The King of Threadneedle Street (24 page)

“Certainly. Now hold your breath and wait.” He turned, gathered the stack of telegrams on the corner of his desk, and left without a word.

Lady Langton had made a brazen gamble by cornering him, gathering public then legal support against him like a vise. All smoke and mirrors, based on her so-called reputation, which came and went to suit her whim. Andrew had called her bluff, through albeit extreme measures. Without his money, and with his newly awful reputation, Andrew was as good as a leper to her father. At least the lawsuit would default when they learned he was well and truly broke, buying him some time.

Victory tasted bland, mixed with the rancid flavor of humiliation. He grew weary of pretending it didn’t bother him.

The next day, Ian, his butler, put out a fire on the front stoop, thankfully before it spread to the eaves. Andrew decided he had overstayed his welcome in London and fled in disguise by night to his Somerset estate.

Ungracious in defeat, Lady Langton followed, spewing threats in a sugary tone of voice while the ton sealed his fate. He had to marry her, should be grateful to, or so they said. Andrew waited for it blow over, funneling all his energy into the work at Dunsbury since his other option was to pace the floor, waiting for word from Marsden. Difficult to stay back and let his plan run its course. It would work — it had to.

He prepared himself for the long stretch of empty months ahead. Eight months, to be precise. His only satisfaction was that he had gotten Alysia out of England in time. She was safely passing her days, painting at her leisure in an Austrian palace. He didn’t want her to see him like this — it had been as ugly as expected.

Words Cavendish had accused him with still rang in his head, “
You greedy coward. All you care about is money; you couldn’t possibly love Alysia half so well.”
Andrew could serve the sparkling heroic Captain Philip Cavendish his words on a platter with a silver spoon. The King of Threadneedle Street had dived headlong into bankruptcy, smiling all the way.

****

February of 1873, Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria

The only boon Alysia cherished more than letters from Rougemont and Andrew’s monthly box of chocolates was her one indulgence: English newspapers. She never admitted to anyone at court that she followed Andrew — she barely admitted it to herself. Following Andrew in the papers was the only indulgence she allowed herself, for the sake of their friendship. Otherwise, she used the distance between them and her new life as a courtier of sorts to attempt to recover from her weakness — dependence, addiction, to Andrew.

“Bizarre, unseemly business,” her father — The Emperor of Austria, how strange still! — had said, without seeming particularly bothered by the news of the devastating failure of Lord Preston’s American shipping company. Difficult to read the facial expressions of a Germanic royal, but she thought he seemed skeptical.

She had refused to believe it until she could confirm the truth from both Mr. Cox and Lady Devon, then she had to recount it to everyone who stopped her to ask. “
Unerhört
!” Incredible, unheard of, she was tired of hearing from people with more curiosity than sympathy. After the first few days, she quit reading the editorials and society columns. The news articles were scathing enough. The cartoons were positively frightening.

One would have thought
Andrew was Judas Iscariot for all the hostility aimed at him. It seemed no one listened to the few reasonable voices suggesting the economy would stabilize once the public hysteria abated, and the only real harm Lord Preston had done was to his own finances — he couldn’t be blamed for the folly of others.

Ruined, was the war cry. The great King of Threadneedle Street had fallen.

Even months later, it was still a favorite topic in the papers; like an alley mutt guarding a bone, they wouldn’t give it up. Lord Preston was conspicuously absent from the Red Chamber, and the Season’s session of Parliament seemed chaotic without his expertise in commerce.

Andrew was the national whipping boy. Even members of the House of Lords joined the general public in blaming Andrew for all sorts of economic failures. Difficult to tell whether the vitriol came from that, or his inexplicable delay in marrying Lady Langton. Her father, the Lord High Chancellor, seemed determined to string him up for defamation if not fraud. Why was he so vocal against Andrew if he wanted him for a son-in-law?

Andrew was away in Somerset, ignoring them all, which seemed to make it worse.

