“Hence the ruination,” his friend added helpfully. Another beat or two went by. “She’ll likely die an old maid,” Rupert said, as if commenting on the weather.
“I have tried to quash the rumors,” Rupert continued, holding up his glass and squinting at its contents, “insisting you were in the gaming room with me until five AM—everyone was so bloody drunk by then, nobody can remember anything properly. I think I’ve convinced a few folks. But it would be awfully helpful if you would emerge and say the same.”
Daniel finally grasped what has been eluding him. “Rubbish,” he declared. “Besides, she’s got her precious career, hasn’t she?”
“Probably not,” Rupert said cheerfully. “Newspapers don’t tend to employ ruined ladies. And you know she didn’t write that article.”
The words had the waking effect of an ice-cold glass of water in his face. Daniel was instantly alert. “Say that again, very carefully.”
Rupert grew serious and looked his friend in the eye. “She didn’t write the article, mate,” he said gently.
“How do you know?” He signaled for a glass of water.
“The Globe printed a retraction on Tuesday.” Rupert slid a folded page of newspaper across the bar at him. A corner of the paper instantly darkened with spilled liquid on the bar’s sticky surface. Daniel snatched up the paper and read the retraction, including the apology for accusing him of being Robin Hood. He noted the Globe’s acknowledgment that authorial attribution of the piece had been given to Miss Polly Palmer in error. Everything clicked in an instant: Genevieve must have told her editor about their being in the hotel room together at the time of the Maple diamond theft, damning herself while exonerating him. And somehow word had leaked.
He ran a hand through his hair, amazed. He had trusted her and had been correct in that trust. Bile rose in his throat, which he quickly chased back down with a gulp of water.
“You have to make a decision, mate,” Rupert said quietly. “Do you want to keep living in the past, with the dead? Or would you like to join us in the land of the living? Would Maggie really want to be a stone around your neck? Because that’s what she’s been to you, as long as we’ve been friends.”
Daniel gripped his water glass and absorbed the words quietly, deep in thought.
“You’ve been set up,” his friend continued softly. “As was Genevieve. Someone knew your vulnerability, your weak spot, and I’m sorry to say, they played you like a violin. Together, you two are a force, and whoever set this up was determined to drive you apart.”
Rupert’s words rang true. He felt like the most incredible bastard to walk the earth. How could he have been so blind? But his friend had hit the nail on the head: whoever had been out to trick him, they had indeed known how to find his emotional jugular. It was Maggie, had been Maggie since before her death. Really, since she had become Jacob’s lover. Since she had, in essence, prostituted herself to an old man with gnarled hands so Daniel could have a better life.
He’d been carting that guilt around since he was twelve years old and hadn’t realized what a weight it was until that very moment.
Daniel looked around the dingy bar, bemused. Who would have guessed he’d have the major epiphany of his life at McSorley’s?
“So the question is”—Rupert’s voice sliced through his memories, not buzzing this time but welcome—“who else knew about Maggie?”
Daniel shook his head. “Just you.”
“Well, I can be an insufferable ass when I choose, but I do hope you know I’m not that much of an ass. You’re my best friend,” he concluded simply. “I would never betray you.”
“It was Tommy,” Daniel said, closing his eyes against both his own stupidity and the pounding headache that was beginning to encroach. He gestured to the bartender again. “He said as much at your engagement ball. And damn my eyes for not seeing it sooner.”
This time, Daniel asked the barkeep if he could rustle up some coffee. He had barely slept, but that couldn’t be helped. There was no time to waste, not if he was going to catch a killer.
CHAPTER 20
The darkness in the empty townhouse was not, after a time, utterly complete. The longer she sat, waiting, in the chair she had positioned in the corner of the drawing room, the more her eyes adjusted, and what had been mere shapes gradually transformed into furniture and objects she knew well: a credenza, a side table, a love seat. Familiar vases and bric-a-brac emerged from the shadows—though, Genevieve noted with a pang, there was less here than there had been.
Callie and her grandmother had sold quite a lot, it seemed.
Genevieve didn’t allow her anger and grief over her friend’s distressing financial woes to distract her. She remained still and silent, as immobile as any of the furniture. She’d chosen a plain chair from the kitchen for her wait, its hard seat and straight back keeping her alert and upright, rather than sinking into the plush comforts of one of the remaining armchairs.
Not that she could fathom falling asleep, even if she had been fully ensconced in the comfort of her own bed. No, tonight she was singularly focused.
It was time to end this.
The heating was turned off, and the cold was beginning to seep through the soft leather of her boots and the thick wool of her stockings. She wiggled her toes, waiting.
Patience had never been Genevieve’s strong suit; all her life, it seemed, she’d been focused on what came next. This had particularly been true over the past few years, after her broken engagement. She had wanted to succeed in the newspaper business so badly, had been so desperate to prove her worth, that she’d almost completely removed herself from society, from all but a few close friends, and had barely even slowed down to enjoy the changing of the seasons.
Tonight, she had the patience of a
