The Cogspeare Conspiracy (The Cogspeare Chronicles Book 1) (4 page)

              While the other houses around Tungsten Square were painted a delicate eggshell white, the new Number 22-23-24 was made of dark grey granite and steel. Though double as wide as the other houses, it also towered an extra floor over the others as well. This top floor, further reinforced by steel and concrete, and with a glass dome perched on top for a skylight, was Cornelius’ laboratory.

              Every time a fashionable member of the ton passed by the gravel drive that led up to the house, they would shudder as theatrically as possible. But while they would all complain wildly about its appearance, still they clamoured to live at the square. After all, there’s nothing like a somewhat-mad scientist with a propensity to blow up houses to add excitement to the dull lives of the haute-monde.

              It soon became apparent that his sons took after him when they were left alone and almost destroyed the family abode again. This led to Cornelius’s invention and subsequent installation of explosion-proof windows. One would think that the Cogspeares would now be booted out of society as a menace to public safety, but instead more invitations than ever flooded through their steel front door. It didn’t hurt their social standing that Queen Victoria commissioned Cornelius to install those new windows in all of her Palaces, too. 

              And the curiosities of the house were equally as famous as its eccentric owners. The basement rose slightly above ground height, and so intricate steel stairs led the way up to the grand and imposing double front doors, studded with brass. Above it was a massive round window in the shape of a cog. Another oddity, aside from having a laboratory in the main house, was that the servants’ quarters were not in the house itself, but rather above the reinforced mews. As much as they loved their employers, they refused to live in the dangerous main house. It was in their contracts.

But while almost all of London had seen the façade of Number 22-23-24, few had ever been inside. Magnus did not have that (in his opinion) luxury. Half an hour after he had left the office, he drove his Personal Steamer up the gravel drive and parked in front of his eccentric childhood home.

              He took a deep breath as he got out, and went up the front stairs, rapping on the door with his umbrella.

              The double doors opened almost immediately, but instead of the imperious beaked nose of the butler that Magnus was expecting, a petite young woman with curly blond hair bobbed a curtsey and gave him a fetching smile.

              “Hello, Master Magnus,” she batted her eyes, and he rolled his as he stepped in.

              “Good evening, Lily,” he handed her his hat and cape.

              “Lily, what are you doing, taking Master Magnus’s things? This is not your domain. Get along!” demanded a voice that sounded like shards of glass on a chalkboard, covered in rancid butter. Steamins the butler made his imperious appearance under the sky light in the grand, circular foyer. His monochromatic uniform was interrupted only by his bright red socks.

              He grabbed the accoutrements from Lily and waved her on. As she sashayed back to the sitting room with a feather duster wielded more like a sex toy than a cleaning utensil, Steamins growled,

              “Can’t do anything with these girls! Why Mrs. Cogspeare allows Mr. Erasmus to bring them home is beyond me.”

              “Mother and Erasmus share a passion for redeeming lost souls.”

Magnus may have heard Steamins mumble, “Mr. Erasmus’s passion lies not in their redemption,” but he chose to ignore it, and instead began to move towards the parlour, his mother’s very purple domain.

              “Your father is in the midst of a project, sir,” the butler added as he followed the young master.

“That’s fine, Steamins. Just going in to say hello to mother.”

“But Master Magnus, your mother is not in!”

              He turned, and his deaf ear began to ring- a sure sign of foreboding.

              “Where is she, Steamins?” His eyes were cold.

              “She told me to tell you, sir, that she was marching in the Women’s Rights Protest, and that she should be in Newgate Prison by now.”

              He had barely finished his sentence before Magnus, knowing his father would be unreachable for the foreseeable future, grabbed back his cloak and hat, and fled out the door. Steamins closed it firmly behind him and shook his head.

Chapter 8:

Magnus had been in Newgate many times before, most often to interview clients, sometimes to bail them out. The thought of his beautiful, delicate mother in the women’s section there, which was ever so slightly less disgusting than the men’s, made him shake with anger and fear.

              He drove like a maniac, and though he left a few accidents in his wake, he made record time in getting to the largest jail in the city. He didn’t even bother to properly park his vehicle, instead just leaving it in front of the crumbling medieval archway that led into a large quadrangle. From here he strode into the women’s side of the prison. On duty was a bedraggled, slightly drunk matron.

              “Aye?” she blinked at him.

              “I’m here to get my mother out,” he wheezed slightly as the spesium-laden air took its toll on his nervously heaving lungs.

              “Aye, I’m sure y’ar. Wot she in fer then, gin-brewing? Street-walkin’?” Magnus bit down on his tongue. Hard.

              “No, madam,” he replied in glacial tones that always made judges, barristers and juries alike shiver, “My mother was marching in the Women’s Rights Protest.”

              Matron wearily got to her feet, grumbling, “Oh, aye, bunch of silly women with nothing better to do than make more trouble and traffic fer the rest o’us.” But Magnus’s message had somehow got through her gin-soaked brain, and she led him down a musty corridor, a large, rusty keychain swinging from her pudgy fingers.

              The hallway reverberated with sounds of moaning women and crying children, since families were allowed to live with their imprisoned relatives- though for a price, of course. The further they penetrated the prison, the worse the sounds and smells became, but Magnus kept his eyes firmly ahead, not even blinking as some women reached out for help.

              Thankfully, the matron stopped at a cell before they got into the really bad area of the jail. She barely managed to fumble the key into the lock and Magnus restrained himself from flinging her out of the way and doing it himself. He had always been a very calm person, but lately he felt that his temper was getting shorter and shorter. More and more dangerous.

              The heavy iron door swung open.

              Magnus didn’t know what he had expected, but it certainly wasn’t his mother sitting daintily on the edge of one filthy mattress facing another woman sitting equally as primly on her cot.

