Legacy of the Clockwork Key (11 page)

“William MacDonald, ma’am.” He nodded to her.

“You’re not part of the Order.” Her posture stiffened.

“No, I’m not.” Will met her challenge. He shrugged. “From how I see it, danger comes from within your Order, not outside it.”

“Logical, I see,” she commented, placing the teapot back on the tray. “Simon would approve. He was the logical sort as well. Unfortunately, you are incorrect. Anyone can be bought. It is not safe in these times. You’re lucky you weren’t killed.”

“Do you know who is behind the murders?” I asked.

Lucinda shook her head. “If I knew, he’d have visited the gallows long ago.”

“Perhaps this might help,” I suggested as I pulled the book from the satchel.

I placed the book on the table. It was hers by right, but I felt unsure if I should trust her with more.

I looked at the Widow Pricket. She couldn’t fake such deep grief. She hadn’t killed her husband. But I was on the edge of a dangerous web, and I didn’t know where she was caught in it.

“Will and I found this book locked inside your husband’s gravestone.” I touched the key hanging around my neck but didn’t mention it. It felt heavy.

“In his grave?” She didn’t seem shocked by the idea. “However did you discover it?”

“It was within a secret compartment in the stone itself, hidden behind the plate,” I clarified. The last thing we needed was to be cast as grave robbers. “Have you visited the grave recently?”

“Every day.” She dropped to the edge of a chair, her wide crinoline floating about her. “Why didn’t he simply leave it with me?”

Her words sounded so soft, so hurt. We were opening old wounds.

“I think he feared what it contains could endanger you. He knew he was to be murdered.” I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I wanted to reach out to the widow. She seemed stricken.

“Too many people are either dead or gone into hiding. When will this end?” She took the book and opened it, letting out a shaky breath as she stared at the handwriting. “We were only married for two years before he was taken from me. It wasn’t enough time. It wasn’t nearly enough time.”

I glanced at Will, then back at the widow. I didn’t know Will’s intentions, but in that moment, I knew mine. “Help us find the murderer. Let’s end this together.”

She looked to me. I could see she was struggling. “I don’t wish to be involved. My life has already been destroyed by all this. I’ll tell you what I can. But then you must leave me be.”

THE WIDOW EXCUSED HERSELF, AND I TURNED TO WILL
. He shrugged but remained near the doorway, as if he didn’t feel he was allowed into a lady’s parlor.

I sipped my tea listening to the faint traces of hustle and bustle from Bond Street, hushed by the eerie shop and the dim interior of the parlor.

My eyes stung as I fought to keep them open. It had been a long night.

I blinked. It was so difficult to pull my heavy eyelids open again. I shook myself awake just as I felt the teacup slip from my lap.

Oh!
Reaching out, I tried to right it, but only tipped it
more, spilling the contents down my skirt and onto the floor.

The cup fell on the opulent rug, and the tea eagerly soaked into the fine threads. I dropped to the floor and pressed the hem of my skirt into the stain to soak up the spill.

The widow returned. “What happened?” She placed an ornately painted tray laden with simple scones on the table.

“My pardon, I made a dreadful mess of things.”

She knelt beside me, grasped my hands, and lifted me to stand.

“Leave it for now.” She lifted her veil, and the full effect of her refinement awed me. Her honey-red curls rested in perfect coils along her neck. Her bright blue-green eyes searched mine. “You look exhausted. Have you been walking all night?”

I nodded.

“Come, you need to sleep.” She gave a short nod as if the matter had just been decided and she’d hear no word against it.

“What of Will?” He needed to rest as well.

She looked over her shoulder at him. “He can stay in the mews in the back.”

I pulled my hand from hers. “You’re putting him out with the horse?”

“Meg.” He shook his head, just a hint of movement, but I read it clear as day.
Not now.
He gave the widow a short bow.
“Thank you for your generosity, Mrs. Pricket. I appreciate your hospitality and trust.”

Hospitality my boot. She was practically asking him to sleep on the front stoop. I owed him some measure of loyalty. He had just saved my life.

Lucinda pointed to a door in the back, and Will disappeared through it with a tip of his hat.

“Now then,” the widow continued. “You may follow me.”

