Scarlet Devices (26 page)

“Not in the least, my love,” she called over her shoulder. “Not in the least!”

T
HEY WERE ON
the fast southern steam clipper, rounding Cape Horn, when Eliza finally remembered the other remarkable thing that had happened on the final day of the race.

“I've been meaning to tell you,” she said, interrupting Matthew's investigation of the sensitive area behind her left knee.

“Hmm?”

“I have news for Barnabas. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell or not, but . . . this is going to sound mad. I don't know how I could have forgotten, it's been almost two weeks.”

“I've been distracting you as frequently as possible,” Matthew pointed out. “Myself too. I'm surprised I remember my own name. Tell me what you remember, and I'll tell you if I think it's mad or not.”

“Come up here, then. I can't converse with you down there like that.”

“Never seemed to stop you before.” But he climbed up the berth and plunked himself down next to her, nudging her head over to make room for his on the pillow.

“You have been a marvelous distraction, you know. I've hardly worried at all about Barnabas or Cantlebury or the others. I suppose I ought to feel guilty for that.”

He gave her a squeeze. “They're fine. Barnabas is already home, and the rest are well on their way. This can't have been worth stopping for, Eliza. What is it?”

“I saw Phineas.”

Matthew sat up and stared at her. “Come again?”

“At least I think I did. No, I told myself at the time it wasn't possible, but I'm still certain it was Phineas. I must have looked at that picture a thousand times. And he resembles Barnabas so strongly. There was no mistaking him.”

“Why would you think you weren't supposed to tell me this? We're married now, you're supposed to tell me everything.”

“My mother is never going to forgive me for that.”

“Eliza,” he said patiently, “we were
at sea
. We
had
to do it. That's why sea captains were invented, to perform spur-of-the-moment marriages so that couples could share cabins without the stewards giving them funny looks.”

She rolled her eyes. “We could have taken separate cabins. And as for sea captains, I'm fairly certain there's also something in their duties about navigating and steering the ship.”

“No, no. It's marriages, I'm telling you. So what made you think you couldn't tell me, darling? And where the hell did you see him?”

Eliza recalled that day with mixed emotions. Being accused of murder was horrific, a nightmare—but seeing Matthew safe had been little short of miraculous. And receiving her trophy and the prize money had been a dream come true. She'd gained financial independence in a single moment . . . and though she'd already decided to marry Matthew, she was glad to be doing so from the position of a woman with alternatives and resource of her own.

“I saw him in San Francisco. He was one of Orm's pirates. Only not really, I don't think. Right before you arrived, Orm had called two witnesses from his ship, who were supposed to accuse me of this murder by noxious gas incineration. They were obviously pirates, just as we'd seen before, and one of them was wearing an eye patch. He looked concerned, though, and then he started to take the eye patch off. That's when I recognized him. I was about to say his name, but he held a finger up to his lips and shook his head at me. Shushing me. He'd seen the glider. Then you arrived, and the next time I looked at the stage he was gone.”

“How very odd. How could he have gone over to Orm's side? And when did he kick his opium habit?”

“I don't think it's odd at all, and I don't believe he was ever addicted to opium either. Matthew, I think Phineas is a spy.”

“No . . .”

He stretched out beside her again, thinking it over with a deeply furrowed brow. A few seconds later he repeated himself. “No . . .”

“I think he was all set to save me by revealing himself and accusing Orm instead of giving false witness against me. That's why he was taking off the eye patch. Removing his disguise. But when he spotted you he knew he didn't have to. So he shushed me and melted away into the crowd instead.”

“To preserve his cover.”

“Exactly.”

“When you put it that way it does make sense. A mad sort of sense.”

“I believed you about Orm, and that was based on a dream. I saw an actual person.”

Matthew rolled over and kissed her. “Fair enough. Actual person trumps dream. I'll add it to the rule book.” He started working his way back down her body.

“What should we tell Barnabas?”

Lifting his head, he gave her a pouty frown. He hated it when she thwarted him after he'd already started, and now she'd thwarted him twice. “I'll think on it and we can discuss it later. But no more right now, because what's the rule?”

“No talking about other men once you're below the waist.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your cooperation.”

“Matthew?”

“Mmm?”

She raised her hands over her head and stretched languorously, because she knew how her new husband appreciated a good, languorous stretch. “Tell me again about the workshop you're going to build me.”

