He shook his head, taking a long draught of wine. “People know you as Mrs. Webster,” he explained. “Alva Webster could be anybody, but Mrs. Webster, the scandalous widow, everybody knows her. Now, the details…”

It didn’t matter, she told herself. It might be Alain’s name on the outside, but it would still be her work on the inside.

The restaurant was hot, the air smelled bad, and Sam’s tie was choking him. He never would have put the damn thing on if Henry, his lawyer and business partner, hadn’t bullied him into it, and now he was regretting it. Looking wistfully out the heavily becurtained windows at the New York lights beyond, he sighed. Somewhere out there was his laboratory, which had windows, excellent air circulation, and a casual dress code. He took an experimental sip of the whiskey someone had put in front of him and grimaced. Alcohol had many interesting properties; he wasn’t sure taste was one of them.

It wasn’t an opinion shared by the men he and Henry were dining with, a white-haired, red-faced, round-stomached man whose name Sam had already forgotten and his son, who would look exactly like his father in twenty years. If he lasted that long, which wasn’t a sure thing going by the number of cocktails the man had tossed back since the beginning of the meal.

Ah, the beginning of the meal. Sam remembered it fondly, like the memory of a long-distant summer holiday. In his naïveté, he’d thought the whole business would be over in an hour. He’d thought that a generous estimate, actually—how much time could people spend eating? When he was back at the lab he could get the whole meal done in about fifteen minutes, and that was when he didn’t just gobble down some cold meat and bread.

This meal was entering its fourth hour. It was agonizing. Inhumane.

“I think you’ll find that if you go with my company, young man, this will just be the beginning of the perks.” The old man’s mustache had … things … in it. “Parties! Supper at Delmonico’s every night! Balls! We can offer you something more than just sordid lucre, you know. We can offer you an entree into society itself!”

“And we appreciate that, Mr. Denton,” Henry said, “but I’m afraid we must also discuss the investment itself.…”