The Clockwork Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.”
    Dredmore gave my old nemesis an uncertain look. “Eugenia?”
    â€œI never sent anyone to attack the gel.” She fussed with the jet buttons on her gloves. “As for the rest, well, my position as president of the society required me to act ardently in order to preserve civil decency and safeguard the ladies of Rumsen against the influence of a decidedly unnatural young woman.”
    â€œWoman?” I hooted. “I was seventeen years old. I’d just come to the city with nothing more than the clothes on my back. Your campaign to smear my name cost me my job, and ruined any hope I had of obtaining new employment. By the time you were through with me, milady, I was reduced to sleeping on park benches and digging through rubbish cans for scraps so I wouldn’t starve.”
    Lady Bestly raised her chin. “That was certainly not my doing. You should have left Rumsen and gone back to your people.”
    â€œMy people. My people , milady, were all dead,” I said softly. “I was a penniless orphan without a friend in the world. You had everything, and I nothing, and still you inflicted all that pointless cruelty on me. I imagine you were quite proud of how thoroughly you squashed me.”
    She paled a little. “There is no pride left to me in my present situation, Kittredge. Very soon I shall be the object of ridicule and scorn. I’m sure you will take great delight in that.” One of her gloved hands fluttered to her throat. “Lord Dredmore, would you kindly call for . . . my . . .” She closed her eyes and slumped against the side of the settee.
    â€œEugenia.” He stepped toward her.
    I reached her first and checked her wrist to find her pulse strong and steady. In my line of work I had often watched other females succumb to hysterics or horror, and Lady Bestly showed no genuine signs of being overwhelmed by her emotions. Which meant she had another motive for faking the collapse, and I could only think of one.
    â€œIt seems she’s fainted,” I told Dredmore, shaking my head at the same time. “Can you bring some swooning salts, milord?”
    He regarded me. “It will take a few minutes to find them.” When I nodded, he gave the lady a final glance before leaving us and closing the panel.
    I waited another moment before I said, “You can stop pretending now. He’s gone.”
    Lady Bestly sat up at once and tugged straight the lay of her skirt. “My mother always claimed that men could not tolerate screaming infants, quarreling children, and swooning women. It seems she was correct.”
    I nodded. “Now tell me what you didn’t want to say in front of him.”
    â€œI can no longer prevent publication of the exact circumstances surrounding my husband’s demise.” Lady Bestly took a folded paper from her reticule and handed it to me. “The editor of the Rumsen Daily had a copy of the story delivered to me this morning, along with a note advising me to dispense with my mourning and depart the city at once.”
    I unfolded the newspaper to read the headline of the front-page story, which was beyond stunning. I then skimmed the first paragraph before I looked up at her. “I don’t understand.”
    She made a negligent gesture. “It is all there, in black and white. You can read, can’t you?”
    I read the rest of the article. “Is it true?”
    â€œMy husband was many things, Kittredge, but he was not what is printed in that paper. Yet tomorrow my family, my friends, indeed the whole world will believehim to be a monster.” She touched her wedding ring and her voice went low. “How am I to mourn him?”
    That was tragic, but nothing compared to what the lady was about to endure. As soon as the story broke, the good citizens of Rumsen would react with outrage; some would demand justice. Since the gentleman in question was deceased,