He looked up long enough to grin at her. “With pleasure. It will be full of wonders. Worktables broad and wide enough to hold entire engine blocks. Built-in turntables with hand cranks. All of it ventilated with fans so you won't sweat too much in summer.”

“I never sweat,” she protested.

Matthew did one of those mysterious things with his fingers that electrified her spine and made it impossible to think clearly. “You're mistaken. You sweat often. In fact you're sweating right now, but I don't mind one bit.”

“
More
.”

“About the workshop? Certainly. Our parts bins will be a marvel of organization to rival the finest libraries. What else? I'll custom build you a garage crawler with a down cushion, covered in velvet. Or perhaps silk brocade. Although leather might be easier to clean. Let's make it leather. Oh, and we should have one of those glass wall panels to show all the gears and wires for our chronometry and communication system. The system will be immense and cover the entire estate. Like Dexter and Charlotte's, but
even better
.”

“Matthew,
please . . .”

“As if I could deny you.”

Something like silence fell then, as they both grew too distracted to speak coherently.

 • • • 

S
OME TIME LATER
, Matthew felt a nudge against his shoulder and heard a beloved voice whisper, “And now tell me about all the
tools
.”

READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEXT STEAM AND SEDUCTION NOVEL FROM DELPHINE DRYDEN

GILDED LILY

COMING JULY 2014 FROM BERKLEY SENSATION

T
HE HAT WAS
too large, and it gave her away. Only to somebody looking hard, of course, but Freddie knew the risk was there. Someone looking hard, or someone who knew what they were looking for.

It was practicality, as much as vanity, that made her balk at cutting her hair off. As long as she kept it, she could blend seamlessly back into that other world. The world in which, ostensibly, she belonged. And it was far easier to disguise the hair than to explain its absence.

So for now, at least, she remained the plumpish, round-faced lad in the suspiciously oversized hat. Fred Merchant, tinker-makesmith extraordinaire. Quick and curious, clever with his hands, and known not to adhere to Marquess of Queensberry rules when cornered in a fight. Handy chap to know, bad chap to cross, such was the general consensus on the streets of London.

Chap whose bosoms have been strapped down far too long for one day
. Freddie tucked an escaping auburn curl back under the outmoded black top hat, mindless of the engine grease on her fingers. She was sweating under the bandages and padding, the many layers of her disguise. The device in front of her was still in pieces, the purposeful array of parts revealing the order of their removal. She loved looking at them like that, their symmetry and sense. She could discern the purpose each component served in the whole, could already see where the flaw was. And she saw, as clearly as if the process were playing before her on a stereopticon, how it would all fit together and work again in the end. Where everything belonged, and how and why. The machine flew back together in her mind, whirring into seamless action.

“Wot, then? Beyond repair, is it, Fred?”

“Never.” She spared a scowl for Dan Pinkerton, who always assumed things were beyond repair. “It's an easy fix, I just haven't time to finish today. And you know sod-all about steamers, Pink.”

That last was reassurance for the client, the butcher, who had shown some dismay at Dan's assessment.

“You'll not get a farthing until that dog's running again,” the butcher warned. “If I'm not making anything off it, you won't neither.”

“I'll be back same time tomorrow,” Freddie reassured him. “Finish it up in no time.” The butcher depended on the mechanical “dog” to run the spit on which he roasted his newest product, ready-to-eat sliced meats. He'd taken a chance by setting it up as a spectacle in his shop window, to draw the attention of customers. The prospect of losing his competitive promotional edge was clearly weighing heavily on him, and it bothered Freddie as well. Her clients among the fishmongers were closing up shop left and right lately, the result of an unusually high rate of fishermen gone missing on the job and a simultaneous decline in the numbers of local fish schools. The rivalry between butcher shops had only heated up as trade shifted to place a higher demand on them in the absence of fish.

“Why not now?” the fat man demanded. “Pressing social engagement?”

Dan snorted into his glove, then tried to cover it with a cough. Freddie just smiled and shrugged. “When the Queen calls, Mister Armintrout.”

He looked ready to take offense, then shrugged it off. Freddie was his only real option and they both knew it.

“Give her Majesty my best.”

The laughter carried them outside, where Dan bustled Freddie onto the trap and down the lane in less than his usual time.

“You'll get caught, joking like that,” he scolded once they were on the high street, safely ensconced in the noisy flow of traffic. The little trap bounced along the cobbles, tugged along behind the steam “pony” that Dan controlled with deft flicks of the levers in front of him. Most of London's flesh and blood horses were inured to the steam engines now, and didn't even shy at the noise and sudden bursts of speed from the surrounding vehicles.

