A Study in Ashes (9 page)

“I still await the list of supplies you need for your studies.”

“I won’t forget.”

He gave a slight bow, touching the brim of his hat. “Good afternoon, Miss Cooper. Perhaps we shall yet find a way to be of use to one another.”

She fingered the silver about her wrists. “Good afternoon, Dr. Moriarty.”

As she turned and mounted the stairs to her room, instinct made her look over her shoulder. The professor was making his way back to the gate of the college, his cane swinging. And yet, she still felt him lurking behind her, as if some part of his intent remained. He reminded her of a desert serpent with most of its coils still hidden in the sand. The head might look small, innocuous even, but beneath the surface there were yards of deadly muscle coiled to strike.

The question was when and where to turn that to her advantage.

London, September 20, 1889
HILLIARD HOUSE
8:15 p.m. Friday

PENELOPE ROTH—BETTER KNOWN AS POPPY—PAUSED OUTSIDE
the main drawing room of Hilliard House, feeling hurt and betrayed by her parents. It was a feeling she experienced quite regularly these days—something her mother put down to being fifteen years of age, but any girl with an ounce of true poetic feeling knew better.

Poppy peered inside the room, not quite committing to the act of stepping over the threshold. The place was crowded, a surf of voices washing over a small orchestra playing Haydn. The room was elegant, with a gilt ceiling and gaslit chandeliers, and white pilasters dividing the walls into harmonious proportions. There was nowhere to look without seeing expensive objets d’art, unless there was a duchess or a cabinet minister standing in the way.

It was the first time since early last November—almost eleven months ago, now—that her father, Lord Bancroft, had entertained on this scale. Eleven months of grief, and he’d done a decent job of wearing a long face and a black suit. It was what was expected of him and, after all, Imogen had been his favorite. But eventually his ambitions had got the better of him. Like a hound scratching at the door, he wanted back into the games of power, and this gathering of London’s elite was the signal of his readiness.

And Poppy loathed him for it, because he had chosen to
move on. He either didn’t see, or refused to see, why his choice was so wrong—and whatever Papa decreed, her mother embraced. There would be no help from either of them.

After all, it wasn’t as if Imogen was actually
dead
. She lay upstairs, deep in a sleep that should have seen her starve to death, or corrode in a mass of bedsores, or otherwise dwindle away in some nasty fashion. The nurses were able to administer broth and gruel, but little else. Yet she survived, lovely and remote as a fairy-tale princess in an enchanted tower.

Of course, such phenomena worked better between the covers of a book. Poppy could read her father’s silences and frowns. As far as he was concerned, Imogen’s besetting sin had been that she simply
would not die
so everyone else could get on with things. Lord Bancroft’s pity only extended so far—eleven months, to be precise.

Poppy would not forgive that. She trembled with fury at the tide of brittle laughter tumbling from the drawing room. She loved Imogen fiercely, and she wouldn’t give up on her. And perhaps that meant not being at this wretched party at all. Poppy turned, determined to march back to her bedroom and strip off the ridiculous ruffled gown the maid had stuffed her into.

But before she made it three steps, her mother appeared out of thin air. “Penelope, you’re late.”

She only got “Penelope” when her mother was upset. Poppy turned, cheeks hot with defiance. But Lady Bancroft—her fine brows drawn into a sharp crease—was having none of it.

“My stays are laced too tight,” Poppy declared, a little too loudly.

“Hush,” her mother whispered, since feminine undergarments were hardly drawing room fare. “That’s what you get for refusing to wear your training corset all those years.”

“I can’t breathe.”

“Young ladies are not required to breathe. They are required to be punctual.” Lady Bancroft, pale and slender as a reed, gave the impression of a delicate, biddable woman. Poppy had never experienced that side of her. “If I let you
return to your room, in an hour I’ll find you with your nose in a book.”

“No one else will care.”

“Your task is to make them care.” Lady Bancroft grabbed her elbow, her pale pink gloves nearly matching the lace on Poppy’s sleeve. “You will go in there and be charming. If not for your own sake, do it for your father.”

That was hardly incentive. “I’m not even out of the schoolroom yet! I have at least a year before I have to be pleasant to people.”

“You need the practice, and there is never a time like the present to begin.”

And to Poppy’s chagrin, her mother steered her through the door into the crowded drawing room. Poppy pulled her arm away and lifted her chin. If she were doomed to attend the party, she would face it with dignity. They hadn’t gone a dozen feet before Poppy was forced to plaster a smile on her face.

“Lady Bancroft,” said Jasper Keating, emerging out of the crowd like a ship under full sail. From what Poppy could tell, he was usually a vessel of ill omen.

Keating had thick, waving white hair and amber eyes that reminded her of some monster from a storybook. He bowed over her mother’s hand. “You are enchanting as always, Lady Bancroft. I see you’ve lost none of your touch as London’s most elegant hostess.”

“You are too kind, Mr. Keating.” Lady Bancroft granted him a queenly smile. “And it is so good of you to bless this gathering even after the, uh, incident.”

That would be the affair of the bug in the clock. Poppy had endured an entire day of her parents agonizing over whether to cancel the party because no one wanted to make light of what had happened. For her part, Poppy had been forced to stifle the giggles when she saw the cartoons in the
Prattler
. Her father had given her the Glare of Death over the breakfast table.

“If the culprit sees us cowering under our beds, he has won,” Keating replied. “Though when the time comes, we will be swift of action and merciless in our wrath.”

If his words were chilling, his smile was even worse. Poppy wondered if people called Mr. Keating the Gold King because of the yellow globes of the gaslights his company owned, or because of his sulfur-colored eyes. Or his heaps of money. There were a dizzying number of reasons to be wary of the man.

