Today's Reading
A confidence scheme, when properly executed, will follow five movements in close and inviolable order:
I. THE MARK.
Wherein a fresh quarry is perceived and made the object of the closest possible study.
II. THE INTRUSION.
Wherein the quarry's outer layers must be pierced, his world peeled open...
III. THE BALLYHOO.
Where a golden opportunity shall greatly tempt and dazzle the quarry...
IV. THE KNOT.
Wherein the quarry is encircled by his new friends, and naysayers are sent gently on their way...
V. ALL IN.
Where all commitments are secured, and the business is happily—and irrevocably—concluded.
A CODA: there may be many counterstrikes along the way, for such is the nature of the game; it contains so many sides, so many endless possibilities...
RULEBOOK—1799.
PROLOGUE
Quinn
August 6th, 1898
Berkeley Square, London
There was no suggestion that Quinn might be allowed to dress herself. The boudoir was packed with people: maids and waiting women, ladies hovering behind painted screens. They'd peeled off her nightdress with fingers like spiders; they'd bathed her, ornamented her hair, added stain to her lips. And now they were arranged around the room in a circle, waiting for her next move.
Quinn could sense their nerves. This was a day of supreme importance, after all. The newspapermen were gathered on the pavement outside; the sketch writers had arrived en masse to take notes on the breakfast. The lawyers were on the landing, and the whole house was thick with the scent of orchids and pink roses and kippers. This day had been oiled, stoked, heated—readied for her.
"Come along, then," she said to the room, extending her arms, beckoning for the wedding gown. "Bring me the dress."
This boudoir was like all the rooms in the house: low-ceilinged, dark-lacquered. It was octagonal in shape, like a jewel box or crokinole board, full of cunning holes and gaps and hidden doors. The mirrors were age-spotted, marked with holes and scratches. Quinn perceived motion in the reflection: housemaids in dark uniforms, bringing out the dress.
It was a brutal-looking gown—constructed at great expense, according to Quinn's design. She touched the tangled, coruscated beading around the waist, letting the fabric glide from her fingers and ripple into creaseless folds. This dress was very ugly. Which was a good thing. Now was not the moment to be seduced by this wedding, nor this house. Quinn would not be lulled into false security by hot baths and swan-feather pillows and an army of servants. She had come too far, had been working too hard, to grow soft today.
"Lovely," she said, and stepped into the gown.
This was it: the final move in the game. She felt the pleasure of it, low in the gut. Ribs: hers. Spine: hers. Voice, changing. Expression, smoothing out. It wasn't acting, or not simply that: it was bigger and more important altogether.
Eyes down, lips pressed, waist tight, face becoming more famous by the hour. A face that in the past week had been photographed, sketched, scrutinized for flaws, praised for its beauty, decried for irregularities. A face for every occasion, a face that revealed nothing.
Her dress struggled, buckles snapping—as if it recognized her for what she was. A fraud. The best confidence woman in London. Queen of her very own underworld. But Quinn smiled. Arranged her skirts.
"Thank you," she said to the maids who laced her in. They flushed, pleased.
But they weren't on her side.
The clocks began chiming, right on schedule. This house was filled with clocks, a hundred shimmering faces, a thousand points and alarms.
Time to get married.
"Where is the duke?" she murmured, breathing through her veil.
"His Grace is waiting for you downstairs," they said, as if to imply, You need to hurry.
It didn't matter how long you watched someone, spied on them, tried to learn their habits—you never really knew what was in their mind. But there was no time to doubt herself. Quinn was not someone who hesitated. She hated waiting; she despised it above all things. She had marched into that room to get her life back, to do what she had been trained to do. She adjusted her bouquet gingerly, wincing at a small pain in her wrist.
She—Quinn Le Blanc—dissolved. The person Berkeley Square needed, expected, believed her to be shimmered into view.
...