“I'm bound to get caught eventually. I don't think cracking wise will make much difference one way or the other. Bloody hell, it's warm out here for April.”

“You're sitting right in the steam. Told your father we needed a cowling on this thing when it was converted, but would he listen? And you shouldn't be using coarse language, it ain't ladylike.”

“Don't be such a prig, Dan. You sound like my old nursemaid.”

“Because your old nursemaid was my mum, or have you forgot?”

“How could I? You're the very image of her. Oh, bother. I've ruined these trousers with grease. My last. I don't suppose you could procure another pair for me tonight?”

“You're supposed to be saving your earnings, I thought. I'll get Mum to clean those ones.”

“But they're not your size, won't she suspect?”

Dan's laugh rang out above the noise of the street. “You don't think she already knows? She knows everything, miss. She probably knew your scheme before you even thought of it yourself.”

Freddie glanced around, a reflex with her now. “Don't call me that now.”

“Right. Pardon, Fred old chap. Are we headed for your piece of skirt among the quality, my lad?” He swung wide to get around a slow horse-drawn carriage, then cut through a narrow gap between two cabs and down a quieter side street.

“Who's the coarse one now? Yes, to Lady Sophronia's.” Freddie's closest friend and ally aside from Dan himself, Sophronia Wallingford could always be counted on to provide a hot bath and the loan of a maid when Freddie completed one of her little money-making ventures and needed to clean up before returning to proper society.

“Ah, the beautiful widow Wallingford.” Dan let his voice deepen, and his rough accent managed to make even those few innocent words sound like lewd speculation. Freddie knew he teased to cover his genuine adoration of Sophie, a poignant longing that society would always make it impossible to requite. A footman could love a gentlewoman from afar all he liked, but the emotion could never bring him anything but empty daydreams and misery.

Freddie didn't know why Dan subjected himself to it, but she tried to be sympathetic while at the same time subtly discouraging him. “You wouldn't say that if you'd ever seen her before her maid was through with her in the morning.”

She also didn't understand the embarrassed laugh and cough Dan hid in his glove, much like he'd done at old Armintrout's earlier. But that was Dan, he'd always had inscrutable moments as long as she'd known him. All her life, in fact. He was the big brother she'd never had, except that she'd more or less always had him.

A heavier than usual patch of traffic and slow-moving pedestrians held them motionless for a few minutes, long enough for Freddie to grow anxious. The nearest walker, a youngish gentleman, had stopped alongside them. He stared in bewilderment from his map to the surrounding scenery, then in dismay at the cobbled road beneath their carriage.

“Haven't they ever heard of asphalt?” She heard him say into the lull, apparently to no one in particular. Clearly the street noise was too much for him. Delicate sensibilities, perhaps. Or he was a tourist; he had a foreign look about his clothes, an accent that hinted at time spent in the Dominions.

“They've started it north of the river,” Dan remarked to him. “But it'll be a cold day for Lucifer before the nobs this far west allow that much change. Not to mention the smell when they lay it down. Nah, here it'll be cobbles and setts until they die, I'd wager.”

Unheard-of cheek, especially coming from Dan who was usually so sober and proper. The tourist was obviously no commoner. But it was safe enough, Freddie supposed. The next moment the steam coach ahead of them lurched forward, and all was noise and motion once again. The puzzled, fresh-faced gentleman was lost in the crowd, left alone with his map to speculate on road surfaces and how to find his way through London. Freddie forgot him the moment he was out of view.

Wallingford House loomed ahead of them for a moment before Dan diverted the pony down another side street to the mews. They would enter as two rough tinker-makesmiths, then Dan would reemerge in his livery and return with the trap to Rutherford Murcheson's stately Mayfair residence only a few streets away.

Miss Frederique Murcheson would return home again only after attending a ball under the watchful eye of her friend and sometime chaperone, the Lady Sophronia Wallingford. With her mother now settled resolutely in France, and her father only in London occasionally for business, Freddie was able to get away with quite a lot—but sometimes even she couldn't weasel her way out of an important social occasion.

After all, when the Queen called . . .

