The restaurant waitstaff looked at Alva with increasing distress, but she just lifted her chin a little higher and followed the waiter to her table. She trusted her family name (or one of them, at least) still counted enough that she wasn’t going to get tossed out of Delmonico’s just yet. Even black sheep get to retain some of their perks.

The white-mustached man waiting at the table looked distinctly uncomfortable, but he stood politely when she arrived. His fine wool suit mimicked the attire of the men around him, but no one in the restaurant would need to look at the slightly ill-fitting cut or the too-ostentatious buttons to know he was not one of them. They would know, because New York’s upper crust kept track of their own.

“Mr. Smithson?” Alva held out her hand. After an almost imperceptible hesitation, he took it.

“Mrs. Webster,” he said.

“It’s so nice to meet you in person.”

He waited until she was seated before he sat down again, clearing his throat and adjusting the crystal water glass in front of him. Echoes of his discomfort registered in the tightness of her chest and stomach, but she forced herself to ignore the feeling that hundreds of daggers were sailing towards her back. She could have told him this was how it would be, but he had insisted they meet at a restaurant instead of at his offices, and she wanted to meet him badly enough to agree.

The waiter appeared again, hovering at Smithson’s right elbow, and her companion recovered himself enough to discuss the evening’s menu. Alva occupied herself by scanning the room, noticing the restaurant had been redecorated sometime in the last twelve years. Green brocade paper now covered every inch of the walls, coordinating oppressively with the dark green velvet curtains. Crystal glinted in the low lamplight, and the air was hazy with smoke. An enormous painting of a ship being tossed on stormy seas dominated one end of the room.

“Well, Mrs. Webster,” Smithson said, clearing his throat again. “I hope your journey was pleasant?”

“Very smooth,” she said. Her ship had docked two days ago, and in a few days more it would return to France without her. Not for the first time, she wondered what on earth she thought she was doing.

“You must be pleased to be home?” he said, continuing without waiting for a response. “We—Braeburn and Smithson, that is—were very flattered you chose our publishing house to direct your query to.”