“Oh no, my dear,” the woman said, dismayed. “It sounds as though you’ve had your world turned upside down.”
At that, Nellie told her the whole sad story, starting from her days with her parents and brothers and sisters in Dublin, down to Kildare to the prince though she didn’t name names, across the water to England. The lady—“Call me Mrs. O’Connor, my dear,” she said—patted Nellie’s hand after the tale was told. “You’ve had quite an adventure. Yet here you are, starting on your next. Did you by chance attend a certain party before Christmas, during which you met an Irishman? A Dr. O’Connor?”
“I—yes,” Nellie said, staring at the lady. “I did.” She shook her head. “How did you know, ma’am?”
Mrs. O’Connor smiled. “He is my husband, my dear. And he came home telling me about a certain young Irishwoman he met that night, so far from home.”
Nellie took a deep breath, recalling that night, mere days before her world went topsy-turvy again. “It seems like a long time ago,” she said wistfully. She felt something on her neck, and discovered it was Mrs. O’Connor’s handkerchief, bathed in the scent that had drawn her so powerfully. She took another deep breath before folding it carefully and handing it to the other woman. “Thank you for your concern,” she said.
But Mrs. O’Connor didn’t take it, instead looking at her with a shrewd expression. “Are you happy here, child?” she asked.
Nellie’s breath caught and she blinked. She wasn’t sure what she should say. Would the lady, as kind as she seemed, report back to the owners of the hotel? How happy could she be? She was constantly starving and she was constantly tired, and she wasn’t sure from day to day if she was going to be thrown out on her ear, she was so tired and accident-prone. “I’m grateful for the job,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I had nothing, and now, I have a chance to start over.”
Mrs. O’Connor laughed. “What careful words, child. You’ve learned well. If you are not, you see, I have a proposal to make. Come with me,” she suggested. “My husband has many plans in the making, and I know he saw something in you. He would be happy to see you again, I think.”
Nellie stared at her, blinking hard. “Ma’am?”
Her eyes were growing wet again, curse it. Did she have any pride left? Then she felt a single tear coursing down her cheek, and she had to admit that she did not.
“Oh, child. You’ll have enough to eat and enough sleep, and you can put this part of your life behind you. I need a companion as Dr. O’Connor and I travel around the Continent, and it sounds like you’ve enough savvy to adjust to the situation.”
“The Continent? Europe, ma’am? But Bertie—” she stopped.
The nickname for the prince had Mrs. O’Connor staring at her. “As in the Queen’s eldest son? Is that who your protector was? The father of your babe?”
Pink-faced, Nellie nodded, unable to meet the woman in the eye. For the first time in a very long time, she felt embarrassed.
“Oh, child, what a turmoil your life has been! Poor thing,” Mrs. O’Connor said. Her expression hardened. “The English cannot be trusted. Come with me and leave that dullard behind.”
Nellie nodded, unable to trust herself to speak.
Mrs. O’Connor smiled and patted her cheek. “We’re going to be great friends, you and I, Nellie,” she said. “You are going to be the pride of Paris without selling yourself.”
The next few hours melted away in a haze. The housekeeper refused to believe Nellie when she came down with her duties unfinished and told her that she was leaving her position that day. It was only after some shouting and Mrs. O’Connor confirming the news that Nellie was allowed to gather her few belongings.
There wasn’t much. In fact, after she changed out of her uniform in favor of her worn lavender gown that she realized that she had nothing except—
The shawl, once warm and rich and bright red with the detailed embroidery, was a step away from being in tatters. But for this short period in time, it had been her talisman of a better life, the prettiest, most luxurious thing she had ever had. No more.
The housekeeper hadn’t been mean or cruel to her. Considering the circumstances, she had been decent. And because of her, Nellie hadn’t had to whore herself again.
Carefully, Nellie folded the shawl, tucking in the tiny wisps of thread that had bowed out as best she could. She found some brown paper and wrapped the shawl in it and left it on the corner of the kitchen table as she left, attached with a little note.
