THE ANTIDOTE FOR GOSSIP
1902—New York
Jack could hear the commotion in his mother’s parlor long before he made it to the bottom of the staircase. By the time he reached the lower steps, a cold sweat had broken out on his forehead and he wanted nothing more than to sit down, but the rumble of his uncle’s voice told him that he should keep moving.
Thank god the mousy little maid had gotten over her initial fear of him. Without her mentioning his uncle’s sudden arrival, Jack might have slept through the visit, completely unaware of how his family was arranging his future. It didn’t matter if his head was swirling with the morphine he’d just taken or that his body still felt like . . . Well, it felt like he’d been hit by a train, didn’t it? He would walk into the parlor under his own power and take the reins of his own fate.
“. . . someone got to him,” his uncle was roaring, waving a crumpled handful of newsprint at his mother.
“No one has been here,” his mother said, her voice shaking as it often did when she was overwrought. “I think I would know if a newspaperman came into my home.”
“How else would they know any of this?” Morgan waved the paper at her again.
“Pierpont, dear—” His aunt Fanny was sitting next to Jack’s mother, and her tone had a warning in it, not that his uncle seemed to care.
Jack’s cousin was there as well, standing off to the side with his arms crossed and the same scowl on his face that he had worn the entire voyage back from Greece last year. It truly was a family affair, which always meant trouble for Jack.
It took a moment before any of them realized that he’d arrived. His mother saw him first, and she leaped to her feet at the sight of him. “Darling, what are you doing out of bed?” She wasn’t three steps toward him before his uncle stepped in her path and waved the newspaper he’d been brandishing in Jack’s face.
“What is the meaning of this, boy?”
The room was spinning a little, but Jack forced himself to stay upright. “The meaning of what? I’ve been abed for—” He looked to his mother. The days had all run together. “How long have I been up there?”
“Three days, dear,” she said, a small, sad smile on her face as she beamed at him. “You should sit down. You’re not well.” She went over to the tufted chair closest to him and began arranging the pillows.
He couldn’t stand her constant fussing, like he was still a child. It was how they all saw him, he knew. And they were all wrong. “I’m fine,” he said, waving her off.
He wasn’t fine, but he damned sure wasn’t going to admit it in front of his uncle and his cousin. The last thing he would be was weak in front of them. “I’ve no idea what you’re referring to,” he told Morgan, meeting the old man’s gaze. “Perhaps if you’d stop shouting and explained it, I could offer a response.”
Morgan glared at him. “Who did you talk to?”
“Recently?” Jack asked. “No one but my mother and the ever-present parade of doctors and maids who insist on constantly intruding on my rest and recovery.”
Most of the maids were pretty enough, but all the doctors had been a nuisance, constantly checking on him and telling him to rest, when all he wanted to do was study the Book he’d hidden beneath the mountain of pillows and blankets the maids piled onto the bed. Day and night, he wanted only to pore over the pages and unlock its secrets.
“Then how did the Herald manage to publish this story?” Morgan thrust the paper at him.
Jack swayed a little on his feet, but he opened the crumpled page to find a headline about himself. He let his eyes skim over it. “What of it?” he asked. Nothing seemed amiss. “None of this is untrue. Darrigan and the girl were on the train before it derailed. The authorities said that there wasn’t a bomb, so it might well have been magic that caused the accident.”
“None of that matters,” Morgan said. “I don’t care about some damn train derailment. I care about the fact that this reporter knows what happened at Khafre Hall—that the fire wasn’t an accident of faulty wiring. Do you know what lengths the Inner Circle undertook to ensure that the truth of the Khafre Hall disaster did not become public? It was a delicate thing, to steer the press away from the real cause of the fire, and yet here it is, a full-page spread that reveals not only that we were robbed of our most important artifacts, but that we were robbed by common trash. This article knows everything. Who did you talk to?”
The past few days were a haze of pain and morphine . . . and the thrall of the Book. Jack could have talked to Roosevelt himself, and he wouldn’t necessarily have remembered. Not that he would admit that now. “No one,” he said instead. “I’ve no idea how this . . . Reynolds, whoever he is, knows any of this.”
