Page 84 of An Honorable Deception
They were, in fact. Only Merritt’s sidearm was real, he being the only one properly trained to use it, and he had it with him to protect Samira. The rest of them would rely on good old-fashioned stage magic.
His face hard now, calculations running through his eyes, Reuben Babcock slid one step forward onto the mark. “What is the meaning of this, my lady? Who is out there?”
Another laugh, and the house lights came up long enough to show him the auditorium, forty seats filled with England’s finest—and worst. His friends. His neighbors. The men whose respect he counted on to do his business.
The men whose vices he counted on to mask his own.
She didn’t have time to watch his expression move from shock to fury to dread. Nor to see the mirroring looks on the audience’s faces when the darkness they’d been hiding in was stripped away. Several looked about to stand and flee, but the prop guns that looked so real corralled them right back into place, in the hands of the masked “chorus members,” as they’d been calling the crew made up of street rats and thieves.
Lavinia spread her arms wide, a ringmaster ready to call out the elephants and dancing bears. “My lords and good sirs, you crème de la crème, you pillars of society—come! Get lost in our show, feast your eyes on our brilliance—as we have been feasting ours onyours. Reach under your chairs, you so-called gentlemen. See what we’ve prepared for you.”
She spoke in the cadence Franco had always used to entrance the circus audience, to get their hearts beating in rhythm and direct their eyes wherever he pointed. In this case, to their own seats. They had two actors in the front row, there solely for this moment, to provide the example. They leaned down first and pulled out the envelopes fastened to the bottoms of each chair, and the other soon followed suit.
Forty envelopes rustled. There were a few startled exclamations as the men flipped through their portfolios, and she could well imagine their outrage.
Photos catching them in every act they wouldn’t want their wives to see. Copies of less-than-honest business transactions, which should have been safely locked away in their studies. Proof of mistresses, illegitimate children, and any other sins Barclay’s people had been able to get evidence of. All there, tidy and accusing, staring them in the face.
Lavinia raised her arms, Samira’s bangles catching the light. “You like a good show, is that it, my good sirs? Diversion, entertainment? Then behold!”
She held her pose as the circus sprang to life.
TWENTY-FOUR
He needed to get below-stage, but by Yates’s estimation, he still had a few minutes—and he didn’t want to miss this part of the show.
Lavinia looked magnificent, standing there in the spotlight, every sequin on her gown showering light onto the undeserving crowd. He knew she always got nervous when she took to the stage, but no one would know it to watch her now. She was a true leading lady—in life, not just here. He could scarcely wait to see the changes she’d make in the world.
Even now, Merritt was with Samira in the auto he’d borrowed from Xavier. Even now, they were en route to the Empire House, the “respectable” portion of which would have closed for the day, where she would be the one who got the pleasure of unlocking the bedroom doors with the master keys Yates had given them after Merritt and a few of Barclay’s burliest friends wrested their way inside. He wished he could seethat, too, but alas.
His place had always been more here. The stage. The highwire. The trapeze. Despite the circumstances—no, because of them—a smile tugged up the corners of his mouth.
Franco surely never imagined that his equipment would be used to manipulate gents into better behavior. Neville definitely never expected to be coaching a ragtag band of street urchins through a show meant only to distract them while they moved the supposed gunmen into the aisles, new masks in place.
To Yates’s mind, theater and circus were both achieving new heights today.
He reached for a rope that Lucy was struggling with and helped her lower the backdrop into place while one sister started the next record playing on the phonograph and another added some live violin to it to make the sound really fill the space. Two of her brothers would be lowering her, too, on the small platform she’d have moved onto, so that she’d be one more focal point on the stage.
One among many. Everyone was dancing their way out of the wings now, costumes flashing in the light, enormous feathered fans waving, a unicycle even corralling Babcock back onto his mark when he tried to make a run for it.
If only they’d brought the animals. He could well imagine what a few big cats could have added to the show.
Couldn’t fall into the very trap he was setting, though, and get distracted by the display. After tousling Lucy’s hair and earning a grin, he hurried to his own next mark, into the space below the stage. Lights were lit, a thickly cushioned pad in place under the trapdoor in case he hadn’t made it down here in time, and the boilers ready for their own part of the show.
Above, he could hear each step, the music muted by the floor, the squeak of the unicycle. He could hear Lavinia as she delivered her last lines.
“It is easy to get distracted by beauty, it is true. To get lost in the gleam and the pleasure. It is easy to slide fromrecreation to sin, to forget that behind the masks, there are people. But let me assure you, good sirs—they are people.”
Yates heard the clank of the spotlights as the metal shutters switched the direction of their beams. They’d be shining on the aisles now, where any of their crew not on the stage had slipped into place, surrounding the gents. They’d opted for black cloaks for the ease of it, and each one wore a theater mask from Neville’s collection.
No male or female. No rich or poor. No servant or lord.
He peeked out of one of the shielded slots at the front of the stage in time to see the fright settle on the faces he could see. It was quite the dichotomy they’d written—Lavinia proclaiming them people, yet each figure looked more like a specter, masked in both body and face.
“They could be your maids. Your chauffeurs. The postman. They could be the cabby on the corner or the paperboy watching you walk by. They could be that new face at the club or the supplicant who comes to you with an appeal for justice. They could be the tenant or the actor or the drunk you avoid on the street. Who have I found for this work?”
“We are the Imposters,” they said in unison.
Yates grinned like a fool. They weren’t, technically speaking. But he’d always liked the idea of people thinking they were everywhere, anyone. And he knew he could give this crew a field commission any time he needed them—so long as he’d pay them for the time, anyway.
