The Earl of Brass (The Ingenious Mechanical Devices Book 1) (24 page)

A Confirmed Bachelor

Ever since Patrick Sinclair had picked up them up from the Queen Victoria Landing Fields, a contented smile had been etched into his features. Hadley couldn’t be sure if it was because Eilian was back within eyeshot or because he had gotten word of their impending nuptials. As the steamer chugged past London’s familiar storefronts, her mood waned with disappointment. Secretly she had hoped the grime would have melted away in her absence, taking with it the sneering society ladies and the skinny children caked in soot. London remained unchanged. The brakes squealed as they stopped with a jolt at the brick exterior of her home, which thankfully was just as she had left it. Eilian caught her hand as Patrick came around to open her door.

“I’m going to call on you in a day or two once I smooth things over with my mother. I want to wait before bringing you into the fray, though she is less likely to kill me if there are witnesses,” he explained with raised eyebrows and a cockeyed grin. “I will send word shortly. I know she will want to meet you.”

Hadley Fenice was surprised by the pang of sadness that bloomed within her breast at the thought of leaving his side. After several months of constant companionship, she felt oddly alone as Patrick lugged her trunk up the steps to her door. As she yanked her luggage inside and watched the steamer disappear into the misty gloom, the clunk of hurried boots clattered down the hall toward the foyer. Adam rounded the corner and caught her in his arms, crushing her to his breast before holding her far enough away to take a good look at her.

“Your freckles connected!” he exclaimed, noting her desert tan. As always, her brother was dressed impeccably in shades purple and black. “How was your trip? I hope your letters were infrequent because you were enjoying yourself.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t write more. It got quite hectic at the camp. Did you get my last letter?”

“Yes, and I’m so happy for you and Lord Sorrell.”

She stared into his blue eyes before moving to his henna brows but saw no hint of surprise or disapproval. “I don’t know about you, but the news hasn’t yet sunk in.”

“Well,” Adam began as a wry smile crept from beneath his pencil mustache, “I have known for some time he was going to propose.”

Hadley shoved him in the chest. “When? How? How could you not tell me?”

“If I told you his intentions, you would have stopped seeing him. There was no way I could let you do that, especially when Lord Sorrell is a good catch and actually cares about you. Not many men would tolerate you.”

His sister fell silent as her anger dissipated. “When did he tell you?”

“He asked my permission for your hand when we went hunting.”

All she could do was sputter in shock. “That— that was four months ago! I didn’t even think about him in that way then.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t feel that way about you. I asked him if he knew what he was getting into since you have a temper and a habit of throwing things when you are mad.”

Her cheeks instantly reddened as she covered her face and followed him into the kitchen where dinner was already laid out. “Oh, please tell me you didn’t actually say that!”

“I did, and much more,” Adam replied as he began to carve the chicken, gesticulating dangerously with the knife as he spoke. “Lord Sorrell had to know what he was in for, especially when you act so polite and rational in front of company. I warned him while your mouth looks like Cupid’s bow, what comes out of it stings like an arrow. Then, he told me he knew you had a temper because you pulled a gun on him the first time you met.” When he saw the horrified look on his twin sister’s face, he couldn’t help but laugh. “Sadly, I wasn’t particularly shocked. What shocked me was he came back.”

Once the chicken was carved and the vegetables were passed around the table, Adam settled down, filling his mouth with food instead of heaping embarrassment upon his hapless sister. Thus far, she had been pleasantly surprised to find that her brother was happy to have her home, and looking around the house, she was stunned to find that it was actually cleaner than when she left. She had always assumed Adam was the untidy one. He prattled on about the comings and goings at his office, the financial crisis he helped to avert when he caught an error one of the other accountants had overlooked.

“You came home just in time. The last order cleared out most of the stock, but I guess all that will be coming to an end soon, won’t it?”

“Just because I’m getting married does not mean either of my businesses will suffer! I may bring on an apprentice, but I’m not stopping,” she snapped but caught herself. “Sorry, Adam. I’m already anticipating hearing that from everyone else, and I know most people won’t drop the subject like you will.”