“Well, he does, and it’s made a damn mess of things,” Morgan said, ripping the paper from Jack’s hands. “Do you know how weak this makes the Order look? We’re already getting word from the other Brotherhoods that they’re concerned about the state of the Conclave—about the Order’s ability to host it. After all, if I can’t control my own family, how can we possibly think to arrange an event as important as the Conclave?” He tossed the paper aside.
“I don’t know why you assume it was my fault,” Jack said, bristling at his uncle’s tone.
“Because it usually is your fault,” his cousin said. “It’s one scheme after another with you, Jack, and none of them are reasonable. You don’t think things through. Are you sure you didn’t give this interview?”
Jack clenched his jaw to keep from railing at the snideness in his cousin’s tone. Across the room, his mother was still looking at him with a sadness in her eyes that made him want to smash his fist into her precious collection of figurines. When he spoke, it took effort to make his words measured and calm. “This is the first I’ve even been out of bed.”
But his cousin wasn’t listening. “Maybe we should give Jack something of a holiday, to recuperate,” his cousin suggested to his uncle. “Until this all blows over.”
“It’s not going to blow over,” Morgan spat. “This isn’t a private family matter, like the problem in Greece last year. That damn article is everywhere, and the other papers are picking up the story as well. If we send him off now, it’s going to look like we have something to hide. That’s the last thing we want—it would give credence to the story.”
“What else can we do with him?” his cousin asked.
“I’m standing right here,” Jack said darkly. He felt out of breath just standing there, but thankfully, the morphine he’d taken before he came down had eased the pain in his arm and in his head.
“As though that matters in the slightest,” his uncle sneered. Then he turned back to his son, Jack’s cousin. “We’ll demand a retraction.”
“From the Herald?” His cousin shook his head. “It’s not much more than a gossip rag these days. They don’t care whether the story’s accurate, so long as it sells. It might be better to meet them on their own terms. Get another story out there, one that sheds some doubt on this one. I can talk to Sam Watson, if you want. You remember, I introduced you at the Metropolitan. He’s been a great friend to the Order, first with the theft at the Met and then in the past few weeks with his editorials about the dangers of a certain criminal element. I’m sure he could do an interview with Jack and reframe the story.”
“I don’t want to do any damn interview,” Jack said, but no one was listening.
“Do that,” his uncle said, pacing. “It’s a start, but it’s not enough. Retracting the story doesn’t change the fact that this Reynolds has made the Order look like old fools.”
Which you are, Jack thought. But even with the morphine loosening his mind, he managed to keep his mouth shut tight. He didn’t need to worry about his uncle or the Order any longer now that he had the Book.
“It sounds to me like what you need is an engagement,” his aunt Fanny ventured.
Morgan turned to her, impatient. “Thank you, dearest, but this matter doesn’t concern you.”
His aunt ignored the dismissal. “If you’re trying to neutralize unwanted gossip, you need something more exciting for the press to focus on than an interview, Pierpont. Trust me. The world of gossip is one I am intimately familiar with, and I have far more experience at controlling it than you do. When a girl’s reputation is soiled, the best thing her family can do is to get her engaged, and quickly. There’s nothing like a big society wedding to distract the gossips. Isn’t that right, Mary?” she asked, turning to Jack’s mother.
His mother, a small, weak woman who’d become even more so with age, looked troubled. “I don’t think Jack’s in any condition to court anyone,” she said tentatively, “though I suppose the Stewart girl might be interested since she had such a dismal season.”
“I am not being shackled to some failed debutante,” Jack said. He certainly wasn’t going to allow his mother and aunt to arrange a marriage to save his reputation, like they might for some ruined girl.
“No, dear,” his aunt told his mother. “I would never do that to some poor girl.”
Jack opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn’t figure out what to say. He didn’t want to be married off, but his aunt’s flippant dismissal was insulting.
“We don’t need an actual wedding. If you want to stop gossip, you give them something else to talk about. It must simply be an event. A spectacular event.” His aunt turned to Morgan. “A party or a gala of some sort. The Order could host it, which would make it a show of your continued strength.”
“It’s hardly the time for a party, Fanny.”
His aunt tsked. “One does not hide from the world when tongues begin to wag, Pierpont. One shows up at the opera wearing the finest gown one can find.”
“It is also no time to think about shopping,” Morgan growled.
“Mother has a point,” Jack’s cousin said, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. “The Order could host a gala—something large and elaborate. Even better if it’s an exclusive event. That would get the papers interested in covering it.”
