The Hidden Goddess (43 page)

Emily let her lower lip tremble and lifted a handkerchief to her eyes to catch supposed tears. Several of the men moved
forward, looking to be in the right position to catch her if she should faint.

“Gentlemen, I understand that each one of you has a very important job. Mr. Stanton often says that reporters are the most powerful men in New York, and for the first time, I truly understand that terrible power. I understand that you must write stories that are interesting and … 
titillating
 …” Emily took care to hit every “t” in the word with tantalizing precision. “But my fiancé—Dreadnought Stanton, the Sophos of the Stanton Institute of the Credomantic Arts, the foremost institution of credomantic education in the United States—is truly a great man. He is kind and noble, decent and strong. I know that he could never do anything ugly. He could never do anything base.”

“But he practiced sangrimancy, didn’t he, Miss Edwards?” Emily’s eyes came up quickly to a man in the back who spoke the words loudly. He was a very large man in a shiny gray waistcoat. He looked calm and pleased with himself. He wasn’t sitting, but was leaning against the back wall with his arms crossed. He didn’t have a notebook or a pencil; he was just watching Emily with cool appraising eyes. He was smiling, but not necessarily in a mean way.

Horace Armatrout! How did he get in here?
Miss Jesczenka’s words hissed in Emily’s ears.

“There will be time for questions later, Mr. Armatrout,” Miss Jesczenka said crisply.

Don’t worry, he’s not one of Fortissimus’ men, but he’s honest. Too honest. He writes for
The New York Times
and he’s impossible to manipulate. The womanly wiles may work on the other simpletons, but not on him. Be careful
.

“It’s all right, Miss Jesczenka,” Emily murmured, lifting a hand. The gesture made a cluster of reporters in the middle of the room fan themselves. But Emily paid them no attention. She looked at Horace Armatrout.

“Mr. Stanton did study sangrimancy,” Emily said. “But that was a mistake he made long ago. He has paid the price for it. He admits his error of judgment.” Not seeing any give in Armatrout’s cool eyes, Emily looked rather desperately
around at the men she knew she had under her sway. “Haven’t any of you gentlemen ever made a mistake?”

“Oh, of course, of course …” Emily heard the men mutter among themselves. By that point, however, Emily was aware that she could have told them that they had all attended the Fifth Council of Reims and had gotten good copy out of it, and they would have agreed with her. All of them. All of them except the coolly smiling Mr. Armatrout.

“Short of a hangman’s noose, I wonder how exactly one goes about paying for the mistake of killing people and stealing their blood,” Armatrout said. But it was not a question, so Emily said nothing, just kept her lips pressed together tightly. “And speaking of errors in judgment, what about this ‘Mrs. Blackheart’?” Armatrout reached into his pocket, pulled out a red book, and held it before himself. “Just another one of his mistakes, Miss Edwards? To be honest, I find your apparent acceptance of your noble fiancé’s indiscretions kind of … puzzling.”

All right
, Miss Jesczenka’s voice was clipped.
I think it’s time we considered the fainting option
. But Emily did not faint; she just lifted her chin and stared back at Horace Armatrout.

“I have met Mrs. Blotgate,” Emily said. “She was a guest at the Investment, in the company of her husband.” Emily had to clench her teeth to get the next words out, but she got them out all right, to her credit. “She seemed very nice. I don’t believe any of the things I read in that book, not about her or about my fiancé.”

“You
read
the book?” Armatrout sprung the trap, his voice rich with pretended astonishment. “You read
The Blood-Soaked Crimes of Dreadnought Stanton
? Hardly nice material for an innocent such as yourself.”

God no, you haven’t read it
. Miss Jesczenka’s voice in her ears was horrified.
You can’t even conceive of the kind of depravity described in that book
.

“Oh, no … I couldn’t read it,” Emily stammered. “I couldn’t even concieve of the kind of depravity described in that book.”

“Then how do you know about ‘Mrs. Blackheart’?” Armatrout asked her. Then he shrugged. “Oh well, I’m sure you’ve been well prepared. Well
briefed
.” He encompassed Miss Jesczenka and Emily in one pointed glance.

“I … I have heard a little about it. But I felt quite ill when I saw it. I felt the evil in it. The horrible, horrible evil. I felt that it was an evil book, and it … it made me feel ill.”