Her heart bled for him, and she longed to go to him, but she knew that would be the worst possible move she could make. However unwitting, she was the vehicle of his ruin and not exactly popular in England herself. She was called Jezebel, Delilah, and worse. She had known it would take an event of this magnitude to sever her tie to him. He had no choice but to marry an heiress.

Yet his presents arrived every month, a purple rose and chocolate truffles. Not a letter, just the gift. Considering the circumstances, Alysia couldn’t condemn his sentimental gesture. It meant that regardless of what had occurred, he still cared for her in some way. She knew it was unhealthy to cling to the memory of him, but still each month the simple token from Andrew was the breath of life.

****

March of 1873, Dunsbury Castle in Somerset, England

Andrew cursed under his breath.
Of course
nothing was in order, nothing as it should be. Heaven forbid saving the day should come
easily.
Anxious, he drummed his fingers on the pile of newspapers printed in German, French, and English strewn across his desk. The pages appeared to have been tossed there carelessly, but in truth Andrew had arranged them in order of cause and effect, a connection of seemingly unrelated events which would soon give birth to the next.

His scrawls in the margins would have looked like gibberish to anyone else. Articles and reports which supported his conjectures stuck out at odd angles between the sheets. It was a brilliant mess, but to Andrew it was a crystal ball, a heavenly messenger; because what it proclaimed, no one else in the world likely knew.

A cold shiver traveled down his spine and raised the hair on the back of his neck. It was one thing to spy a profitable investment opportunity, to preempt a movement and make a killing on speculation; it was another to translate the language of world economics and discover an impending disaster. In Austria.

Undoubtedly some recognized the signs: domestic funds collapsing, a shift in political propaganda, shortages in supply that gradually affected every level of the market from manufacturers to consumers… Instability, distrust, aversion to risk, ignorant preemption; all enemies to the healthy rhythm of an economy.

As Andrew studied the sum of what it all meant, how the players would react and catalyze the event, what the result would be on the country as a whole — he panicked.

His instinct was to
fix it,
to wrest control and solve it. He currently had little clout to wield and certainly no command over foreign entities, such as Austria.

Just earlier that year they had held a national exhibition in tribute to their “economic achievements,” which would soon be blown to kingdom come. Few would believe it until it had already happened.

Economic turmoil was one thing, but since Austria was so recently recovered from a revolution, struggling to enforce its fledgling constitution, there was no telling what the people of Austria would do. Their memories were long, and they were a volatile people.

It was no place for Alysia.

If he wasn’t already frantic about the impending doom of Austria, he might have reacted calmly to another wire on his desk, the one informing him that Alysia was no longer in residence at Schönbrunn Palace and had taken one of the Emperor’s country estates. That was all the information he could find. There was no word from the Emperor.
He
is away,
they reported.

None of the royal family would be safe. The one moment Andrew desperately needed to find Alysia, she was lost. Again.

He rang for his steward before consciously deciding what to do. He gave orders for his estate to be managed by proxy while he was away. He wired Lord Devon, asking to send Christian to Rougemont for a few weeks. Marsden was busy packing his luggage, and Andrew vaguely realized he was leaving immediately. Heaven help him if he couldn’t find Alysia before harm did.

****

March of 1873, Countryside West of Vienna, Austria

“
Fürstin
, you are requested downstairs. Your escort has arrived.”

Alysia nodded and thanked the housekeeper, then delayed a while, scrubbing the paint spatters from her face. Was it time to visit Schönbrunn already?

Celluloid substitute for tortoise shell.

Spain’s deposition of King Amadeus.

The sinking of steamship White Star off the coast of Nova Scotia.

Alysia sighed, resisting the urge to write those prompts on her palm in case she needed to cheat. She rehearsed current events, topics of conversation to entertain her father with, and to distract everyone else from asking about Lord Preston. If she didn’t gather her thoughts beforehand, she risked being cornered.

Ungrateful of her, but the more she had of fine society, the less she cared for it. Further proving she was not at all like her mother, Alysia had been happiest managing the household at Ashton, and as a tutor at Rougemont. A country lass, not a courtier.

