INFAMOUS
1904—St. Louis
Harte knew that he should have prepared Esta for Julien’s act, but the look of surprise on her face made keeping the secret worth it. The delight in her expression was also an enormous relief. The truth was, Harte hadn’t exactly been sure how she would react to learning that Julien Eltinge had made a name for himself by impersonating women on the stage—not everyone accepted Julien’s particular talent. But Esta took one more look toward the stage, her full mouth parted in a sort of awe as Julien hit a heartrending and impossibly high note, and she smiled. Then she gave Harte a sure nod and gathered her skirts in preparation to leave.
She was dressed in a gown of cloud gray, one she’d picked because she’d thought it was sedate enough to avoid notice. He didn’t have the guts to tell her that it had the exact opposite effect. Made from a silk that looked almost liquid, it rippled against the ground as she walked, making her look like some sort of otherworldly apparition. It had drawn the eyes of men—and women—all the way from the hotel to the theater, and it had taken everything in him not to reach for her, to put a proprietary arm around her, so that every one of those onlookers—and Esta herself—knew who she was with.
But he didn’t, because after he’d spent the last twenty-four hours in close quarters with her—first on the train and then as they navigated the unfamiliar city to find a hotel and buy evening clothes—what little self-control he had was fraying.
It had been a mistake to touch her earlier. He’d acted on instinct to pull her out of the way before those men in the dark coats had knocked her over, but the moment his arms had gone around her, he’d sensed her—the energy of her affinity, the heart of who and what she was—even through the thin leather of his gloves and the layers she was wearing. And then she’d settled into his arms as though she belonged there. He could have kissed her right there in the middle of the crowded lobby and damn all the repercussions.
The power inside of him had certainly wanted him to, but the way it had swelled at Esta’s nearness had been enough to bring him back to himself, and he’d held it together. He had pushed the power and all of its wanting down and let go of her. He’d managed to keep his hands to himself ever since. He’d just have to keep managing.
“Harte?” Esta asked.
“What?” He blinked and realized she was staring at him. She’d been saying something, and he’d missed it.
“I said, which way?” she asked, unaware of the true direction of his thoughts.
Once they were back in the lobby, Harte could hear the rumble of applause within as Julien finished his first song, even through the closed theater doors. They’d have fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before his act was over—not much time considering that Harte hadn’t had a chance to case the building.
But theaters were all pretty much the same, and Harte understood the rhythm of life on the stage and the way the world behind the curtain ticked like the gears of a clock, hidden and essential. He went with his instincts and led the way to an unremarkable door at the end of the lobby. Once through it, the lights were dimmer and the familiar energy of backstage enveloped him. He gave his eyes a moment to adjust as he took off his gloves—just in case. He prepared himself, making sure that the power inside of him was locked down tight as he took Esta’s hand in his. Ignoring the surge of warmth and wanting that rose up within him, he led her through the maze that was backstage, toward where the dressing rooms were housed.
When they turned a corner, they ran into a woman with dark blond hair and an armful of fabric. From the look of it, she was a costumer, one of the backstage workers who took care of the performers in between acts, and for a moment Harte thought of Cela—of his mother—but when the woman’s eyes went wide at the sight of them, Harte knew it meant trouble.
“You’re not supposed to be back here,” the woman said, her brows drawing together as she looked the two of them up and down, taking in the evening clothes they were wearing.
Esta’s hand tightened around his, but Harte simply pasted on his most charming smile—the one that usually got him whatever he wanted. “No wrong turn at all,” he said as he dropped Esta’s hand and extended his now-free hand toward the woman. “Charlie Walbridge.”
The woman only frowned at him as she looked down at his bare, outstretched hand with brows bunched. Her nose scrunched up as though he were offering her a rotten piece of meat.
“Walbridge, as in the son of Cyrus P. Walbridge . . . the owner of this theater,” he added, dropping his hand and infusing his voice with a hint of impatience. “This is my fiancée, Miss Ernestine Francis.” It hadn’t taken much effort earlier to figure out who the owner of the theater was, along with the names of a couple of the other more important men in town. He had no idea if Councilman Francis even had a daughter, but he knew that names—certain names—had power.
The gambit worked. The woman’s eyes widened slightly, and she sputtered a hurried apology.
Harte gave her an appraising look. “Yes, well . . . mistakes do happen, don’t they? I’ll be sure to tell my father how dedicated his employees are to the theater’s well-being, especially you, Miss . . .” He paused, waiting for her to supply her name.
“It’s Mrs., actually, though my husband’s been gone these past three years now. Mrs. Joy Konarske.”
“Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Konarske.” He offered his hand again. “I’ll be sure to tell my father how dutiful you’ve been. He’ll be pleased to know his theater is being well looked after.”