Stop babbling
, Miss Jesczenka’s voice was hard.
Let him have the point. You’ve already lost it
. Emily pressed her lips closed, clenching her teeth.

“As I said, Mr. Armatrout,” Miss Jesczenka quickly interjected, “there will be a time for questions later. At the moment, Miss Edwards has something to deliver. Something that will reveal the true author of these attacks, and the malicious intention behind them.”

Emily wasn’t listening as the woman continued to speak. She was watching Armatrout. He had apparently satisfied himself as to the idiocy of the proceedings and was lounging at the back of the room, using a pocketknife to pick his fingernails.

“Miss Edwards?” Miss Jesczenka’s voice prompted. But Emily was still watching Horace Armatrout.

Emily
, the voice barked in her ear, making her startle.
Bring out the letters. They’re ready for you. They’ll do anything you say now
.

Emily’s hands dipped swiftly into her bag for the letters. She half pulled them out; the reporters leaned forward eagerly, like dogs waiting to be thrown a treat.

And then, Emily’s hand paused. She looked at Armatrout again. He was watching her without seeming to watch her. She did not pull the letters from her bag. Instead, she tucked them back down swiftly and strode across the room, her silk skirts rustling. Dozens of astonished eyes followed her.

What are you doing?
Miss Jesczenka’s voice had a note of panic that Emily had never heard in it before.
Show them the letters! Miss Edwards, please, you must! That’s what all this was for! You’ll never have a better chance …

Emily reached up, removed one pearl earring from her ear, then the other. She stepped carefully through the neck-craning
crowd of men. She came to stand before Mr. Armatrout. He looked down at her, his face slightly amused. He folded the pocketknife and tucked it into his pocket.

“Wonderful show,” he said under his breath. “For someone who obviously doesn’t have much practice, that is.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. Her hand dipped into the bag for the letters. She handed them to him. He looked down at them.

“I’m supposed to show these around to everyone,” she said. “The Institute wants them widely disseminated. Once you read them, you’ll see why. They prove that Rex Fortissimus—his real name is Ogilvy Creagh Flannigan, I believe—embezzled millions while in the service of Boss Tweed. His Presentment Agency padded city contracts. These letters are the proof.”

Armatrout looked over the letters, his eyes appraising.

“Are they the real deal?”

Emily nodded. Armatrout snorted laughter.

“Well, you’d say that in any case.”

Emily looked at him. “The letters are real, and so is everything else. Mostly.” He looked at her, his face registering surprise at the modifier. She held his eyes calmly.

“I do love Mr. Stanton, very much,” she said softly. “He’s made terrible mistakes, yes. He’s made bad choices, yes. If I could stop loving him, maybe I would. But I don’t know how.”

Emily sighed, closing her eyes and opening them again. When she spoke, she did not look at Armatrout. It was as if she spoke the words to herself.

“Why should he be saved? Because I love him? No, love doesn’t make anything different. It doesn’t pay any debts. Should he be saved because he’s really tried to do his best? Because every choice he made seemed right at the time? That doesn’t make any difference either. Really, I don’t know why he should be saved. Maybe he shouldn’t be.”

She looked up, saw that Armatrout was staring at her. She gestured to the letters in his hands.

“That’s why I’m giving these to you. Because the truth does matter. And I think you serve the truth, the best you can
find it. So serve it. Do what is right. I’m sure you can see what it is more clearly than I can. I only know that I love him. I do love him, despite everything. And that makes me blind. I don’t want my blindness to lead to more evil. True love shouldn’t do that.”

Armatrout turned the packet of letters over and over in his hands.

“I know you can see right through all the credomantic mumbo jumbo,” she murmured. “You think that this was all a show, and it was. But I wanted you to know it was more than that, too.”

Armatrout stared at her. For a moment, his smirk was gone, replaced with a look of wonderment.

“He’s a very lucky man,” Armatrout said finally.

“No, he isn’t particularly,” Emily said. “But I believe that he is decent. And that’s all I get.”

Armatrout tipped his hat to her. She turned away from him. As she did, newspapermen around her surged, knocking over chairs to get to him. They were snatching the letters out of his hands, passing them among themselves.

“Give, Armatrout!”

“You’re not keeping all the good stuff for yourself!”

Emily glided away from the scuffle like a beautiful, calm boat, closing her eyes. She thought of another credomantic precept that she could probably find in one of Stanton’s textbooks somewhere, if she ever had a chance to look.