And he was one more reason to slip out of the drawing room. Poppy began inching away, eager to vanish, but he turned and looked her square in the eye. “And here is Miss Penelope.”

Trapped, Poppy managed a proper curtsy, proving that she hadn’t ignored all her lessons. “Good evening, Mr. Keating.”

He gave her an approving nod. “You will grow into a lovely young lady, I can tell.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Keating’s strange eyes glinted. “Such lovely manners never go amiss.”

She nearly snorted. All the young ladies she knew—Imogen, Alice, and Evelina to be specific—had hardly profited by learning to use the right fork. Maybe they would have done better if they’d spit tobacco and sworn like sailors—or at least had a bit more fun before their lives ended up snarled like a yarn ball once the cat was through.

Her mother unfurled a clockwork fan, which opened, stick by stick, in a profusion of tiny sapphires. “And she’s the baby of the family. I can’t believe it’s already time to begin thinking about her Season next year.”

Deep inside, Poppy shuddered. The Season meant being presented to the queen—she supposed that could be endured—but then came the marriage mart with all the balls and routs and dancing parties. If the sheer dullness of it all wasn’t enough, the first man who made a decent offer to Lord Bancroft could cart her away like a goat from the livestock auction, bleating as she went. So much for her future.

“Is not Alice the very model of a mother?” Lady Bancroft said to Mr. Keating. “She did not come tonight, which is a pity, but little Jeremy caught a sniffle. She could not bear to be away from him.”

“Then you have heard more details than I, Lady Bancroft. My daughter clearly favors her mother-in-law for talk of babies.”

No doubt
. Poppy couldn’t imagine writing Jasper Keating about throw-up and nappies. Although Poppy wasn’t supposed to understand such things, Alice had obviously been with child when she’d married Tobias, for all she’d been packed off to the country the moment she’d started to show. And sadly, while Tobias and Alice did their best to get along, theirs was a far halloo from a love match. It was too bad, because Poppy adored her sister-in-law.

Besides Alice the fallen angel, I have a sleeping princess for a sister, a knave for a brother, an evil queen for a mother, and Papa thinks he’s Signor Machiavelli. How did I end up in this house?
Poppy knew everyone complained about one’s family, but hers had to be eligible for some sort of prize. Or a scientific study. She wondered if Mr. Darwin was still writing books.

Poppy fidgeted, her attention wandering even further. More people had arrived, filling the room with a seething mass of bare shoulders and stiff white shirts. She recognized many of the faces, although by no means all. It was going to be a miserable crush if too many more people turned up. It was already like standing beside an overperfumed furnace.

Her gaze caught on a tall, dark-haired man with piercing blue eyes standing at the far end of the room. It was William Reading, the Scarlet King, sporting the bright red waistcoat that was his trademark.
He still hasn’t figured out that sort of thing went out of fashion years ago
. But that didn’t seem to stop his success with the ladies, judging from the flock chirping around him.

The one woman who had never fallen for him was Imogen, but that might have been because her heart had already belonged to Bucky Penner. Then again, it might have just been good taste. The Scarlet King’s oily smile reminded Poppy of an advertisement for hair pomade.

Keating leaned close to her, making her jump. “You should go see what Mr. Reading brought with him.”

Escape!
For an instant, she almost liked the Gold King—although it said how bored she was that seeking out Reading was an enticement. Poppy glanced back at her mother, who nodded—although her eyes still delivered a warning glare. “Don’t make a nuisance of yourself.”

Apparently the bar had been lowered from being charming to not causing a scandal. “Of course, Mother.”

“And don’t touch the champagne.” Lady Bancroft dismissed her with a flap of the hand.

Poppy slipped through the throng with profound relief. It was clear that Reading had indeed brought something, because the crowd was clotting around him. Only her quick reflexes got her through the mass of people in time to see what the man was holding.

Then curiosity seized her, making her forget even the hideous discomfort of her stays. Whatever Reading had, it was so bright with gold that for an instant she couldn’t make it out. She had to look away and then try again, taking in one detail at a time. On his right hand, he wore a glove that extended all the way to his elbow. It seemed to be made of spun ice—though possibly it was just chain mail so fine it rippled like silk and gleamed like polished silver. What sat on it, though, was surely a demon forged of fire.

Awe took her. Poppy chewed her lip as she catalogued every feature. Brass claws dug into the steel glove, shifting uneasily while the thing looked about with bright ruby eyes. It was a smallish eagle, perhaps, though that didn’t begin to describe the beautiful ferocity of it. Every bright gold feather was carefully etched to capture nature’s texture, and when the bird opened its wings, they fanned and quivered like a living thing. But it was the beak that caught her interest, for it wasn’t all gold. Like the claws, it was brass tipped in steel. The thing was clearly meant for hunting.

“Can it fly?” one of the ladies asked.

“Of course,” said Reading.

He had one of those low, musical voices meant to read poetry about snowy flesh and bodices. Not that Poppy ever got into her mother’s private stock of romantic novels.

“My firebird here contains a miniaturized burner for
aether distillate. He can fly every bit as high as his living cousins, and his logic processor is a step above anything on the commercial market. That’s really why I made him. I wanted a means of testing the sort of decision making we’d expect of a raptor. Imagine the possibility for such creatures on the field of battle.”

The bird shifted from foot to foot, ruffling its wings back into place. It was clear how Reading controlled the creature, for there was a small box in his other hand with dials and buttons. But the exquisite artistry outweighed the need for illusion. Poppy caught her breath, wanting to ask something just for an excuse to get closer. She’d seen plenty of wondrous inventions, but this was so beautiful it was almost beyond the reach of understanding. Looking at it made her heart ache.

“What sort of decisions?” the same woman asked. She was looking at the Scarlet King with a sly smile, as if there was more to the conversation than met the eye. “Are you asking it to kill pigeons?”