She led me through the dimly lit house. As part of a row of storefronts, only the rooms facing the street or the mews behind the house had windows. I found it disconcerting to be in a tight space with so many oil lamps burning.

We began an ascent up a tight and steep set of stairs. “He’s a handsome one,” the widow commented.

“I beg your pardon?” The comment caught me completely off guard, and my heart thundered to life. I felt the rush of heat in my face. Why would she notice? She was a widow.

“It isn’t seemly for two women to entertain his company within the house. I do have to maintain propriety.” Her voice was cool, and she didn’t bother to look back at me.

For whom? It didn’t appear as if she’d entertained anyone in years, so I didn’t see what good propriety would do.

“Have you maintained a sense of propriety?” She stopped and turned to me. I nearly stumbled backward down the stair.

“Yes, ma’am.” I didn’t appreciate the insinuation that I hadn’t. I gripped the rail so tightly my fingers ached. Why was everyone so quick to assume I’d throw my moral character out of the window with the dishwater?

A curious look, a bit like that of a cat sniffing cream, crossed her face. “Do you fancy him?”

There was no trace of Agnes’s harsh judgment in her tone, yet my face burned to the tips of my ears. I probably looked like a puffy radish. How was I to answer that? Did I?

No.

My heart hammered again. Well, he
was
handsome, but that wasn’t the matter at hand. Will was . . . Will. He was only the stable hand. I needed his help. We were clearly from different worlds. I could write in three languages, and he couldn’t . . .

I didn’t allow myself to finish that thought. I wasn’t here to play the part of some sentimental trollop over a boy with a handsome face. Or strong body, or—

“I see.” Her eyes crinkled in the corners in an aloof and knowing way that irritated me. See what? There was nothing
to see. She turned again and continued up the stair as if she hadn’t just fired a volley of cannons across my bow.

At the top of the stair she opened the first door to the right. A snug but neat little room with a small, cheery bed and a stand with a washbasin greeted me. A high window overlooked the roof of the mews. A flock of pigeons roosted there, cooing in the morning light.

“Get some rest. We have much to discuss when you wake.”

I was exhausted to the bone, and the feather mattress felt like lying on a cloud, yet I didn’t fall to sleep. My skin felt tight, warm and tingling, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Will.

It shocked me when I woke, because I hadn’t realized I had slept. I just jolted out of blackness, disoriented and frightened. It took me a moment to remember where I was.

The house was dark, yet my eyes adjusted in the slant of moonlight shining through the window. Sharp pangs of hunger bit at me.

Easing out of the bed, I crept with soft steps toward the stairwell. I didn’t want to wake the widow should she be sleeping.

As I reached the stair, a faint melody whispered through
the sleeping house. Curious, I kept my hand to the wall and followed the sound. A light flickered on the other side of one of the doors. It was open only a crack, but it was enough for me to peer through.

The widow rocked in a creaking chair in the corner. Her strawberry-gold curls tumbled free down her back, but a heavy black shawl hung over her shoulders, covering her soft blue dressing gown. She sang a sweet lullaby and in the crook of her arm rested the smooth head of a baby.

She had a child? I brought my hand to my mouth as I watched her. She rocked it, cradling it with such love, it nearly broke my heart. Eventually she stilled, sighed, and lifted the infant.

That’s when I noticed the stiff arms, the unmoving head. The utter silence. It was only a doll dressed in the most lovely white gown. She stood and placed it in a bassinet.

Her breath hitched as she looked at it. Her ivory hands drifted over her flat stomach in a circling pattern, as if soothing a deep hurt there.

I retreated a step, turning my back so I could lean against the wall. I couldn’t quite make sense of what I’d just seen. I only knew it was something I shouldn’t have witnessed. The deep sadness of it reached into my heart and wouldn’t let go.

Racking sobs broke the silence as the widow grieved, the sound so aching and raw, it forced tears from my eyes. I felt my own grief so close, I had to grip my grandfather’s key.

I retreated to my room, softly closing the door behind me, but I didn’t sleep again that night.

The next morning, the widow looked as calm and collected as she had the day before. Elegant in her stark black, she had removed her veil, but the contrast of her dark attire with her bright hair and eyes only made her look more striking.

