A letter sat on the table, sealed in black wax under the mark of the Dread Master. Fletcher sat in a spindle-backed chair in the empty aisle between the rows of seats his comrades occupied in the Dreadfuls’ parliamentary chamber. Ahead of him, just beyond the table and the letter, his usual chair sat empty, as the bylaws required when a member was on trial. This ritual had been enacted only twice before, and never with Fletcher in the position of scrutiny.
He’d been explaining his actions for a full five minutes now, and there was little else to say. The situation was not truly so complicated. “Dozens of children’s lives was at stake,” he said, bringing his testimony to its conclusion. “If saving their lives meant losin’ my membership, that was a trade-off I’s willing to make.”
He took a breath and steeled his resolve. He would face the consequences of his decision.
“My membership had already been guessed at,” Brogan said. “Seeing me here didn’t reveal anything new to her.”
“It revealed our society’s location,” Doc pointed out. “No one’s ever spilled that secret before.”
“Certainly we have,” Hollis countered. “Every time we have determined someone new was worthy and eligible for membership.”
“Which Miss Black ain’t,” Martin said.
“She is most certainly worthy,” Brogan said. “As much as anyone we’ve brought in among us.”
“But she ain’t eligible.” Doc didn’t speak unkindly, but neither was he wrong.
Elizabeth didn’t write penny dreadfuls, though she was closely connected to King, who did. And Fletcher himself had told her all the members were male, though he’d jokingly explained it as a requirement to wear trousers.
“There weren’t anyone else I could send,” Fletcher said. “But I also knew she could be counted on to keep mum.”
“Why not send Janey or Fanny?” Milligan pressed.
He turned in that direction. “They don’t know where headquarters is, and they ain’t any more eligible than Miss Black. Less so, truth be told. She, at least, is a writer and a do-gooder.”
Doc nodded his acknowledgment of that truth. Nothing about this debate had been unkind or even personal. They were, as was required, arguing all aspects of his decision and the impact it had on the group. He only hoped those continually reminding the others of the rules he’d broken didn’t actually wish to see him tossed out.
“You might’ve sent Martin or me,” Hollis said. “We were both at Thurloe.”
“If I had, that would’ve left Miss Black and only one of you to keep them two men subdued, a difficult task for three of us Dreadfuls to manage. That would’ve been dangerous in the extreme.”
The others looked to Hollis and Martin. Both nodded.
“None of us’d argue that you weren’t in a fix,” Irving said. “But neither can we overlook that you laid out our location to someone who ain’t approved to know it. You’re aware that’s against the rules. So are we.”
“So is she,” Brogan said. “Told me as much. Worried, she was. Afraid Fletcher would lose his membership. Someone as concerned as she was wouldn’t go blabbing about what she knows.”
“But she’s not a member,” Irving said. “And can’t be. We’ve never revealed our location to someone who wasn’t coming here to join up, having already been fully scrutinized.”
Fletcher remembered how he had, for a moment, once wondered if Elizabeth might have been the pen behind Mr. King’s stories. If only that had been true. He’d have a firm argument in his favor, and she’d be able to join the Dreadfuls. Almost.
“We’re arguing the same things over again,” Stone muttered. “Time to vote.”
It was a mercy, really. No point prolonging the pain.
A knock sounded immediately on the council chamber door. That almost never happened. All eyes turned in that direction. Not a word was spoken.
Nolan, the butler, stepped to the threshold. “A visitor, gentlemen.”
The silence among the Dreadfuls echoed Fletcher’s confusion.
Fletcher might’ve been on trial, with his membership on the line, but he was still the acting head of the organization.
“You never allow visitors,” he said to Nolan.
“This’n placed a penny right where one’s meant to be placed.”
Intriguing, but not reason enough. One need only look at the pile of coins on the entryway table to know that much. “We don’t let people wander in, declarin’ themselves interested. That ain’t how this works. You know that.”
Nolan was unmoved. “For this’n, you’ll want to make an exception.”
“What makes you so certain?” Fletcher asked.
A smile slowly spread over Nolan’s face. “Would I be interrupting if I weren’t certain?”
They all knew Nolan too well to think he’d get up off his bench for anything that wasn’t worth their time or the risk he was taking interrupting the meeting.
“Who is he?”
Nolan dipped his head. “Mr. King.”
Fletcher was on his feet on the instant. Half the room was as well, the other half staring in disbelief. King? They’d been searching for him for weeks. Fletcher had been searching for him. Elizabeth knew him, knew him well. Still, she wouldn’t have told him where the Dread Penny Society made its headquarters.
She wouldn’t have. Yet King was here.
He didn’t know how both things could be true, but he knew they were. Fletcher met each of the Dreadfuls’ eyes. One nod after another. His gaze fell last on Stone.
The often-silent man spoke. “Looking for King started this whole muddle. It’s best we see it through.”
True as the day was long. Fletcher turned to Nolan. “Let King in.”
Nolan slipped out. All eyes were on the empty doorway. From the darkness beyond, a walking stick tapped against the floor. The clack of shoes joined, both growing louder.
A shadowy silhouette appeared where Nolan had been. King wasn’t very tall, even with a stovepipe hat on his head. Fletcher could make out little beyond that. Too much darkness shadowed the entryway.
King took a single step into the spill of light from the council room lanterns.
“Bung your eye,” he breathed.
Elizabeth—Elizabeth—quirked an eyebrow beneath the tall hat sitting at a jaunty angle on her head, her hair pulled up in a loose bun. Her high-polished walking stick tapped against the floor once more as she took another step, her heeled, pull-button boots echoing their earlier sound as well. She was not merely wearing trousers, she was wearing trousers. And a shirtwaist and tailcoat precisely in the style of a man’s but tailored quite perfectly to her.