              “Mother!” he exclaimed, which was about all her could manage to say.

              Edwina Cogspeare had already turned at the sound of the cell door unlocking, but now her face broke out into a massive smile at the sight of her eldest son.

              “Magnus, dear!” As she made a move to get off the bed, her son came in and quickly offered her his hand. She stood, and shook out her be-tasselled skirts. “I knew you’d come sooner rather than later. Indeed, I was just reassuring Miss McFlynt on the matter.” She patted her dishevelled red hair into place, and then turned back to her cell companion. “Oh, yes, Magnus- this is Miss Minerva McFlynt, a fellow protester whom I met earlier today. Miss McFlynt, my eldest son, Magnus.”

              If Minerva was expecting Magnus to extend her a hand, she was to be disappointed. He simply nodded to her in a cool manner, his eyes passing over her filthy white dress, trimmed with green and violet ribbons, impassively and quickly returned to his mother.

              “A pleasure, I’m sure. Mother, we really must be going.” He turned and began to leave the cell, but halted when his mother replied,

              “Oh, but dear; we can’t possibly leave without Miss McFlynt.” Magnus stared at her in shock.

              “Mother, as well meaning as that is, I’m sure Miss McFlynt has a husband who will be coming to bail her out any time soon.”

              “Actually,” Minerva stood up with difficulty, facing the impervious lawyer and replying, “I am not married, Mr. Cogspeare, and I am well past my majority and so, legally, no guardian is needed to shepherd me around like some little lost sheep.”

              “Indeed, Miss McFlynt. However, would not a family member be the most suitable to post bail for you?”

              Minerva opened her mouth to give him a sharp retort, but Edwina quickly replied,

              “The poor dear was hurt when the policemen rounded us up. I think she twisted her ankle. And her only living relative, her great-aunt, came by earlier and had an attack of the vapours. She refused to help her, Magnus.” She leaned forward. “She made the most horrid scene- even disowned her, the poor dear. Disowning your own flesh and blood- can you believe it?”

              Magnus not only did believe it; he would have happily signed the papers when it came to some of his brothers.

              “Mother, you know that there are bond agents for this kind of thing-”

              “-Magnus!” she stomped her small foot and stared down her son who towered over her by almost a foot, “I can’t believe you would suggest that! Miss McFlynt is a close, injured friend of mine and will be my guest for the foreseeable future until plans for her can be made.”

              “Really, mother. Close friend is a bit strong, don’t you think?”

              “Two like-minded women can become very good friends indeed when one is waiting for her busy son to bail them out,” she replied ever-so sweetly.

              “Really, Mrs. Cogspeare,” Minerva protested, “I’m certainly more than capable of contacting a bond agent, twisted ankle or not. After all, as we agreed today, we women must fight our own battles, without the help of the repressing male-”

              “That’s all well and good dear, but right now I, for one, am in sore need of a hot bath and a stiff cup of tea. Matron, we are leaving.”

              Which is how Magnus found himself, twenty minutes, two warnings and ten pounds sterling later, playing chauffeur to his mother and her new friend in the back seat of his steamer.

              Her grubby, but very compelling and attractive, new friend.

Chapter 9:

The ride back to the Cogspeare mansion was filled with Edwina’s light chatter, with Minerva occasionally adding a comment or two between increasingly frequent grimaces. Magnus sternly set himself the task of driving as moderately as possible. Therefore, there were only two near misses and three accidents caused by the PS4000.

“Won’t Mr. Cogspeare mind my presence, Mrs. Cogspeare?”

“Cornelius? Of course not! He loves company, particularly of the charming and intelligent female variety,” she grinned.

“Father is in the midst of developing a project, so you probably won’t see much of him,” Magnus interjected blandly, and they were all silent for the remainder of the trip.

              When they arrived, Edwina whisked Minerva out of the vehicle and up the front stairs before Magnus had even dulled the engine and removed his goggles. Minerva paused at the threshold and gazed in wonderment at the grand façade.

Steamins drew open the door and said in a stenotorious tone,

              “Welcome home, madam. Did you have a pleasant sojourn?”

Magnus caught up to them. “Brace yourself, Miss McFlynt; it’s not your average home. Most people call it the Monstrosity of Mayfair.” He pushed past her.

              “Indeed I did, Steamins,” Edwina said to her head manservant, utterly nonchalantly. “I met this delightful young thing, Miss Minerva McFlynt, who will be staying with us for the duration.”

              “Duration of what, mother?”

              A youth of seventeen years had suddenly appeared, his freckles gleaming and his flaming red hair ruffled into a bush. He was clutching
Young Veterinarians Monthly
.

              “Ah, Minerva,” Edwina smiled, “allow me to present my youngest son Sebastian. Sebastian, this is Miss McFlynt.”

              The young man, all elbows and knees, came forward awkwardly but shook their guest’s hand and smiled sweetly, mumbling “pleasure, miss,” in an unbroken voice. He turned to his mother and asked,

              “Is it true, Mother? You were in prison this afternoon? As an inmate?” he added, horrified.

              “Well, she wasn’t there as a visitor,” Magnus replied snappishly, walking briskly past his youngest brother, ruffling his hair absently. Sebastian smiled. It was one of the unaccountable things in the plethora of Cogspeare conundrums- that the sweetest of the Cogspeares always sought out and enjoyed the company of the most taciturn. Then again, as Edwina watched them together, she often suspected that the affinity that Sebastian had with animals and his soothing effect on them translated well to Magnus’s disturbed psyche. At least, that’s the theory she and Mrs. Bunsen had formulated over a pot of very strong tea. And speaking of Mrs. Bunsen, in came the housekeeper, bustling in and saying,