Mr. Hart took a deep breath, let it out. “It belongs to you, and to Etienne as well.”
Then I realized what that meant, particularly that he spoke of his son and Heir second in that list. Could Inventor Etienne Hart possibly see me as a threat?
I became aware of the form moving low inside me: the construct that would become my child should I fail to stop it.
As far as anyone knew, I was barren. No one other then Blitz and Mary — and whoever set Mrs. Claudete Crawford to replace my blood tea with a forgery — knew of the years of effort to keep myself so.
Dr. Salmon had warned Roy not to announce the pregnancy. After my near-death due to alcohol almost three years before, it was not at all assured that either I or the child would live through this. Anyone who knew of my condition other than Tony was bound to silence by threat of blackmail and death.
But Mr. Hart had just told me I owned this land. Which meant that one day he planned to make it legally so.
That put Etienne Hart in, shall we say, an interesting position.
He was over fifty. He had to realize that he couldn’t live forever. And he might be betrothed to Josephine Kerr ... but she was a spinster, an unknown. Without an heir, any child I might bear in the future could put the entirety of Hart quadrant into the hands of his father’s vowed enemy.
What man wouldn’t kill for that?
So no matter what his father said, I had to view Inventor Etienne Hart as dangerous. He had motive to wish my death. He had powerful allies who seemed to — at the very least — wish harm upon me and my friends. And with his vast wealth, he’d find someone to do the job.
I doubted his father’s threats would stop him.
The carriage crested the pass, and before me stretched a narrow horseshoe-shaped valley. The Racetrack sat in that valley, the glint of the train-tracks stretching over the high North Pass towards the Rim. This high up, the faintly iridescent dome shimmered above us.
“I suppose taking the road through the South Pass would have been quicker,” Mr. Hart said. “But the view here is spectacular.”
It was. And I realized Mr. Hart wanted to please me. “Thank you.”
We descended the narrow, twisting road. To the south, the city stretched far off in the distance. Along the road lay trees and hills. The Racetrack below began to light up as evening fell.
Soon we were on the flat, the Racetrack looming ahead.
On its face, the buildings, like the streets, were made of close-laid red brick, trimmed in white. Two stories of the main building, with a grand circle drive of white stone for carriages to enter. Stables and servants’ areas lay to the left, yet we took another, smaller entry around the massive building and to the right.
And then we arrived at wrought iron gates and smiling men. “Good evening, sir,” one said. “I trust your trip was pleasant.”
Mr. Hart said, “Are the guest rooms ready?”
“Of course, sir.”
Mr. Hart turned to me. “I have something to show you.”
We went inside through glass-paneled white doors, then to a lift. It looked like a lace cage, much like the lift which Inventor Call had taken me down to see the Magma Steam Generator in several years back. This lacework seemed made of silvered steel rather than brass.
Walnut-stained wood lay below our feet as we rose. The man working the lift wore Hart livery. Up we went to a third floor, and I realized we were in a part of the vast complex I hadn’t seen yet.
The gates opened. Mr. Hart took my hand. “This way, my dear.”
The corridor was a deep red, with thick carpeting patterned in red, white, and yellow. Lovely artwork framed in silver adorned the walls at intervals: landscapes, horses running in a field. Mr. Hart stopped at a life-size portrait of a nicely dressed, smiling, yet rough-looking middle-aged man with a round, flat face, puffy eyes, and wavy red hair. Mr. Hart spoke with pride. “My grandfather.”
I peered at the face of this man who sent men to attack the Cathedral and my great-grandmother, now the Cathedral’s Eldest, so many years ago. His smile was bright, genuine, yet his deeds?
I shuddered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Mr. Hart didn’t move. “Many say he sent those men to harm your people. But he denied it to his deathbed. The sack of the Cathedral was the one thing in his life he regretted. He changed his name to flee the shame of it.”
“His name? Oh, Hartmann. Yes, I remember.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him. But I nodded, and we moved on.
More portraits appeared: Mr. Hart’s grandmother, thick black straight hair put into a bun, dressed in a red gown patterned in gold. Mr. Hart’s father, a man who looked remarkably like Mr. Hart, but with auburn hair. Then we went to the next portrait, and I stopped in astonishment.
It was me.