I felt like a dowdy sparrow next to a peacock in my own faded mourning dress and simple braids. Will came into the parlor and haunted the door.

The widow raised her cup to him. “I’d like to thank you for tending to Daisy this morning. She’s very dear to me.”

“ ’Twas my pleasure.” He looked her in the eye and gave her a hint of a bow. She didn’t break his gaze for a long time.

It made me uncomfortable. I did my best to convince myself it wasn’t the stirrings of jealousy.

“I read the book last night,” the widow began. “I assume you have as well, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“I read parts, Mrs. Pricket,” I confessed.

“So you realize your grandfather faked his death.” She
turned to me as if she were announcing tea was served in the parlor.

I felt as if a mule had kicked me in the middle.

“How do you know he’s alive?” Will asked.

“Simple.” She reached into her pocket and produced a key, a simple device a bit like a corkscrew with the three silver triangles at the end. It looked nothing like mine. “Every Amusementist has a key such as this. Each one is individual and allows a person to lock their inventions to prevent tampering. When I had Simon’s name engraved, I discovered the medallion hidden behind the brass plate,” Lucinda admitted.

So, that was the reason she hadn’t seemed surprised at the idea of a hidden compartment within the gravestone. She continued, “I tried to open the compartment. Simon’s key didn’t work. Which means Simon did not set that lock.”

Her gaze dropped to the pendant hanging around my neck. “Your grandfather invented the locking system for all the Amusementists. Many believed he had a key that could open any of his locks. If a master key does indeed exist, only Henry could have set the lock in Simon’s gravestone, which means he was alive after Simon’s death.”

I dropped my gaze, feeling a bit like a criminal standing
before a barrister. It was time to confess. “Lord Rathford took me in after the fire. I recently found a letter among the baron’s things. It was from my grandfather, dated after his death. I believe he’s alive, Mrs. Pricket.”

I took a sip of tea, but it tasted bitter. I didn’t think another lump would make it any better.

“Lucinda, please. What did the letter say?”

“That my grandfather was going into hiding, and if anyone came searching for him, he’d know Rathford was the one who gave him away. He tried to convince Rathford to see reason before it was too late.” I hoped my instincts were right about the widow. I didn’t wish to put Papa in further jeopardy.

“Let me show you something.” Lucinda rose with the grace of a born duchess and walked to the corner. She picked up a small frame and held it toward me.

I brought my hand to my chest. “It’s Papa!” Reaching out, I took the picture to peer at it more closely. It was small, but clear. “He looks so young.”

He was bending on one knee, smiling as he held a small box in his palm, above it a toy top floated in the air with nothing at all to support it. A lovely little girl with pale curls and a young boy with a missing tooth and shaggy hair clung to him
with looks of delight on their faces. I knew that feeling. My grandfather had a way of making the ordinary magical.

“Is this you?” I asked, wonder filling my heart. The girl in the picture looked at my grandfather in the exact way I had looked at him as a child.

“Yes, it was my sixth birthday,” she admitted. “You were a newborn. Your mother let me hold you that afternoon. She was a generous and kind woman. I missed her greatly when she decided to eschew our social circles. I’m sorry for your loss. Your father was a good man too. I saw him and your grandfather from time to time at gatherings. I was very fond of Henry. All the children were.”

Will edged closer to look at the picture. It was a moment in time, captured. I wondered how it was made. It was unlike any sort of tintype I’d ever seen. “Is that your husband?” Will asked.

Lucinda sighed. “No.” She bit her lip and her eyes darted for a second as if searching for what to say. “He was a friend.”

“Why didn’t my parents want me to know about the Amusementists?” I asked, clearing my throat.

Lucinda pinched her lips. “It’s complicated. The Order is a culture unto itself, and has a way of consuming people.”

“How do you mean?” Will spoke up.

“We don’t follow the normal conventions. Take the names for example.” Lucinda took a sip of tea. “There are certain rules of the Order. The first rule is that a man’s worth is determined by the limits of his mind. Using Christian names instead of titles forces all the Amusementists onto equal intellectual footing. After all, inheriting land hardly makes a man a genius.” Lucinda gave an inelegant snort.