 • • • 

B
ARNABAS STARED AT
the map, then at the street in front of him, wishing for the dozenth time that he'd opted to unpack his dirigible and fly to his employer's home instead of taking the Metropolitan railway from the air ferry stop in Hillingdon, then walking to his final destination. It had seemed like a foolish waste of time to launch himself instead of taking advantage of the local transportation, but now he eyed the individual airships above with envy. He could have at least taken a taxicab, but he had the ridiculous notion that he knew the town well, and he'd judged the cab not worth the expense for such a short distance.

London was not as thickly populated as New York, but it sprawled for what seemed like endless miles. Ancient, meandering streets were overlaid by the new. What had seemed straightforward on the map was rendered meaningless by the scale, the bustle, and the overwhelming noise of steam cars and horse-drawn conveyances vying for space on old, cobbled roads or wood block paving. The few times he'd come to the city with friends during his Oxford days, it hadn't seemed so daunting. Or so cacophonous.

“Haven't they ever heard of asphalt?”

“They've started it north of the river,” a voice commented from the nearest vehicle, a converted steam-drawn pony trap of a type that was still the height of fashion in New York. This one looked slightly down-at-heels, and its driver's and passenger's coats were frayed at the cuffs and collars. Tinkers, by the oil stains on their clothing and the box of tools at their feet. No expertise with fine clockwork, but they could likely repair an engine or a pump for anyone who couldn't afford a proper makesmith. Barnabas didn't begrudge them their living, but wondered how the local guilds viewed these independent competitors.

“Not to mention the smell when they lay it down. It'll be cobbles and setts until they die, I'd wager,” the driver finished.

The trap disappeared like magic as the traffic suddenly picked up its pace, and Barnabas stared dumbly for far too long at the space the little cart had occupied. There was something odd about the trap's passenger that had diverted his attention from the driver almost instantly. He tried to pin it down, but was unable. Something, though. About the eyes and jaw line, the fit of the clothing . . .

A prodding hand jolted Barnabas from his bemused stupor, and he lashed out just in time to catch the wrist of his attempted pickpocket.

“Hey! Stop that!”

The boy dropped Barnabas's coin purse back into his pocket and escaped with a sharp twist of his hand against his intended victim's thumb. Obviously not the first time the youth had been in that situation. A cluster of other boys lurked near the next corner, looking too nonchalant.

More alert, Barnabas transferred all his valuables to safer inside pockets then returned his mind to the task at hand. He knew he was close to Mayfair, and the rough tinker's remark about nobs was confirmation. Rutherford Murcheson's house couldn't be too far off now. He should be able to find it in time to change and dress before the evening's festivities. Whether he would actually find it festive, trying to keep a watchful eye on Murcheson's wayward daughter, remained to be seen. At least it would be a relatively honest evening's work.

Rutherford Murcheson hadn't especially wanted Barnabas for the job of looking after his daughter. Barnabas had suspected as much from their correspondence, and his impression was confirmed by the man's edgy, dismissive demeanor when Barnabas had finally arrived at his tasteful Mayfair home.

“You resemble your brother,” the older man said flatly after they'd shaken hands. “Are you going to disappoint me, as he did?”

Barnabas thought of Phineas, the younger brother who'd seemed destined to greatness in his military career before he allegedly succumbed to the lure of opium and fell off the map. “Who was he to you, sir, that you had any expectations of him?”

Murcheson was an industrialist, a manufacturer of clockwork devices and steam engines. Few knew of his other work, as a spymaster for the Crown. Barnabas himself had only learned this recently, and there was no reason young Lieutenant Phineas Smith-Grenville should have known it at all. But Barnabas had reason to believe there was much more to Phineas's disappearance than his family had been led to believe. Finding out the truth about his brother and restoring honor to his name was still his primary objective, regardless of what assignment Murcheson might make. His last attempt to locate Phineas had resulted only in more shame for the family, as it involved Barnabas performing very badly in the American Dominion Sky and Steam Rally. He'd made it no farther than the first rest stop before succumbing to influenza. His friend Eliza Hardison—now Eliza Pence—claimed to have spotted Phineas in San Francisco. But a more recent sighting by a former shipmate of Phineas's placed him in London, so here Barnabas was.

“Lieutenant Smith-Grenville was an unreliable operative. You have clearance to know this now. Your younger brother worked for me, and was meant to be in deep cover to infiltrate a ring of opium smugglers. Instead he fell victim to the poppy himself and disappeared into the western Dominions. Weak character. But my good friends Baron and Baroness Hardison assure me you're made of sterner stuff.”

“I like to think my actions speak for my character, sir.”