Amanda snorted in response. “Mr. Clark is not here. Convenient for him, is it not? Here we are, asserting that someone—and while we suspect who it is, we cannot prove it, and so we dare not name him—has taken our work early, but we are not sure how. This unknown person has done this in order to discredit us for some unknown reason. The story is so thin that it would rouse the suspicions of even our most faithful adherents. We can’t print this. We’re better off printing nothing at all.”
Free folded her arms and glared off into space. “So you think printing a bare denial is the best option.” It had been her choice to wait until she had proof before proceeding; this debacle was what resulted.
“Yes,” Amanda said.
“She’s right,” Alice said over her shoulder.
When those two agreed, they were almost certainly correct.
“Say simply,” Amanda said, “that the Women’s Free Press has reviewed its internal procedures and we are satisfied that the pieces we have printed were authored by our writers. We are looking into this matter.”
“But—”
“Add that we will allow the reporter from the London Review to examine our internal archive of advance proofs, demonstrating that earlier versions of the columns were in our possession before the other newspapers went to press.”
“But—”
“Don’t defend yourself, Free, until you can do it well. You’ll have one chance to build your defense in the public eye. Wait until your story is unassailable, or you’ll lose.”
Damn it. She wanted to do something. Free balled her hands into fists. The telegrams had come all day long, and every one she glanced at felt like a knife to her heart. Andrews’ Tinned Goods—she’d worked with them for years. It wasn’t right, wasn’t fair, that they’d not even waited to hear her explanation before jumping to the conclusion of her guilt.
“We will win,” Alice said behind her, setting her hand on her back.
She didn’t want any of this. Even if she fended off these accusations, every hour she spent defending against them was an hour not spent on issues of substance. That bill of Rickard’s, flawed as it was, was unlikely to even come under discussion unless she helped do her part to put it on everyone’s lips. The very act of spending energy on this hopeless morass was a loss, no matter how it turned out.
She set her head in her hands.
The door opened. She turned, expecting the courier again.
But instead of the bespectacled boy from the telegram office in town, Mr. Clark stood in the doorway. He looked around the room—at her and Amanda and Alice at the table, arguing over that all-important response—and his eyes narrowed.
“Where are the men, Miss Marshall?” His voice was a low growl.
“What men?”
“The men I told you to hire.” He took a step forward. “I know you don’t trust me, but with what is at stake, I’d think you could at least bloody listen for a half minute.”
“What men?” she echoed.
He looked at her—really looked at her, taking in the ink stains on her chin, the drifts of telegrams on the table beside her.
“Christ,” he swore. “You haven’t read my telegram.”
“I’ve been busy.” She glared at him accusingly. “Trying to piece together a response to this accusation without any of the evidence you claimed to have but took with you. I haven’t had time to sort through all the messages. One more person canceling an advertisement or expressing their glee at my fall from grace—what would that have mattered? Things can’t get much worse.”
“Yes, they can,” Mr. Clark growled. “I was wrong; I didn’t have the full plan. This is not just about putting you in distress, Miss Marshall. You need to be seen to be in distress by the entire world. That way, when your press is burned to the ground, everyone will believe it arson. They’ll think that faced with the certainty of financial ruin, you set fire to everything for the insurance money in a fit of desperation.”
Free felt her hands go cold.
“He could be lying, Free.” Amanda came to stand by her. “These so-called men he wants you to hire—who knows who they might be? Men under his control. And once introduced, they’ll be here. Protecting us, so they say, but who knows what other master they’ll serve? Do you really trust him?”
Mr. Clark’s lips thinned, but he said nothing in his own defense. He simply folded his arms and glared at her, as if willing her to make up her mind—as if daring her to trust him now, when she had every reason not to.
But it wasn’t his silence that decided her in his favor. It wasn’t the memory of the last time she’d seen him—of the touch of his glove whispering along her jaw. It wasn’t even the perilous thud of her heart, whispering madness in the back of her mind.
No. Her trust, such as it was, was won on a far more practical basis.
“On this,” Free said, “I believe him.”
He let out an exhalation, his arms dropping to his sides.
“But—” Amanda started.
Free turned grimly and went to the window. “I believe him,” she said, “because I smell smoke.”
Chapter Eight