MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 50 - Fifty: The Morning Papers

//CLARA//

The papers arrived before breakfast.

Higgins set them on the silver tray with the same impassive expression he wore for everything, but I caught him glancing at the headlines before he withdrew. I couldn’t blame him. Oliver’s face was on every single one.

The New York Times. The Herald. The Tribune. Even the smaller sheets that survived on gossip and scandal had dedicated column inches to the Linotype’s triumphant debut. I spread them across the breakfast table, scanning the articles with the same clinical detachment I used to review my own press coverage in another life.

Whitfield’s Wonder: The Machine That Prints Faster Than Thought.

Mr. Chamberlain’s Gamble Pays Off.

The Guggenheim Connection: How Old Money Backed New Genius.

I read that last one twice. Casimir’s name appeared five times. Mr. Chamberlain’s appeared seven. Oliver’s was in every headline, but always tucked into the body of the articles, credited as the inventor but perpetually standing in the long, dark shadows of the men who had signed the checks.

My name appeared nowhere.

I traced the column with my fingertip, feeling the indent of the type on the page. I had written half the marketing strategy for this launch. I coached Oliver on how to talk to Mr. Chamberlain without stammering. I had done all of it, and there was nothing in these papers to prove I existed.

The sting was there. It was brief, sharp, but familiar. I let myself feel it for a moment. Then I let it go.

In my own century, I had stood in the spotlight. I had been on magazine covers, had my face splashed across billboards, had my name in every headline that mattered.

I had basked in it, burned in it, learned that the light was never as warm as it looked. What I wanted now was not recognition. What I wanted was the future I was building, the money that would make it real, the power that came from knowing I had done this.

Let them have the credit. I would take the profit.

I set down the paper and reached for the butter.

Casimir found me in the library an hour later, the papers stacked beside me in a neat pile. He stood in the doorway, his coat still unbuttoned, his hair still damp from the morning ride. He had the look of a man who had been pacing.

"You read them," he said.

"I read them."

His jaw worked. "I’ll send a correction. A letter to the Times—I will make it clear that the strategy was yours. I won’t have them—"

"No."

He stopped mid-stride. "Clara—"

"I said no." I picked up the Tribune, folding it casually to the business section. "It doesn’t matter, Casimir."

"It matters to me."

"I knew this would happen. I knew it the day I wrote the first proposal." I looked up at him, letting my cynicism show.

"Women don’t invent things in this century. They don’t build empires. They’re the pretty faces in the background while the men take the bows." I shrugged. "I made my peace with it before the ink was dry on the contract."

He crossed to the window, his back to me. I watched him wrestle with it—the urge to fix things, to make them right, to protect me from a world that kept trying to erase me.

"If you send a correction," I said quietly, "they’ll ignore it. Or they’ll twist it. Or they’ll make it about you being generous, or about Oliver being modest. They won’t make it about me. They can’t. That’s not the story they want to tell."

He turned. His face was unreadable, but his hands were curled into fists at his sides.

"I hate this," he said.

"I know."

"I hate that you accept it."

I laughed, and the sound surprised both of us.

"I don’t accept it. I’m just not stupid enough to think I can change it overnight."

I stood, crossing to where he stood by the window.

"I have the money, Casimir. That’s what I wanted. The money, the power, the future I’m building. Let them have the credit. I’ll take the profit."

He looked at me for a long moment. Then his hands uncurled. His shoulders dropped.

"You’re not going to let me send the letter, are you?"

"I’m going to let you buy me dresses. Lots of them. Since you were so keen on destroying them. There’s a new modiste on Fifth that I want to try. Will you accompany me for the fitting?" I wiggled my eyebrows at him. "I promise to behave. Mostly."

He shook his head, a ghost of a smile finally breaking through. "You’re impossible."

"I know."

He offered his arm. I took it.

Three days later, the park was full of people pretending they weren’t looking at each other. I had timed it perfectly.

Beatrice arrived first, looking like a summer sky in baby-blue silk, her sketchbook tucked under her arm. She settled onto the picnic blanket, arranging her skirts with the practiced ease of someone used to being observed.

"Is someone else joining us?" she asked, her eyes landing on the third plate I’d laid out.

"A friend," I said, busying myself with the basket. "He said he might drop by."

She nodded, but I saw her fingers fly to her hair, smoothing a strand that was already perfect. She didn’t know who she was waiting for, but her instincts were already on high alert.

Oliver arrived ten minutes later, looking like he’d run through a wind tunnel. His cravat was askew, and he was clutching a box of pastries like a shield. He froze when he saw Beatrice.

"Miss Sterling. You’re... you’re here."

Beatrice’s cheeks went a delightful shade of peony. "I was invited."

"I was invited, too," Oliver said. They both turned to look at me.

I was very busy fluffing a silk pillow. "What a coincidence."

Oliver’s eyes narrowed. He knew. But he recovered quickly, thrusting the box toward Beatrice. "For you. I mean, for the picnic. For everyone."

"Thank you, Mr. Whitfield."

"Oliver," he said softly. "Please. Call me Oliver."

"Oliver," she repeated, and her voice was very soft.

I watched them, delighted, and said nothing.

An ice cream vendor appeared at the edge of the path, his cart chiming with the particular music of summer afternoons. Beatrice’s head snapped toward it like a bird spotting something shiny.

"Oh ice cream! I should—" She was already rising, already digging for coins in her reticule. "Let me get everyone something. I won’t be a moment."

She was gone before either of us could protest, hurrying toward the cart with the kind of unselfconscious joy that made her look twelve years old.

I was still watching her when Oliver’s voice cut through my thoughts.

"Eleanor."

I turned. He was standing now, his face serious, his hands shoved into his pockets like he didn’t know what else to do with them.

"Are you setting me up with Miss Sterling?"

I widened my eyes. "I have no idea what you mean."

"Eleanor."

"I invited two of my friends to a picnic. It’s a beautiful day."

He stared at me. I stared back.

"Eleanor, I know what you’re doing." His voice was careful. "I can’t, for the conscience of me, use Miss Sterling just to get back at Catherine. She’s too kind for that. She deserves better than to be a pawn in some revenge scheme."

Something in my chest softened. He meant it. He wasn’t pretending to be noble. He was genuinely worried about hurting Beatrice.

"Who said anything about using her?" I kept my voice light. "You’re both my friends. Can’t I have my friends get together for a picnic just for one day? You’re thinking too much, Oliver. Let’s just enjoy each other’s company."

He studied my face. I let him. I let him look for the lie, the scheme, the manipulation.

He found it, of course. But he also found something else that made his shoulders relax, his hands come out of his pockets, his mouth twitch into something that was almost a smile.

He sighed. "You’re terrible."

"I have no idea what you’re talking about," I repeated, reaching for a strawberry.

He laughed. "You’re absolutely terrible."