Adam simply gave his sister a sympathetic nod and went back to his dinner and tea. Hadley studied his face as she turned a thought over in her mind while wringing her napkin beneath the table. She could picture Uta with her long, white, woven hair and the ossified pins sticking out of her mouth as she said it to her.
Maybe he doesn’t like women
. The last thing she said to her was to talk to him, and this moment of peace was as good as any, otherwise she would never have the audacity to bring it up. Her brother always was a man of infinite patience, and she hoped he would endure her impudence once more. Swallowing hard, she pushed the bits of carrot around her plate as she watched him.

“Do you still fancy Matilda?”

Adam inhaled his tea at the question, choking and wiping the moisture from his mustache. “Where did that come from? I haven’t spoken to Miss Meriwether in over a year! Anyway, she is engaged now.”

“I was just wondering what happened. I mean, when I get married, won’t you be lonely here all by yourself?”

“Matilda and I wanted different things, and I
like
being a bachelor, Hadley, you know that. I’m in no hurry to be in a relationship.”

Hadley drew in a deep breath as she struggled to ask what she lacked the words for. “Adam, are you— are you in a
Greek
relationship?”

He looked up from his plate and stared into her eyes with his blue gaze more intense than she had ever seen it. The reply shot from his lips with the hard edge of suspicion, “What are you talking about?”

“Do you— do you like men?” From across the table, she could sense his discomfort and the stiffness that suddenly seemed to permeate every cell of his body. “If you do, that is fine. I never thought I would understand it, but I do now. No one can help who they love, and even though we have had our differences in the past, I want you to know I love you no matter what you feel,” she blurted as she reached out and put her hand over his. “You are my brother, and I don’t want any secrets between us. I want you to be happy.”

For a long moment, Adam glared at her, ignoring the sorrowful sag of her sympathetic eyes and her lax mouth as she waited for his answer. After twenty-four years of hiding and denial, he never expected this moment to come. He drew in a tight breath, but his ribs and the muscles of his back fought against it. The outrage that rose from within rejected all means of smothering the fire. Finally, he tore his eyes away and sat back, whipping his hand out from under his sister’s warm grasp.

“How long have you known?”

“Not long, and you?”

“Nineteen years,” he uttered in almost a whisper, trailing off into thought. Suddenly, he turned back to her, his eyes aflame. “You can’t tell a soul.”

“Surely, you do not think Eilian would think ill—”

“I said,
no one
!” Adam slammed his hands on the table and leapt from his seat, looming over his doppelganger as his voice reached a roar she did not know could come from him. “You may
not
tell Lord Sorrell any of this!”

“But why? He does not seem fazed by it,” she replied meekly.

“You don’t understand anything, Hadley. Women handle things differently from men. When a woman hears something she doesn’t like, she will cry and grieve or shout, but she will eventually be resigned to what transpires. Men… men aren’t like that. When men hear something they don’t like and don’t trust, they react not with tears but with violence. Even a man who appears enlightened still has that side. He can’t shed his nature, Hadley. I have kept up this charade too long to have you ruin it.”

As he turned toward the door, she called for him. “Do you have so little faith in men even though you love them?”

“I have seen what they are capable of, what
I
am capable of.” Her brother’s chest heaved once again as the thought climbed up the straining cords of his neck. “I had to break Matilda Meriwether’s heart because of all this. Do you know what it is like to tell someone you will never marry them because you love another? To degrade yourself for someone else’s well-being. She thinks I’m a lout. They all do. Either I play the lout or I come clean as a sodomite. Which do you think brings us all the least pain?” A tremulous sigh escaped his lips. “If you expose me, Hadley, you will have no family left to your name.”

Before she could speak, he stormed through the halls and up the stairs, his boots ringing on the polished wood. Hadley flinched as his door slammed shut above her head, leaving her alone in the silence with only the chicken carcass for company. Never before had she realized how utterly alike they were until the tables were turned and she was on the receiving end of the Fenice temper. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she tucked her hair behind her ears as the tears burned her lids. What had she done?

Prodigal Children

“I have raised the most thoughtless, prodigal, irresponsible children!” Millicent Sorrell seethed as her boys stood before her in the parlor of her Grosvenor Square home.

