“It probably doesn’t mean much coming from me,” she conceded. “I’m hardly the family figurehead.” She cleared her throat.
He turned and finally looked at her. “No,” he seemed to agree. “You hardly speak for them. And yet, it does mean something.”
Grace’s lips were dry. She drank in the rich colors of the painting in front of them. It was the opposite of comforting. In fact, it was quitegruesome—a depiction of Salome with the head of John the Baptist. She forced herself not to look away from the severed head resting on the platter.
“Are you still angry with them?” she asked steadily.
Mr. Gatewood sighed. “After what happened to that poor girl, I can’t find it within myself to be angry anymore,” he said, swirling the gin in his glass. “I will admit that in my darker moments, I might have wished tragedy upon your family. Betrayals, particularly around money, can short sight you. But now I think that they are going to suffer more than even I wanted them to.”
Grace held her tongue as he shook his head.
“People tend to get hurt around that family. Particularly the ones closest to them.” He drained his drink and looked at Grace sadly. “Be careful.”
Grace stood alone in front of the painting long after he walked away.
She could hardly cross Mr. Gatewood off her list of subjects based on his own word, and yet she felt herself mentally doing it anyway. Perhaps she was naive. But she believed him. His last words to her hadn’t been a threat. They had been a warning.
“It’s an interesting painting to be examining this closely,” a voice murmured near her ear.
A thread of icicles formed along her spine. She turned slowly.
“A little bloody. People might start to get ideas,” Earnest said. He flashed her a charming smile, but this time she realized that she’d never noticed how smooth it was, almost like a Cheshire cat. “Would you like to dance, Miss Covington?”
He held out his hand.
The bandages had been removed, and he wore formal gloves now, hiding the skin beneath that was pink and new.
“Yes,” she said, ignoring the fear that rose in her throat.
She was conscious of his every move. The way his hand slid around her back. The way he breathed, his breath tinged with something sweet. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see Lillie standing on the sidelines of the ballroom, sipping her drink. Alone. For the first time in her life, no one in this fickle crowd had asked her to dance.
Grace felt a red rage creeping along the back of her eyes.
“Were you at the police station today?” Earnest asked. Just beneath his cologne, she could smell the hint of alcohol on his breath.
She tried to keep her own breathing steady.
“I went to visit Oliver,” she said carefully. “How did you know?”
He tightened his grip on her. Subtle, but noticeable. “I thought I saw you there,” he said.
“And yet I didn’t see you,” she said. For a fleeting moment of fear, she wondered if he somehow knew what Oliver had whispered in her ear.
But that was ridiculous.
She and Oliver had been alone.
“What were you doing there?” she forced herself to ask. She faltered a little, her mind tripping on the dance steps.
“The police called me in with their findings about my flying machine,” he said. “They didn’t think the crash was malicious. Just a good old-fashioned engineering failure that almost killed me.”
She paused, her mouth going dry.
“And what do you think?” she asked.
“To be honest, I think they’re wrong,” he said. He said it with a smile that felt bright yet was tinged with bitters. The bruises on his handsome face were fading, almost imperceptible now beneath the powder. “I think someone was trying to make sure I didn’t win that prize money, or maybe even make it out of the sky alive. But—” Hetwirled her, and for a moment Grace felt like she might fall, but at the last moment he caught her. “What can you do?” he said low in her ear. “There are bigger problems we’re dealing with here. As we are both well-aware.”
Aunt Clove was watching Grace from the dance floor, over Uncle Reginald’s shoulder. While dancing, it was harder to tell that no one was eager to speak with them. Grace could feel Aunt Clove’s glare cut through her, silently blaming her for the way Lillie was standing alone.
