“Is he as rich as they say, then?”
“Indecently rich, from what we can see.”
The tension left her shoulders. No one seemed to suspect a thing about her excursion. “Why would he do it?” she murmured. “Humiliate those peers—it’s awfully spiteful of him.”
Flossie made a face. “More interestingly, why would gentlemen in their right mind continue to become indebted to him?”
She thought of Lucie’s fiancé, Lord Ballentine, who had taken money from Blackstone in order to purchase his half of London Print. Admittedly, he was the devious sort.
“Men are a bit silly sometimes,” Mina said. “They enjoy gambling at either the stock market or the roulette table but frequently overestimate both their luck and their prowess.”
“Mina,” said Adele. “You are not to talk like this.”
“Apologies, Mama.”
“Cynicism in a young woman is never endearing. Neither is political fervor.”
“I shan’t say it again, Mama.”
“See that you don’t. Your betrothal is not official yet, and Sir Bradleigh may well still abscond.” While admonishing Mina, she skewered Hattie with one well-aimed glare as Hattie was angling for another bread roll. Twenty-some years after the fact, Adele Greenfield was still put out that she had passed on her red hair to each of her three daughters but not her lithe frame, which she considered most elegant, and she never let any one of them forget it. With a sigh, Hattie put down the tongs for the bread basket.
“Gentlemen rarely have direct dealings with Blackstone,” Zach told Flossie as he took the roll for himself. “He is notoriously private and very mean. I understand he bought some of the ruinous debts from other gentlemen—and at a hefty surcharge.”
Flossie’s eyes rounded. “How calculating—why, it’s as though he had a bone to pick.”
Mina nodded. “He sounds like a cartoon villain—apologies, Mama.”
“One wonders how such an unsavory man was able to forge a fortune from nothing,” Flossie said, reluctantly impressed.
“It started by him trading bills of exchange ten years ago,” Papa said. “And cleverly so.”
“He also appears to have a habit of investing in industries that turn a greater profit as soon as they employ new technologies, into which he also invests,” Zach said. “It seems his only duds are mines. He can’t make much profit off the ones we know he acquired here in Britain.”
Her father split a roasted potato. “He does set his cap for the ailing ones, though there might be method to the madness.”
“I’d wager on it,” Zachary said with grudging respect in his voice. Hattie adored him for it. Zach was a skilled banker at only four-and-twenty, but she loved him most for his fairness.
“Trading requires capital in the first place,” Flossie insisted. “Who gave him the funds?”
Beneath the table, Zach nudged Hattie’s skirt with his foot. A moment later, he placed something onto her lap. She peered down most discreetly. There was the roll Mama had denied her. Oh, she loved him the very most for his protectiveness. She stuffed the roll into her skirt pocket while her mother began enumerating the many misdeeds of Mr. Blackstone, which were chiefly his murky origins and his horrid treatment of a Lord Rutland.
“He has changed tactics, lately,” her father said. “Has sold and forgone a few debts. The chaps at the club are taking note.”
Benjamin inclined his head. “Is that why you invited him?”
“Well spotted.” Her father sounded pleased, as though Benny had said something astute.
“Why is this a reason?” Hattie asked, feeling sullen because she failed to see a connection.
“The reason,” her father said, “is that Blackstone might be no longer content with a position in the shadows. He might feel that he has exhausted its potential—which is the point when men become hungry for more.”
“Father thinks he might consider selling some shares that are of great interest to us,” Zach added. “We are keen to exploit the man’s potential desire for some social elevation.”
“Sometimes, a man’s own lips become a strong snare to him,” Adele remarked.
“We shall find out soon enough,” Papa said, and the purr in his tone raised the hair on Hattie’s nape. “Blackstone has sent word,” he continued. “And I invited him to the matinée next week. He has accepted.”
She gasped. It went unnoticed; everyone was preoccupied with their own surprise.
“Have you now?” came her mother’s cool voice. “For the matinée, you say?”
It is because of me. Ice-cold heat poured over her. Was he coming to tattle on her?
“Yes, the matinée,” her father said. “And I’m expecting each of you to act perfectly natural around him. The fish may be hooked, but has not yet been reeled in.”
Blackstone. Blackstone was to prowl around in the sanctity of their home.
“Mr. Greenfield, this is ridiculous,” said her mother. “Whether he has changed his ways or not, he isn’t Good Society. If he attends the matinée, I shall have to introduce him to respectable people, and how can I possibly do so when we know nothing about him?”
“My dear, where is your charity?”
“Well, it certainly ends where our reputation begins!”
“The matinée!” Across the table, Aunty’s head had jerked up as though she had napped with her eyes wide open until now. She picked up her ear trumpet, a bejeweled accessory, which she kept on her lap, raised it to her right ear, and turned to the foot of the table. “Adele, we must extend an invite for another guest: the young viscount Lord Skeffington.”
“No.” The word was out of Hattie’s mouth before she could stop it.
“No?” Aunty’s wizened face was bewildered. “Why, you were adamant that he join us.”
Mina, Benny, and Flossie were smirking, intrigued.
“Adamant, was she?” her father said. “Do we know the young man? Skeffington—Lord Clotworthy Skeffington?”
The walls of the dining room were not quite steady. “We must invite Lord Skeffington some other time, Mama,” she said, her voice tinny like cheap brass. “I shan’t be in attendance during the matinée.”
Her mother’s expression was at once alarmed. “Whyever not?”
“I … shall be indisposed.”
“How do you know? Are you not well?”
She wasn’t. And it would likely get worse.
Chapter 5
There seemed to be no suitable moment to speak to her friends after Harriet returned to Oxford on Sunday. On Monday, they all gathered in Lucie’s drawing room in Norham Gardens for the weekly Oxford suffrage chapter meeting. But Lucie greeted her at the door with her blond hair flying around her pointy face and sparks shooting from her eyes—apparently, the Manchester Guardian was in trouble for publishing their latest suffrage report. This had been expected, for few things were more outrageous than women loudly demanding to be treated as people before the law. Naturally, the entire meeting revolved around how the suffrage chapters across Britain should proceed amid the public outcry, and it seemed inappropriate to raise her hand and say: “I ran from my protection officer—again—and kissed Mr. Blackstone, and now he is coming to visit my parents’ house.”