Zeke and Lorenzo headed toward the lounge, while the clerk escorted her to the elevator. A uniformed attendant closed the gate on the elevator and cranked the brass dial to begin the lift. Even the elevator was grand, its marble floor inlaid with turquoise and jade. Her grandfather did nothing halfway.

The word grandfather usually conveyed a warmly paternal man fading into old age while occupying a rocking chair. Nothing could be further from the truth concerning Frederick Blackstone, who so disliked the implications of the word grandfather that he had ordered her to call him Frederick once she became an adult.

She pasted a serene smile on her face as she entered Frederick’s office. Velvet draperies framed floor-to-ceiling windows with a perfect view of the New York Stock Exchange only two blocks away. Frederick sat at his desk while Uncle Oscar stood by the window, his pearl-handled walking stick at his side as he glowered at her through his one good eye. A black patch covered the other eye, ruined by the assassin’s bomb six years earlier.

“Gwen,” her uncle greeted her tersely. “Still wearing your Rapunzel look, I see.”

She touched the long braid of blond hair draped over her shoulder. Most women in Manhattan pinned their hair up in fussy styles, but Gwen preferred a more natural look and usually wore it down. Instead of torturing herself with tight corsets, she favored the loose gowns that were coming into fashion among the artistic set. She was a free-thinking woman and loved the softer silhouettes of the Art Nouveau movement, but her uncle was far more traditional.

Still, she didn’t want to get distracted from her mission. She lifted her chin a notch and met her uncle’s single good eye. “I’ve come seeking a reinstatement of the college’s annual funding. The new president is doing amazing work, but he needs more time before he can run the college without a deficit.”

Uncle Oscar approached her, leaning heavily on the cane as he drew near. The bomb that ruined the tendons in Oscar’s right leg had also killed two innocent bystanders. The doctors had feared Oscar would never walk again, but her uncle’s indomitable will came to the fore, and he’d trained his body to adapt to its shortcomings. He could now walk as quickly as anyone, albeit with a distinctive lurch.

“We founded that college as a sop to keep your father happy,” he said. “It was supposed to add luster to the Blackstone name, but it’s never performed as hoped.”

“Not true,” she insisted. “Just last month Harper’s Magazine featured us on their cover. Our biochemistry department expects to have a treatment for tetanus within the next few years.”

“And I expected the college to be financially self-sufficient by the last decade,” Oscar said.