The truth will set you free
.

“Not exactly the way I planned it,” Miss Jesczenka said as Emily returned to stand by the lectern.

Together, they watched the pack of reporters grabbing at Armatrout. The big man was holding the letters high, protests roaring from his lips, but a dozen greasy hands had already reached up to snatch at them, and all around the room, reporters bent over their hard-won prizes, eyes scanning them greedily.

“Gentlemen!” Miss Jesczenka called to them loudly, over the din. “Gentlemen, I will see that you all get copies
of the letters! Gentlemen, there really is no call for such dramatics …”

But then the dramatics really began.

There was the sound of kicked wood, and the doors at the back of the room, which had been closed for the conference, slammed open, banging back against the walls. Men strode in, a dozen men in gray uniforms bearing patches with the Institute’s crest. The Russians, already nervous from the reporters’ feeding frenzy, bristled and reached behind themselves for their rifles.

Leading the gang in gray was a tall, spare man in a black suit. It took Emily a moment to understand what her eyes were seeing. When she did, abrupt joy flooded through her.

“Mr. Stanton!” she cried, running across the room to him. She threw herself into his arms, and he folded her in them tightly. He pressed his lips against the top of her head, his hot breath stirring her hair.

“Goddamn you,” he whispered fiercely. “You’re not leaving me, Emily. I won’t let you.”

Emily ignored the words, ignored everything. She held him tight, squeezing her eyes shut, wishing everything else in the world would vanish. They stayed that way for longer than they should have, because when she opened her eyes, she saw that the reporters hadn’t vanished. Indeed, they’d all flipped their notebooks to new pages and were scribbling furiously. Reluctantly, she pulled away from Stanton, aware that just a bit more reticence might be in order. She noticed that Dmitri and his men had clustered close behind her, rifles drawn and leveled. They were grimly eyeing Stanton and the clot of Institute security that surrounded him. Emily had the sudden, terrible urge to laugh. A couple of true lovers with their security teams facing each other down.

Stanton, too, became more aware of the situation. Emily saw his face change as he looked around the group of reporters. His face became guarded and he frowned.

“Smile,” Emily whispered to him. But Stanton did not smile. In fact, if anything his scowl deepened. The reporters began barking in unison.

“Mr. Stanton! May we have a comment?”

“Mr. Stanton, do you feel confident in your ability to put these base and unfounded accusations behind you?”

“Mr. Stanton, are you terribly concerned by the anguish your fiancée has suffered?”

“If my fiancée has suffered from anguish, it’s because you and everyone like you has been bothering her with your ugliness and insinuation and disgusting filth!” he barked at the reporters, his green eyes shining with rage. “She shouldn’t be here, subjected to this kind of … pawing! You howling pack of wolves!”

Pencils scratched rapidly over page-turning pads. The story was getting better and better.

“Sophos, what are you doing here?” Miss Jesczenka’s quiet voice came at Emily’s elbow. “You know you shouldn’t be out of the Institute—”

“And you!” he barked, whirling on Miss Jesczenka. “What are you thinking, putting her through a press conference? Parading her before them? Are you insane?”

“Mr. Stanton.” Dmitri’s voice was a low throbbing insistence beneath Stanton’s keening fury. Stanton looked up, suddenly noticing the dozens of rifles that were trained on him. “I think it’s time you leave. Now.”

Stanton looked at him. He clenched his teeth. “Who the hell are you?”

“I represent the Sini Mira,” Dmitri said, his eyes coming up to Stanton’s, meeting them with hard brown determination. “We are here to protect her.”

“The Sini Mira? Protect Emily?” Stanton fairly spat the words. “Eradicationists who want to see magic and those who use it destroyed utterly?” He pulled Emily closer, his arm closing protectively around her.

Sudden inspiration lit Miss Jesczenka’s eyes. Stepping back, she drew a deep breath.

“Yes, indeed!” Her voice resonated through the room as her eyes turned on the Sini Mira men with a look of desperate terror revealed. “Oh, indeed! These are the very men who tried to kill her! The men who tried to murder her in Chicago! Gentlemen, we were not at liberty to disclose this fact, but we were forced to come here today against our will! These brutes
forced us to come!” She leveled a trembling finger at Dmitri and his confused-looking comrades. “These men wish to
murder
Miss Edwards!”