Page 82 of An Honorable Deception
“No assumptions,” Yates whispered.
“I already sent people to investigate. But we can’t wait for them to get back. Pigeon signaled that Babcock’s car turned down the street.”
If there were a knob she could turn to slow it down and give them more time, she’d twist it. As it was, she would have to trust that it was in God’s hands. “Well then.” They would take care of Babcock first, and free Samira. Contend with the murderer and his conspirators afterward. But contend they would.
“Right.” It sounded as though Barclay was smiling in the darkness. “Let’s blackmail some rich blokes.”
She shook her head rather than insist for the twelfth time that it wasn’t blackmail when what they were trying to get out of someone was good behavior. Barclay wanted to think of it that way, and he wouldn’t be convinced otherwise.
Yates gave her a squeeze, pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “See you below.”
“See you above first.”
He moved her six inches to the left—she must have shifted off her mark—and then vanished.
Stirring and murmurs came from the audience, as one would expect from a half-full auditorium. Out there, the ushers—Barclay’s friends in livery they’d found in the theater’s storage rooms, altered by one of his sisters and Zelda to fit them—showed each guest to his assigned seat. But a tap came from backstage, the house lights fluttered their warning thrice, dimmed, and then were gone.
The first strains of music came right on cue. A mournful violin, playing not in the orchestra pit, but from a catwalk, where another of Barclay’s sisters would be well out of danger.
Lavinia could hear the heavy rear door open. How many sets of footsteps entered? She strained to hear over the music, which held long a note that should have been short and then cut off abruptly.
Two. Two sets of steps, praise God. One striding up the path they’d made from door to stage, blocking off every other possible avenue with crates and boxes. Funneling him like an animal through a chute. The second scurrying, as if struggling to keep up.
“Alethia? Is that you, my darling?” A low chuckle sent shivers coursing up Lavinia’s spine. “You do know how I like to hear you play. Trying to please me? Good girl.”
The acoustics of the theater were already brilliant, meant to project every sound from the stage outward. The fact that he was calling out so boldly guaranteed that his voice would make it through the heavy velvet curtain and to the ears of each and every gentleman in the audience.
From the opposite wing, closer to where Lavinia stood, Barclay set the wax cylinder rotating on the phonograph, and Alethia’s recorded voice rang out. “Thank you for coming, Uncle Reuben.”
If the men hadn’t recognized Babcock’s voice, they would know the name. Or sort it out momentarily.
“Samira?” Recorded-Alethia called. “Are you there?”
“I’m here.” Samira’s answer sounded cautious, but she didn’t hesitate to answer.
She hadn’t been gagged. Was she cuffed? The urchin perched in the eaves would have reported it already to Barclay, but Lavinia could only wonder.
“Why did you come, sweetling? You know I would never have you trade yourself for me.”
They hadn’t known for sure Samira would be given the chance to say anything, though Alethia had guessed what she would say if she did. Her response was meant to answer Samira or demand Babcock to show her, and Barclay had put in a lot of practice controlling the phonograph so he could deliver each subsequent recorded line at the perfect moment.
Mostly it was meant to show Babcock to the audience he didn’t know was listening to every word. “It’s time this ends. What do you want, Uncle? What is it you meant when you offered to take me in trade for her? Are you going to takemeto the Empire House? Offer me to your friends?”
Alethia had recorded that part six times before she was able to deliver it with outrage and challenge instead of tears. Lavinia had kept an arm around her shoulders while Xavier clutched her hand.
“For Samira,”she had said. “I’ll get it right for Samira.”
Had he not been shouting, “Enough taunting me, Alethia. Show yourself!” he probably would have heard some of the rumbling from the audience.
Lavinia’s nerves tingled in her arms. They’d been counting on the men out there reacting to that. Because though every one of them had proven he wasn’t above betraying a spouse or engaging in sin, in forcing women to serve them, this was part of the narrative by which they lived too.
That it was acceptable because they were the betters ofthose women. They were noble. They were rich. It wasn’t so bad, they told themselves, because those women were foreign. Their skin the wrong color. Their pockets empty.
But one of their own daughters? A lady? Hisniece? That would stir the outrage they would never point at themselves.
The stage lights blazed on, and the curtains swung open. Lavinia knew to expect the spotlight so she had her eyes closed, but it would have blinded Lord Babcock, whichever way he looked. And what he’d see, when finally he could, would be Lavinia, standing stage left with her back to him. Wearing Alethia’s shawl and shoes and jewelry.
What the audience would see would be him, stalking the width of the stage toward her, and Samira in whatever state he had her in.
