eccentricity.
The main objective of the evening had been to isolate and speak with all the members of the Committee on Housing Reform in hopes of gleaning further information. They had also hoped to ascertain who the mysterious investors in Lexington Industries were, as the company names listed in the filing at the municipal archives appeared in no other records. It had been no easy task, though, as one did not simply plunge into a conversation about a gentleman’s business dealings in the middle of a ball, nor did young ladies usually make such inquiries; how and when to subtly insert such a topic into polite conversation required different tactics for different individuals. She and Daniel had divided up the list in their planning, based on which target might be more likely to be candid with whom, and had added a few other names that had come up in their research.
It made for an edgy, tense evening. Even as she engaged in acts as pedestrian as making a trip to the ladies’ retiring room or sampling a truffled mushroom, she kept one eye on Daniel, who, she noticed, equally kept an eye on her. She was hyperaware of his movements around the ballroom, attuned to whether he was dancing or drinking or, she noted at least once with no small shock, flirting. A slight jolt reverberated through her body every time she confronted the black half mask, and the constant stress of keeping her face relaxed while her brain was on overdrive took its toll.
She was drained. She was exhilarated. The rush of the hunt was like nothing she had ever experienced before.
Ernest Clark, her first quarry, eagerly requested a dance at the slightest dropped hint. Like Sarah Huffington, he was wearing a rather ironic costume, that of a sandaled, hooded Capuchin monk. Unfortunately, his outfit did not negate his true nature, and she learned nothing other than that he was an unrepentant, socially ambitious flirt who couldn’t keep his eyes off her décolletage. He sidestepped her tentative queries about his business relations so deftly that she wondered if she was being too obvious.
Or if he had much to hide.
She made marginally better progress with Peter Stuyvesant Senior, outfitted as King Lear in his right mind, over a glass of champagne. The old Knickerbocker was an acquaintance of her father’s and was happy to chat with her about their mutual friends and his deep regret over Reginald Cotswold’s passing. He too resisted discussing any business dealings, however, brushing aside her queries about the finances behind his and Cotswold’s charitable organization for orphans. He was happy to talk about the orphans themselves and the ways she might make herself useful should she wish to volunteer, and in the process revealed his appalling lack of recognition of basic humanity in Italian and Eastern European immigrants. She hid her revulsion at his backward ideals and mentally filed away the information, noting that he did not, in fact, seem to be interested in seeing these populations receive better housing. She hoped Peter Stuyvesant Junior hadn’t inherited his father’s horrid beliefs.
Now Genevieve looked around the ballroom, but she couldn’t spot the last person on her list. Daniel wasn’t anywhere in sight either. Wondering if perhaps both men were in the gaming room on the second floor, she wandered toward where the punch was being served, suddenly ravenous. It would be best to speak with her final subject before the elaborate two