Fletcher attempted to swallow and found it took more effort than it ought. He didn’t bother trying to look away; he knew he’d never manage that. No one else in the room had either.
Elizabeth eyed them all, chin at a confident angle, her expression one of patience and expectation. She continued her slow, steady walk into the room and up the aisle directly to him. She stopped just out of arm’s reach and met his gaze.
He cleared his throat. “Mr. King?”
A hint of a smile pulled at her lips. “Surprised?”
“By a few things.”
“You said members have to wear trousers.” She shrugged a single shoulder. “Fortunately, I know a very talented tailor.”
“That tailor is either my new favorite person or my new archenemy.”
She pulled her hat off her head and, with an expertise that matched his own, tossed it, brim down and spinning, onto the throne-like chair he usually occupied. She then faced the room of shocked, amused, and stunned-into-silence men around her.
“I am Mr. King, reigning monarch of the penny dreadfuls. I give my time and effort to the causes of the poor, the oppressed, the afflicted. And I am wearing trousers.” She added the last bit with a flourish to indicate her unexpected attire.
Brogan didn’t bother suppressing his laughter. Hollis let his grin blossom as well. Martin hid his smile behind his hand.
“I am here to apply for membership in the Dread Penny Society, having met all the requirements.”
“This is highly unusual,” Kumar stated the obvious without true disapproval.
“And highly risky,” Fletcher said quietly to Elizabeth. “Should word of this—you dressing as a man and petitioning for membership in, essentially, a gentlemen’s club—reach the ears of Society, you could lose everything, dove.”
She met his eye and, for the first time since her breath-catching entrance, her surety gave way to the tiniest hint of doubt. “I told myself I’d find a means of salvaging your membership. Revealing the location of headquarters is only tolerated when the person being told is applying for membership.”
“You mean to exploit a loophole?”
“I mean to save your skin,” she said.
Even Stone allowed a glimmer of appreciation in his usually unreadable eyes.
“You took an enormous risk coming here as you did,” Fletcher said.
“No fear. I still have Móirín’s knife in my boot.” She turned back to the others. “Vote, then. In or out.”
“First, though,” Hollis jumped in. “We have an opportunity to settle our previous matter quite quickly. Fletcher revealed our location to someone who, technically, was eligible to receive that information. He hasn’t, if one is being fully honest, violated any of our rules.”
“Is she eligible, though?” Irving asked. There was no mistaking the hope in his tone and expression.
“Our bylaws don’t specifically ban women from joining,” Stone said. “I say she’s eligible.”
“Then I’m calling for the vote on Fletch,” Hollis said. “All insisting his membership be revoked, make yourselves heard.”
Not a soul spoke.
“All finding no cause to dismiss him?” Hollis continued.
A chorus of “ayes” filled the large room. Relief surged through Fletcher. Relief. Gratitude. Exhaustion. The sealed letter on the small table nearby contained the Dread Master’s vote, one that carried the weight of two of theirs. Enough to break a tie. Enough to create one. Not enough to overthrow a unanimous decision. As custom dictated when the Dread Master’s voice was not needed, Fletcher would take the parchment to the fire after the meeting and burn it, unopened.
“Resume your place, Fletcher Walker.” Brogan jerked his head toward the throne.
Fletcher crossed to it. He took up Elizabeth’s hat, then sat in the familiar spot. Ah, but he’d missed his chair. When his eyes met hers, she smiled softly, dipped her head, and turned to go.
To go?
“Mr. King,” he called out.
She turned back, eyeing him with confused curiosity.
“Did you not wish for a vote on your membership? That is why you came, after all.”
She leaned on her walking stick. “That’s not why I came, Mr. Walker. I’ve done what I came for.”
She’d saved him.
Stone, of all people, burst into the momentary silence. “I’m calling for a vote. All feeling Mr. King hasn’t shown herself worthy to be counted among us, make yourself known.”
“And then take yourself off,” Fletcher added for good measure.
Chuckles and headshakes were all that answered.
“All feeling Mr. King belongs here as much as any of the rest of us?” Stone continued.
With “ayes” as enthusiastic as those cast in Fletcher’s favor, the Dreadfuls welcomed a surprising, brave, remarkable woman among them. They’d turned a would-be rival into an ally. An ally who’d saved his skin at great risk to herself.
“Welcome to the Dread Penny Society, Mr. King,” Fletcher said as he languidly stood, her hat still in his hand. He crossed to her and set it on her head.
“You’re not angry with me for keeping this secret?” she asked.
“On the contrary.” He wrapped one arm around her. He turned his head ever so slightly to address the membership. “I’m breaking with tradition, lads, and sealing this vote with something more than a handshake.”
“Go on, then,” Brogan called.
“No objections,” Irving tossed out.
Fletcher looked to Elizabeth once more. “Any objections from our newest Dreadful?”
“None whatsoever.”
Fletcher tugged Elizabeth close enough to entirely close the gap between them. She tossed her walking stick to Hollis, who caught it with a laugh. Elizabeth held Fletcher’s face in her hands, her eyes fixed on him.
“I do love you, you know,” she whispered.
“I know it, and I’m amazed by it.”
Her mouth twisted saucily. “I think you’d best show me a bit of that amazement.”
“My pleasure, dove.”
He kissed her. He kissed her in that room full of the odds and ends of the literary world, in the council chamber of the group she’d confronted in order to save his hide and give him back his future. He kissed her with all the emotion in his heart and the love he’d struggled with for weeks.
Then he held her in his arms, marveling that she was here with him, with them. He’d found the other half of his very soul, and they had an entire lifetime ahead of them to weave tales, to rescue children, and to fall further and further into love.