The woman’s cheeks went a little pink as she paused to shift her burden of fabric so she could grasp Harte’s outstretched hand. Her palm was rough and calloused from the work of laundering the costumes and tending to the performers’ wardrobes each night, and Harte felt a flicker of guilt as he focused on pushing his affinity toward her, pulsing it gently—just a little—through the delicate boundary of flesh and into the very heart of who and what she was.
Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away. They never do, he thought.
When Harte finally released the woman’s hand a moment later, she had a slightly dazed look in her eyes. Giving the two of them a shaky smile, she wandered off, and Harte knew she would leave them be. She would forget having ever seen him—because he had ordered her to. And the moment she heard or saw a description of either Esta or himself, Mrs. Joy Konarske would feel a wave of such revulsion that she would do anything necessary to escape the person asking.
“Did you . . . ?” Esta asked, her voice low.
He met her eyes, expecting judgment but finding instead only worry. Or perhaps that was sadness? “Would you rather she tell someone she saw us here?” he whispered.
“Of course not,” she whispered. “It’s just . . . do you think it’s safe? With the Book’s power in you?”
He hadn’t considered that. Why hadn’t he considered that?
“I don’t know.” It wasn’t like he’d had much choice. He’d done the only thing he could do, unless they wanted to be discovered before they even began.
Luckily, they didn’t run into anyone else before they found Julien’s dressing room and let themselves in. Despite the number of women’s wigs and gowns that filled much of the room, it was a masculine space. Which, considering Julien, wasn’t surprising. On the dressing table, an ashtray contained the remains of multiple cigars, and the cloying ghost of their smoke still hung thick in the air.
“How long do we have?” Esta asked.
“Maybe another ten minutes or so.”
“I’ll look here, if you check the dressing table,” Esta said, turning to the large upright steamer trunk in the corner.
Harte knew it couldn’t hurt to look. If they found the necklace, they could avoid Julien altogether. But he didn’t really expect the necklace to be in the dressing room—Julien wasn’t stupid. Even if Julien didn’t know about the power the stone contained, he would be more careful than to leave it in an unlocked dressing room in a crowded theater. The heavy platinum collar was set with a turquoise-colored stone shot through with glittering veins of some silvery substance that made it look like a sky full of stars. It was singular, and clearly valuable, and Julien would keep something like that somewhere safe . . . especially with the note Harte had sent along with it.
But Esta was right. It wouldn’t hurt to look while they were there.
Before he’d even managed to sit at the dressing table, Esta had pulled a pin from her hair and popped the lock of the trunk. Harte paused to watch her as she began sorting through the drawers inside of it, and then he turned back to the dressing table.
For a moment he felt the shock of recognition. How many times had he sat at the same sort of table, the glow of the electric light over the mirror illuminating the familiar planes and angles of his own face? There were pots of stage paint and kohl on the tabletop, and their familiar scents came to him even beneath the staleness of the full ashtray, teasing at his memories and inspiring a pang of longing and loss so sharp, it surprised him.
He was never going to sit at a dressing table like this again. He was done with that life.
Even if he managed to get out of this mess alive—even if they could exorcise the power lurking beneath his skin and get away from the Order and stop Nibsy—Harte was supposed to be dead. He couldn’t just resurrect himself. There would be no more applause, no more footlights. He would never again have the quiet solitude of a dressing room to call his own.
Maybe he would find a new name, a new life that he could be happy with, but it wouldn’t be on the stage. And he would miss it—the rush of nerves before and the thrill of the applause after. He hadn’t realized just how much until that moment.
“Find anything?” Esta asked, still rustling through papers in one of the trunk’s drawers. It was enough to shake him out of his maudlin bout of self-pity and get to work.
“Not yet,” he told her. He opened the first of the drawers, one filled with small pots of rouge and the powdery smell of talc. He didn’t have to search through the items to see that the necklace wasn’t there.
“What is all of this?” Esta murmured, and Harte turned to see what she had found.
She was holding a leather box, trimmed in gold and stamped with a gilded filigreed emblem that was inscribed with a stylized monogram of the letters VP. Harte came over to look as Esta pulled out a small golden medallion that hung from a green satin ribbon. It was the kind of medallion important dignitaries or generals wear when they dress for a parade. Odd . . .
He took the medal from her and examined it. Like the box itself, it was inscribed with an ornate VP, but the surface bore the portrait of a long-faced man with a full beard. The figure might have been a crusader or a saint, with his sharp cheekbones and solemn expression, but his face seemed to be partially obscured, as though a piece of fabric was hanging over it. Around the edge of the medallion were markings that could have been simple decorations or an unknown language—it was impossible to tell.