Even after two decades, little about the scene had changed. Eilian and Dylan stood with their hands folded behind their backs in guilt-ridden silence, absorbing the verbal blows their mother dealt from the comfort of the sofa. They winced in unison as her voice reached an ear-piercing screech. As her rant descended into listing the grave physical effects attributed to their absences, they exchanged knowing looks. Their mother’s martyrdom was nothing new to them. Eilian glanced at his brother, who was, as always, impeccably pressed and dressed in a pristine suit of mourning black. His dark blonde hair was neatly combed and pomaded to a lustrous sheen. The archaeologist had caught a glimpse of his own poor excuse for a reflection when he first entered the house. Even after four days on the express dirigible, his face was still tinted with green and red bruises, and the high collar of his shirt and cravat barely covered the finger prints left on the delicate flesh of his neck. He had come directly from the landing fields to Grosvenor Square and felt incredibly conspicuous in his Norfolk jacket while his mother wore widow weeds so elaborate and littered with symbolism that Queen Victoria would have been envious.

“Do you know who was here to comfort me after your father passed on? The servants! Strangers! Lord and Lady Bedford and even their daughters were at my side while my
sons
were off gallivanting all over creation.”

A sniveling string of sobs broken up by shrill keening emanated from the hall, reminding Eilian of the stories of Irish banshees he had heard as a child. He couldn’t help but roll his eyes as Constance deliberately strode past the open door, dabbing her eyes with her cambric handkerchief and wailing slightly louder. Despite it only being her father-in-law who died, a man she cared less about than her lady’s maid, she had several full mourning dresses and veils made for the occasion. The Countess of Dorset clenched her jaw and rubbed her forehead in frustration as Dylan’s wife blubbered past the parlor again.

“Dylan, tell your wife her grieving widow act is not appreciated. I’m not stupid. I know she had no attachment to your father. The only reason she’s crying is because she had to cut her trip to Paris short.”

“Mother,” Dylan began with patronizing sweetness, “she has never had a death in her family. She does not know the appropriate level of grief she should display.”

“Second mourning and as much grief as she actually feels! And
you
,” she added, pointing an accusatory finger at Eilian, “your brother at least had the decency to tell me when he was leaving the country. I even had to send your uncle to fetch you. You’re lucky he was nearby. Where is Malcolm?”

“He went to the Foreign Office to pick up something.”

Millicent Sorrell drew in a deep breath, her dull, crepe dress crinkling as she exhaled loudly. “Of course he did. He can never just come home, can he?” Her eyes locked onto her eldest son’s face. “What happened to your eye?”

“I broke up a fight and was hit in the process,” he replied stiffly, thankful he didn’t have to speak very often as his ribs sparked with pain at each inhalation.

“Savages,” Dylan chided.

“Of the
English
persuasion.”

Lady Dorset smiled slightly as Eilian crossed his arms, revealing that both limbs terminated in hands but narrowed her eyes at the dark grey color of his right hand. “You are wearing your prosthesis again. It looks different.”

“I bought a new one after the party incident.”

“Well, let’s see it.”

He slowly pulled off his jacket, half from the ache in his ribs that greatly limited the range of motion in his arm and half from the fear of how she was going to react. Turning away from his mother, he unbuttoned and rolled up his sleeve nearly up to his shoulder to reveal the entirety of the prosthesis and its support brace. Dylan smirked as he followed behind his brother, eager to see their mother’s reaction to such a sight. Her eyes ran over the arm, but her smile faded as she reached his elbow.

“What have you done to yourself?” she cried as she stared at the point where flesh met metal beneath the cotton sleeve. “Is— is it attached?”

“Yes, and it is a vast improvement over the other one.”

“But the other was so natural.” Lady Dorset watched in horror as he flexed the hand, making the joints squeal to life. “This is a— a monstrosity!”

“Mother, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. You should be happy. Look, I can pick things up now.”

As he reached for her teacup on the side table, she clasped her hand over it. “Your father would be horrified by how you have mutilated yourself! What will other people think? You don’t see other people walking around with rods and springs sticking out of their arms.”

“Honestly, I couldn’t care less about what others think of me,” he yelled, surprising even himself. “What would you have me do, Mother? Would you like me to have a surgeon cut open my arm and remove it for the sake of your delicate sensibilities?”

“You had surgery without telling me!”

