No matter. She would wait fifteen minutes, then make her own way south. Genevieve dropped the dark-red damask drape on the window in her parent’s front drawing room back into place and checked the time on the brass clock ticking away on the mantelpiece, just visible in the light of a single candle.
She had promised Daniel she would remove herself from the investigation henceforth, but had crossed her cold toes within her boots; it was never a promise she intended to keep. This was her story, and she would see it through until the end.
Both men had been anxious about whether she planned to turn Rupert over to the authorities, but Genevieve knew better than that. These crimes went deeper than Robin Hood, all the way to the very heart of the machinations that made the city tick. The story of a British earl suffering from some kind of mental illness that drove him to thieve was compelling, but nothing compared to that of the city’s top officials scheming for riches at the expense of children’s living conditions.
Besides, with Commissioner Simons’s involvement in the Lexington Industries scheme, to whom could she turn with this news of Robin Hood? The police were not an option at present.
She chewed her lower lip and looked at the clock again. They were surely far enough away now.
As she slipped back into her warm cloak, Genevieve’s mind returned, as it had repeatedly, restlessly, since she had been alone, to Daniel’s proposal.
She paused, closing her eyes and pressing a hand to her chest. She couldn’t seem to wipe the moment from her mind; he had looked so sincere.
He had also looked terrified.
A small, secret part of her had leapt in joy at the words. The life they could have together had passed through her mind in a flash: a true partnership, but enveloped in the type of love she’d never thought she’d be able to experience. Being with Daniel made her feel alive; Every sense was heightened when she was with him. She had dismissed the sensation as a reaction to their work together, to the thrill of the hunt, but at his proposal, she’d known in an instant it was also his presence that made her nerves tingle. Being with him made her feel as though the sun were shining especially and only for her.
But he didn’t love her. His hesitation in the face of her question had been answer enough. He admired her, he’d said. After the heated looks he thought he’d hidden in the hotel room, she believed he was attracted to her as well. But if she had learned one thing since her near marriage to Ted, it was that if she ever came that close to matrimony again, it would be for love.
A cold, miserable rain had begun. Icy wind nipped at her nose and tugged the ends of her scarf as Genevieve slipped from her house, helping drive thoughts of Daniel’s proposal from her mind. She began to cut diagonally southeast across the park—a cab might be hard to find at this hour, but surely if she walked along Broadway, one would pass sooner or later. It was imperative that she get to the offices of the Globe before it was too populated, to venture—once again—into the records room. Her employment status at the paper was still in question, but she was friendly enough with most of the staff that if there weren’t many people about, she could go about her business with a friendly wave. Something niggled at the back of her brain; she knew she had read about a tavern in Five Points that was the Oyster Knife gang’s stronghold. It was the only logical place Daniel’s meeting could occur, and she planned to be there.
Lost in thought, she almost didn’t notice the sound of heavy footsteps behind her. Gooseflesh prickled her arms as soon as they permeated her consciousness. Dawn was perhaps a half hour away, and while the sky was slightly less pitch-black than it had been before, the park, under its canopy of trees, was still deep in shadow. Risking a glance over her shoulder, Genevieve could just make out a shadowy figure, hat pulled low, about twenty paces behind her.
She now dearly wished she had walked due east along the park’s north edge instead of following its wending paths in her haste to get to the office. The stately townhomes lining that side could have provided more than a measure of security. But it was too late: she was under the bare tree branches, which continuously rattled their saberlike branches in the cold March wind.
Foolish, foolish, foolish, she cursed herself. Her heart accelerated in time to her increased pace. The footsteps behind her, predictably, quickened as well.
Suddenly, a realization struck her so forcibly that she stopped in her tracks. Relief edged out her panic, and a short laugh escaped before she could stop it. Of course, this was one of Daniel’s men, probably the same one who’d tailed her in the park earlier. Whoever this was, he could carry a very pointed message back to one overbearing Mr. Daniel McCaffrey. She was tired of being followed around the city, scared out of her wits.
She wiped the rain from her face and turned on her heel, ready to deliver a scathing setdown to Daniel’s lackey, only to find the man mere inches from her, filling her entire field of vision. There was no time to scream, only a moment for shocked recognition as the blurred features under the hat resolved into those of someone she knew, before a blinding pain exploded on the left side of her head, and darkness descended.
CHAPTER 22
Low voices permeated the edge of Genevieve’s consciousness, the tones strained. What were they saying? She couldn’t quite make them out.
Her head was pounding. She was so tired