“I don’t know,” Harte said, frowning at the piece. The Julien he knew hadn’t been involved with anything but the theater, and that medallion didn’t look or feel like a prop.
“There’s more,” Esta told him, carefully lifting out a piece of scarlet silk that had been neatly folded into a square. It was a sash of some kind, and it, too, was pinned with another medallion. At the bottom of the box lay a small silver tray, ornately wrought with more of the strange symbols around the edges of an even more elaborate rendering of the same two letters—VP.
The light over the dressing table dimmed for a moment before returning to its normal brightness. “Put it away,” he told Esta, handing back the medal. “That’s the signal for the next act. Julien will be back any second now.”
Esta worked to put the trunk back together and relocked it. She was just slipping the pin back into her hair when the dressing room door opened and the painted songstress from the stage entered the small confines of the dressing room.
It was always a shock to see Julien up close when he was dressed for his act. Even without the distance of the audience and the glare of the lights, he had mastered his art. His impersonation didn’t rely on any of the camp that other female impersonators used. His stage persona wasn’t a caricature of a woman. It wasn’t clownish or overdone to get laughs. No, Julien’s art—his true talent—was in his ability to become the thing itself. Had Harte passed Julien, dressed as he was now, on the streets, he wouldn’t have seen anything other than the woman standing before him.
Not seeming to realize that he wasn’t alone, Julien pulled off the perfectly coiffed blond wig and placed it on a wooden mannequin’s head. Then he walked over to sit in front of the mirrored dressing table. Before he bothered with the makeup or the dress, Julien took a thick black cigar from a small tabletop humidor and lit it. He took a deep drag, allowing the smoke to wreathe his head as he reached for the decanter next to the ashtray and poured himself two fingers. He took a long drink before he put the cigar back between his teeth and began removing the elbow-length gloves he was wearing.
“You know, Darrigan . . .” Julien looked up and caught Harte’s eye in the mirror. His deep, husky voice was completely at odds with the bright crimson paint on his mouth. “You’re looking damn good for a dead man.”
Harte gave a careless shrug. “I can’t say that I feel all that dead.”
Julien turned, a half smile curving at his mouth around the cigar as he shook his head. “I can’t believe you are standing here. I can’t believe you’re in my dressing room.”
“It’s good to see you, Jules,” Harte said, stepping forward to extend his hand in greeting.
Julien stood and took Harte’s outstretched hand. “It’s damn good to see you, too, Darrigan.”
“Glad to hear it,” Harte told him as he sent a small pulse of his affinity toward Julien.
Harte never saw thoughts clearly, just impressions and feelings. The most immediate of Julien’s memories came first—the glare of the lights, the roar of the applause Julien had just received, the hot, sharp satisfaction that Julien had felt. Harte ignored his own yearning for those lights and for the warm rush that applause had always given him and concentrated instead on his purpose—some hint of the stone’s fate. It came in an instant, the clear image of the necklace with its fantastical stone, and latching onto that image, Harte focused everything he was and sent another burst of magic toward Julien, transgressing the thin barrier between him and his friend and sending Julien a simple message. A single command.
Julien’s expression faltered, his eyes slightly dazed and his brows creasing together momentarily. But then Harte released him, and Julien’s expression cleared. Unaware of all that had just transpired, Julien turned back to his mirror and reached for his large jar of cold cream. He ignored Harte and Esta both as he spread the cream over one half of his face and then started wiping away the light base and bright rouge.
Esta had been watching all of this without saying a word, so Harte gestured for her to come forward. “Jules, I want you to meet someone,” Harte said.
Julien’s eyes lifted to Esta’s in the mirror, and Harte knew exactly what his old friend was seeing—the way the silk gown she wore clung to every curve and the way she’d painted her mouth a subtle pink and pinned her hair into a style that looked artful and careless all at once. She looked like she came from money, proper and polished. But with her height and her confidence, she also looked dangerous, like a debutante on the verge of something more exciting.
A look of appreciation flashed over Julien’s face as he examined Esta through the reflection of the mirror.
Mine, a voice inside Harte whispered in response, but he couldn’t tell if it came from his own thoughts or that other power. Not caring all that much at the moment, he took Esta by the hand, so there was no mistaking who she was with.
“This is—”
“Oh, I know exactly who this is,” Julien interrupted, turning Janus-faced to look at them both once again.
“You do?” Esta asked, glancing at Harte with a wary expression.
“Of course, Miss Filosik.” Julien picked up the stub of the cigar again and gestured toward them before raising one brow in their direction. “I knew who you were the moment I walked into this room. After all . . . you’re infamous.”