Dylan smiled and stifled his laughter as his mother fell back, feigning the vapors. He couldn’t have envisioned his brother’s homecoming any better. He never had to lift a finger to make Eilian look bad. As blissful thoughts of disinheritance danced through his head, he was jolted forward with a sharp smack to the back of his shoulder. Whipping around to scold the clumsy servant who hit him, Dylan met his uncle’s cold glare. Malcolm Holland was the only man who struck a twinge of fear into his heart. He could never put his finger on why, but the man was intimidating. After years without seeing him, he forgot how much he resembled Eilian, but he knew his uncle disliked him more strongly than his brother ever did. Lord Newcastle saw the boys for who they really were and let Dylan know with gestures and barbs that he was onto him.

“Did you know about this?” Lady Dorset demanded as Malcolm stood beside Eilian, who was busy clumsily fixing his sleeve with trembling fingers.

“Yes, he showed me on the dirigible. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s a marvel of modern technology. He was lucky enough to be the first to receive a moveable limb like this, and I must praise the craftsman for the ingenious design. Eilian, have you told your mother the wonderful news?”

With his uncle at his side, the anxiety that knotted his chest finally loosened, but it still didn’t feel like the best time to say anything about Hadley. “No, I haven’t been given the opportunity yet. Mother, I asked a young lady in town if she would marry me, and she accepted.”

“You’re
engaged
!” Dylan sputtered.

“To whom?”

“Neither of you know her, but she is the same woman you mentioned in your letter to Uncle Malcolm a few months ago, Mother.”

Lady Dorset drummed her fingers on the side table like an angry cat. “Have you met her family?”

“She lives with her brother, and her parents are both deceased. You can be assured she and her brother are both well-bred, upstanding people.”

“I can attest to the woman’s character. Miss Fenice is a charming, intelligent young woman, and I believe her demeanor is well suited to your son’s,” Malcolm added as his sister sat in choleric silence. “Sister, I may be wrong, but I believe the proper thing would be to invite Miss Fenice over for dinner to get better acquainted.”

“Leave her address with Barlow, and I will send her an invitation to dinner on Thursday. Is she at least British?”

“Yes, Mother,” Eilian answered, suppressing a nervous chuckle at her annoyance.

As she opened her mouth to continue her cross-examination, Lord Newcastle put his hand on Eilian’s prosthetic arm. “May I borrow your son for a while? I would like to discuss settling the estate and what he needs to know about his new responsibilities.”

The Countess of Dorset dismissed them with a wave of her hand, but as Eilian followed his uncle down the hall toward the study, Malcolm Holland stopped a few feet from Constance. As they approached, the deceptively pretty blonde tearlessly sniveled a little louder.

“Constance, is it? Obviously, no one thinks we are important enough to be introduced. I’m Lord Newcastle, your uncle-in-law.” He brought her hand to his lips. “How old are you, child?”

Her cheeks pinkened. “Twenty, my lord.”

Malcolm dropped his voice as he patted her gloved hand. “Let me give you a piece of advice, my dear. This act you are putting on is only making you look like the child you are. You are married now. It’s to time to leave the nursery games behind.”

Constance Sorrell’s face paled at the slight as she turned up her nose and crossed her arms. She would speak to her husband about this. By the time the elder earl returned from shutting the door on her prying ears, he turned to find Eilian struggling to get his jacket over his arm. Shaking his head in dismay, he easily freed the metal limb.

“Thank you for coming to my aid. I thought Mother would scream until nightfall.”

“Try not to give her so much ammunition next time. As you are aware, I stopped by the Foreign Office and found these waiting for me.” He withdrew a handful of telegraphs from his breast pocket and laid them on the mahogany desk. “I asked my secretary to keep an eye on Sir Joshua and report back to me. Apparently, he sent numerous telegraphs to London, including several to the British Museum. A man matching his description also bought a ticket for an express dirigible to Alexandria the night after we left. The messages stopped by the time the airship would have departed.”

“What does that mean exactly? What could he possibly be doing with the British Museum?”

The older man stroked his sideburns as he stared into the empty hearth deep in thought, calculating how many days it would take to reach England from Egypt. “What he wants with the museum, I haven’t the foggiest. All I know is Sir Joshua is on his way home, and in a few days you may be forced to confront him.”