“And where would we host it?” Morgan asked darkly. “Khafre Hall is a pile of rubble and ash, if you remember correctly.”
“Use our ballroom,” his aunt said. “But you can’t simply throw a ball. You need something more original than that.” She considered the problem for a moment. “What about a tableau vivant?”
“Aren’t they a bit risqué?” his mother asked.
“They’re perfectly appropriate, if they’re depicting great art,” his aunt said primly. “But yes. They’re often considered quite risqué, which is the entire point. News of it would cause a stir. There would be speculation for weeks about which artworks would be selected and who would be posing for each of the scenes.”
“Not simply art,” his cousin said, shaking his head. “Scenes from some flouncy rococo paintings won’t do. If we’re to restore the Order’s reputation, we need to present great works that show the Order’s strength and importance. Scenes of the dangers of feral magic and the power of science and enlightenment to protect the people. It could work.”
“Possibly,” Morgan said darkly, considering the proposition. “But we would have to make sure this one doesn’t muck everything up again,” he added, nodding toward Jack. “We’ll have to make sure he’s well out of sight.”
“This one is standing right here,” Jack muttered again. And again they ignored him. He’d had enough, he thought, and began to retreat to the relative sanity of his room. They could figure out whatever they wanted to do as long as it didn’t include parading him around as a bridegroom. He had other, more important matters to attend to.
“Oh, no,” his aunt said. “You can’t hide him away.”
“Why the hell not?” Morgan asked.
“Every society wedding needs a bride, Pierpont. That’s the entire point,” his aunt said.
Jack stopped in his tracks and turned back to the room.
“Everyone shows up to the church to see the chit dressed in white and redeemed,” his aunt continued. “Everyone wants to know if it was truly a love match, or if the groom looks ready to dash. If you want to discredit this article, you need to show you’ve nothing to hide.”
“I am not marrying some girl,” Jack said again, his voice clipped and barely containing his frustration.
“I’m not talking about you taking a bride, dear. I’m talking about you being the bride,” his aunt said with a dreamy smile.
“Like hell—” Jack started to say, but his aunt was still talking.
“You must make Jack the focus,” she told his uncle.
“Absolutely not,” Morgan growled, his nose twitching with disgust at the idea.
“It’s the only way,” his aunt said, looking at Jack with a dangerously thoughtful expression. Nothing good ever came of meddling women when they started to think. “Yes. I can see it now,” she told Morgan. “You make Jack the man of the hour, the celebrant of the night. The event will show that the Order isn’t afraid or weak or even laid low, and you can use this story to your advantage. You can’t retract what’s been written any more than a girl can reclaim her virginity, but you can use it to help your cause. Recast Jack as a hero who discovered the danger on the train, a danger that reveals the continued necessity of the Order.”
“I don’t like it,” Morgan said.
“That’s not the point, dear,” his aunt told Morgan. “What poor girl likes being forced into marriage because of one little indiscretion when men get to have as many as they like? The point is in the necessity. You must take the story and make it your own. It’s the surest way, and it will shore up the Order’s power at the same time.”
“I’m not some pawn to be used,” Jack growled. His head felt light and heavy all at once from the morphine in his veins, but his anger felt like something pure. How dare they try to arrange his life. How dare they treat him like some stupid little chit being traded between men. “I deserve to have a say in this.”
Morgan turned to him. “From the evidence in this article, you’ve already had your say. Now your choice is to listen or to leave. Do I make myself clear?”
He was clenching his teeth so tightly that he suspected they would crack at any moment, but Jack gave his uncle a tight nod. “Crystal.”
They turned back to their planning as though he were no more than a misbehaving child, scolded and dismissed. Fine. Let them think that. Let them believe that he would bow and scrape to win their favor again. They didn’t realize that already they were becoming unnecessary. The world was spinning on without them, and so would Jack. While they fussed like women over linens and china patterns, he would be learning and planning, and when the moment was right, he would step into their place and make the old men who thought they ruled the city obsolete.
But until then Morgan wasn’t the only one who had contacts and people who could do him favors. Jack would use one of his to find this R. A. Reynolds. He’d met Paul Kelly a few weeks back, and from all he’d heard, Kelly wouldn’t have a problem with delivering a message for him. He would make sure that damn newspaperman was sorry he ever crossed Jack Grew.