Stranger:. Zoe Archer
notes. She may as well give those buffoons in the newsroom all of her bylines.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
At this, Astrid Bramfield looked surprised, as though Graves admitting a deficiency in any knowledge was shocking.
“If I may translate,” Gemma said, holding out her hand. She did not miss the careful way in which Graves returned her notebook, avoiding the contact of her skin.
Wanting her own distraction, she looked down at her notes, although she hardly needed them. Every word of the conversation she’d overheard was inscribed permanently on the slate of her memory. She recited everything she had heard.
“Eavesdropping,” snapped Astrid Bramfield. “I prefer to call it ‘unsupervised listening,’” Gemma answered.
A corner of Graves’s mouth twitched, but he forced it down and looked serious.
Gemma closed her notebook and slipped it back into her pocket. “All very strange and bewildering, you must admit.”
“We need not admit anything,” Astrid Bramfield replied.
“You’re a journalist,” Graves said with sudden understanding. His keen, dark eyes took note of her ink-stained fingers, the tiny callus on her right index finger that came from holding a pen for hours at a stretch. “That’s what you were doing at the trading post in the Northwest Territory.”
Gemma nodded. “I had planned on writing a series of articles about life on the frontier. But when you crossed my path, I knew I would find a hell of a story. And I was right.”
“A journalist,” Astrid Bramfield repeated, her tone revealing exactly how she felt about reporters.
No doubt most members of Gemma’s profession deserved their reputation. But Gemma wasn’t like them. For one thing, she was a woman. Not an automatic guarantee of integrity, yet it was a small mark of distinction.
Something that looked suspiciously like disappointment flickered in Catullus Graves’s eyes before being shuttered away. “You’ll find no story here, Miss Murphy.” He took a step back, and she found, oddly, that she missed his nearness. “It is in your best interest, when this ship docks, to turn around and go home.”
Back to Chicago? She would never do that—she had crossed a continent and an ocean for this story.
“Who are the Heirs?” Gemma asked.
Graves, Lesperance, and Astrid Bramfield all tensed. None of them spoke as a sharp silence descended. Very surprising, considering recent developments. Then—
“They’re called the Heirs of Albion,” Lesperance said.
“Nathan!” Astrid Bramfield exclaimed, and Graves looked alarmed.
Yet it couldn’t be stopped now. “A very powerful group of Englishmen,” Lesperance continued. “They want the entire world as part of the British Empire, no matter the cost. But Astrid, Graves, and I are going to stop them. With the help of the other Blades of the Rose.”
“Lesperance, enough,” growled Graves.
Astrid Bramfield was at Lesperance’s side in a heartbeat, alarmed and concerned. Though she still held her pistol pointed at Gemma, her other hand cupped Lesperance’s face with tender anxiety. “What are you doing, revealing such secrets? This woman is a stranger.”
Frowning, Lesperance murmured, “I don’t know. I only know that we can trust her.”
“But she’s a journalist,” was Astrid’s reply. Her words fought against a sense of betrayal by one held so deeply within her heart. As Gemma had seen thousands of miles ago in the Northwest Territory, the connection and bond between Astrid Bramfield and Lesperance was palpable, enviable.
She’d never had that connection, that bond. And never would, given the choices in life she had made.
Gemma shouldered aside that familiar loneliness. “Don’t blame him,” she said quickly. “It’s an … ability I have. To get answers.”
“Ability?” Graves repeated, raising an eyebrow.
She did not want to dwell on something that might derail the entire conversation. “But Mr. Lesperance is right. You can trust me.”
“There is no such thing as a trustworthy reporter,” retorted Astrid Bramfield.
“You did say you were after a story,” Graves added, somewhat more gently.
Gemma thought quickly. “I can write about these Heirs of Albion and expose them. Stop whatever it is they plan on doing.”
Astrid Bramfield, despite her refined English accent, gave a very unladylike snort of disbelief. “It would not be so easy as that.”
If Gemma was to find an ally, it would not be with this tough, guarded woman, so she turned to Catullus Graves. He watched her carefully, commingled caution and interest in his expression.
“Exposure in a national newspaper can bring even the most powerful men down,” she said, meeting his gaze. Even behind the protective glass of his spectacles, his eyes were a dark pull. He observed her as if not entirely certain to what species she belonged.
“Astrid is right,” he answered. “If it was simply a matter of publishing an exposé, such a thing would have been done long ago. A few printed words would not even dent the Heirs’ armor. They are above trifles such as exposure and public opinion.”
“Surely no one is that powerful.”
“Miss Murphy,” he said, holding her gaze, “you have no idea.”
The gravity of his words, the seriousness of his handsome face, shook her like the deep tolling of a bell. Which meant she needed to know more.
“What could they possibly have at their disposal that gives them so much influence?”
Again, that tense silence fell, and Gemma could feel them all struggle against it, against her question.
“Magic,” Astrid blurted, then clapped a hand over her mouth. She stabbed Gemma with an angry scowl.
Over the course of her life and professional career, Gemma had been the recipient of more than one angry scowl, and Astrid Bramfield’s could not upset her. Gemma was much more interested in what the Englishwoman had just revealed. “Magic,” Gemma repeated.
This was not a question, and so no one spoke.
With a deliberate gesture, Gemma put her derringer onto a nearby table, then gave it a small shove so that it moved out of her immediate reach. Now she was entirely unarmed.
Graves saw the move for what it was: a sign of faith. Theatrical, but effective. He tucked his own revolver into his belt, never taking his eyes from hers.
Lesperance followed suit, but Astrid Bramfield put away her gun only with great reluctance. Clearly, some great injury lay in her past, to make her so cautious.
Gemma’s attention moved back to Graves, drawn to him as if by some inescapable force. He had been watching her, assessing her, and she prayed she would not blush again under his scrutiny. God! She was hardly an innocent child, and had seen—and done—rather a lot in her twenty-seven years. Yet nothing and no one made her blush as Catullus Graves could with just a look.
He narrowed his eyes. “Yes, magic, Miss Murphy.” He spoke lowly as though recounting to a child a tale of terror. “There exists in this world actual magic. It is too dangerous for any civilian reporter to confront—and live.”
“I know.”
“You might scoff, but—wait. You know?”
“Yes.”
“About magic?”
“Yes.”
“That it is real?”