Chapter Six

“You look pale, my dear. Are you unwell?”

Topaz looked up when her father spoke. He must be in one of his solicitous moods, almost harder to bear than his customary distraction.

“Just a bit of a headache, Father.” Topaz loathed these family meals, yet Frederick Hathor insisted on attendance by every family member in residence, save himself, of course, when busy or consulting.

Today all four of them had gathered for luncheon—Topaz, her father, Sapphire, and Topaz’s mother, who sat at the end of the table opposite her husband, dressed with elaborate perfection and, as usual, dithering.

A greater number of servants than actual family members filled the room—if one counted the steam units. One steamie stood as server at each of their elbows. Topaz’s mother, Dahlia, waffled at hers, not sure whether or not she wanted her soup.

“Perhaps a ladleful, Doreen. But no, is that the beef compote? Made with marrow? I won’t have any after all.”

The poor steamie hesitated, ladle extended. The units, though created to be accommodating, didn’t cope well with prevarication. Now Doreen began to leak steam from the joint at its neck.

“No soup for your mistress, Doreen,” Frederick told it. He had often, and in the units’ hearing, declared them soulless husks, but he now ended Doreen’s indecision before turning his attention back to his daughter.

“You should take a powder for the headache. I hope you have not been keeping too many late hours.”

Sapphire, who sat opposite Topaz, made a rude sound but said nothing.

Topaz directed a glare at him before turning her eyes back to her father.

What an arresting man he was, she thought involuntarily, with his still-black hair sweeping back from his brow, his regal features, and dark, glittering eyes. Not for the first time she wondered how many of his female clients actually came to spend time with him rather than the spirits of their dearly departed.

“I do not like to take powders,” she retorted, sounding surly to her own ears. Funny how frequently her father brought out the worst in her.

“You need to engage in something useful, Daughter,” Frederick pressed, not for the first time. He wanted her to work with him, receiving his clients and conducting them into his presence. Topaz wondered if he sensed the latent ability inside her.

She would rather cut off her own toes than work with him.

“I do engage in something useful, Father.” She conducted classes in self-defense in the back rooms of some of Buffalo’s taverns, including the Eagle Club and Nellie’s, both on Niagara Street, teaching women to protect themselves.

Frederick sniffed. “If you’re talking about the instruction you give, I don’t consider that a fit occupation for you, consorting with harlots and other low women.”

“But they’re the ones who are in jeopardy every day and every night, out on the streets alone. Patrick Kelly, from the Irish Squad, says crimes against women in that part of the city have actually declined since the women there have acquired a few self-defense skills.”

“The Irish Squad.” Frederick repeated it and gazed at Topaz intently. Sometimes she thought she could feel that dark gaze plumbing the depths of her mind. “You do realize automatons are nothing but soulless machines in disguise.”

Topaz looked at Phillip, her father’s personal steam unit, who did everything for him and now hovered solicitously at his side. Phillip had once taken a blast from a steam cannon, thereby saving Frederick from assassination by a religious fanatic. Topaz wondered if that kind of sacrifice required a soul.

But Phillip’s expression didn’t change. Of course, being molded from metal and implanted with glass eyes, it couldn’t change.

“I like Patrick Kelly,” she said with a shrug. “He has a wicked sense of humor.”

Topaz had once danced half the night with the automaton police officer. He’d plied her with enough Irish whiskey to successfully seduce her, had he been capable of it.

Which he wasn’t.

“I do not think—” Frederick began, only to be interrupted by his wife.

“Topaz, you cannot marry an automaton. Why waste your time with one? As for the streetwalkers”—Dahlia shivered delicately—“you must be careful not to catch something from them.”

“Yes, Mother.” Topaz glared at Sapphire who, no doubt glad her antics rather than his now received scrutiny, ate in silence. He returned her look with a derisive gleam.

Sheer stubborn defiance made her add, “Though you know, Mother, I’m not the marrying kind.”

“Nonsense.” Dahlia waved a dismissive hand. “You simply have not met the right man. I firmly believe there is someone for everyone. Frederick, my love, how about your new associate?”

Frederick froze with his spoon halfway to his mouth. So unusual was it for him to falter in anything, Topaz took notice.

Blithely, Dahlia went on, “He is unmarried and extremely wealthy, so you said.”

When Frederick still did not answer, Topaz leaned her elbows on the table and asked, “What associate is this?” Not that she was interested but for the fact that she rarely saw her father discomfited.

“An investor,” Frederick said shortly. “I hardly think, mon petite,” he addressed his wife, “Danson Clifford is the sort of man with whom we would wish our daughter to form a lifelong bond.” He frequently called his wife mon petite, an appellation he would never apply to Topaz.

Dahlia could be obtuse. “Why not, Frederick? You are already associating with him.”

“That is business—not family.” Frederick sounded so repressive, Topaz found her interest well and truly stirred.

“Just who is this Danson Clifford?” she asked.

“Nouveau riche,” Sapphire supplied and wiggled his eyebrows.

“We are nouveau riche,” Topaz pointed out. “Father never ceases with telling us how our ancestors came here, fleeing ethnic cleansing, without a penny to their names.”

Frederick had regained his composure; he smiled. “I have earned everything we enjoy, through my hard efforts.” He looked at his wife. “And, mon petite, if Topaz is ready for marriage, I can find her a much better match than Danson Clifford.”

“Why? What’s wrong with him?” Topaz pressed.

“Nothing is wrong with him. But he would not be my first choice for son-in-law.”

Dahlia took up the theme, and Topaz realized she’d landed on dangerous ground. “If you truly do wish to find a husband, Topaz, you could not hope for a better opportunity than Mrs. Rexinger’s Valentine’s Day ball next month. She’s invited every eligible man in the city.”

“I don’t wish to find a husband.”

“Well, you should think about it. You don’t want to remain on the shelf too long. I hear that nice Mr. Fitzgerald will be there.”

“Irish,” Frederick denounced, not quite under his breath.

“But wealthy Irish,” Dahlia persisted.

“He’s a brainless idiot.” Topaz had met carthorses with more wit and far more charm. “And Father, why should you object to the Irish, who for the most part, like us, came here with nothing?”

Sapphire gave her a look; they both knew the futility of baiting Frederick over his prejudices or any of his strongly held beliefs. One might argue with him but never win.

Frederick answered with deliberate patience, “Yet we have raised ourselves.”

Yes, Topaz thought indignantly, by providing services that to many in the city smacked of the fortunetelling done in the old country, and fleecing people in what might be considered just a more elaborate version of their ancestors’ activities.

She needed to get out of this house. The easiest route would be marriage, but she didn’t see herself taking that path. She sighed. At least the conversation had distracted her father to the point where he didn’t seem likely to sense Romney Marsh’s presence in the house.

Romney Marsh. Just thinking of him made Topaz’s pulse leap. She wanted to see him in the flesh so badly it hurt.

But first she needed answers to a number of questions: why had he been shut away in Grayson? Why was he, an Englishman, here in the city in the first place?

And why did just thinking about him elevate her pulse?

Her father glanced at her almost as if he sensed her rampant emotions.

“The time will come, Daughter, when you can no longer play at your life and will need to make a decision either for marriage or to take up some worthy occupation. I will tolerate nothing less under my roof.”

“Then, Father, perhaps the time has come for me to leave.”