A flux of commissions — courtesy of Lord Devon’s glowing recommendation — had provided the perfect excuse to set up in the country and do nothing but paint all day; what she had always wanted. A convincing story, unless she looked herself in the eye and recognized homesickness in her reflection.

She smoothed the über-precise concoction of Austrian-style braids on her head and practiced smiling in the mirror, but it looked more like a bad crack in her face. She simply didn’t have it in her to sparkle today. Saints, she looked a mess, and her father would not be pleased.

Best get it over with.

Abolishment of slavery in Puerto Rico.

Monet and the Impressionist movement.

Downstairs, she found a footman waiting for her. He gestured for her to follow him through the entrance then handed her inside an unmarked carriage with the shades drawn. The carriage rolled away from the steps before her eyes adjusted.

She saw who occupied the seat opposite and startled. “Andrew! What are you doing here?”

“Rescuing you. Again.”

“
Rescuing?
What do you mean? What is going on?” She pulled the window shade aside — no liveried cavalry as escort.

“Lisa, my love, have you not missed me?”

“Do you know what will happen when I am discovered missing?”

“I have a fair idea.”

“Andrew, I can’t get much farther away from you than Austria!” He glared, silent, and she dropped her head into her hands. “You should not have interfered. Take me back, please. I really, truly, do not want to see you.” Her voice sounded cold and flat. She didn’t mean to come off quite so jaded, but she had already vowed to overcome her weakness for him. She suspected she would have to start all over again, a battle she lacked the energy for.

He pulled her hands away and raised her chin. He stared so long it made her squirm, certain he could hear her traitorous thoughts. “Alysia, what has happened to you?”

She turned her head to look out the window, which was shuttered. “Nothing at all.”

“You look like death warmed over.”

“Why, thank you.”

“Sad, I mean. Hollow. What is wrong?” His voice rose. “Have you been mistreated?”

“Of course not. I am deep into my work, night and day. I am a marginally famous painter now, or haven’t you heard?” Her hint at his own infamy seemed to have missed its mark. “I am a bit tired, that is all. Why has the carriage not turned around yet?”

“Because we are going home. I think you have had enough of Austria.”

She turned to glare at Andrew. He appeared fatigued, but his eyes burned with energy. “And what do you suppose I shall do with myself there? Other than hiding from lynch mobs?”

His careless shrug made her angry. “There are options. If you will let me explain, you will see—”

“Andrew! This is not a game! I promised to let you go. We should not be alone together!” She leaned across the space so she could lower her voice. “It can never be.”

He scowled, and she could tell by his expression he would say something rude next. “If Philip Cavendish came to fetch you, would you throw yourself in his arms and be grateful?”

She glared back, weighing the unmistakable hurt she recognized in his expression with her anger. “Yes, I suppose I would.”

“Liar.”

She should have seen it coming. Andrew grasped her by the waist and she tumbled into his lap. He turned sideways to put his feet on the bench and leaned back against the wall, pulling her onto his chest.

She fought and twisted in his arms until he moved a hand to her face and stroked his thumb along her cheek. The look in his eyes drained her ire. He held her captive with one hand on the small of her back and the other rubbing behind her neck. With his face so near, his mouth filled her view, pulled upward in a hubristic smile. He had gone mad.

Lips to her ear, he spoke in a quiet, deep voice that sank straight to her stomach and made her spine tingle, “Kiss me, Lisa. For no other reason than you desire to.”

Her chest heaved against his; she was still flushed from arguing with him. Long seconds ticked past as she chanted
No, no no!
the same time her resistance faded. Deprivation had made her weak. It hardly made any difference, considering how many times she had already given in to him. The end result would be the same as always. But now — kiss him? She could only think that she
wanted to.

She surprised even herself by attacking him with an angry, desperate kiss. He steadied himself under the assault of her lips, her arms gripped around his neck. He hummed in approval and argued back with his mouth. She nipped at him not so gently, then he bit her lower lip and let it slide out between his teeth. She tried not to gasp.