“Ready, my dear? We’re going to have to find you some new dresses, aren’t we,” Mrs. O’Connor said with a glance at the only dress that Nellie had to her name. “Some traveling suits, I think. And a good meal.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nellie said. And without a turn for one last look, she stepped forward, following Mrs. O’Connor. Her life was starting over, and she had the world to look forward to.
For her revenge, though—that was something different altogether. She was Irish. She was patient, she could wait. For years, if necessary. But revenge would come.
The End
About The Authors
Heather Hiestand was born in Illinois but her family migrated west before she started school. Since then she has claimed Washington State for home, except for a few years in California. She wrote her first story at age seven and went on to major in creative writing at the University of Washington. Her first published fiction was a mystery short story, but since then romance has been her focus, with forays into speculative fiction. That first published romance short story was set in the Victorian period and she continues to return, fascinated by the rapid changes of the nineteenth century. The author of many novels, novellas and short stories, she has achieved bestseller status on Amazon’s Romance Anthologies and Historical Romance lists and on Amazon UK’s Romance Short Stories list. At Barnes & Noble, she is a top 140 seller. With her husband and son, she makes her home in a small town and supposedly works out of her tiny office, though she mostly writes in her easy chair in the living room.
For more information, see her website at http://www.heatherhiestand.com. Heather loves to hear from readers! Her email is [email protected]. She spends too much time on Twitter where she is @hahiestand.
Eilis Flynn has worked at a comic book company, a couple of Wall Street brokerage firms, a wire service, a publishing company for financial cultists, and a magazine for futurists. She’s also dined with a former British prime minister and a famous economist, can claim family ties to the emperor of Japan (but then can’t we all?) and the president of a major telecommunications company, worked at most of the buildings of the World Trade Centers, stalked actress Katharine Hepburn (for one block), and met her husband when he asked her to sign a comic book. With all these experiences (all of which are true!), what else could she do but start writing stories to make use of all that? She’s written a variety of things that also don’t seem to belong together, but they do: comic book stories both online and in print, scholarly works in a previous life as a scholar, book reviews and interviews, and articles about finance (at odds with her anthropology background), before settling down to write romantic fantasies about the reality beyond what we can see.
Eilis lives in verdant Washington state with her equally fantastical husband and the ghosts of spoiled rotten cats. She was written Superman family stories for DC Comics (as Elizabeth Smith). Her novels are available at most online retailers, and her novella, Riddle of Ryu, is available at the same digital stores. Her latest comic book story, “30-Day Guarantee,” is available at http://www.myromancestory.com.
If you’re curious to find out more, you can check out http://www.eilisflynn.com. She can be reached at [email protected]. If you’re looking for a professional editor for your own work, check out her rates at http://emsflynn.wordpress.com.
More Stories
By Heather Hiestand
Anthologies:
“The Burro” in Murder Across the Map
“Victoriana” i
n Holiday in the Heart
Looking Forward, Looking Back and Other Stories
“The Bachelor” in Cupid Gone Wild
Novellas:
Victoriana Adventure
Steampunk Smugglers 1: Captain Andrew’s Flying Christmas
Steampunk Smugglers 2: Captain Fenna’s Dirigible Valentine
Steampunk Smugglers 3: Captain Gravenor’s Airship Equinox
Novels:
Cards Never Lie
One Juror Down
Gunshot Grange
Two on the Hunt
In Flight
Wear Black (with Eilis Flynn)
The Marquess of Cake
One Taste of Scandal
His Wicked Smile (2014)
By Eilis Flynn
Novels
The Sleeper Awakes
Festival of Stars
Introducing Sonika
Echoes of Passion
Static Shock
Wear Black (with Heather Hiestand)
Caprice
Novellas
Riddle of Ryu
Short Stories
“Dancing in Red” (with Heather Hiestand)
“Halloween for a Heroine” (a Sonika short)
Graphic Novellas
“30-Day Guarantee”
Comic Stories (as Elizabeth Smith)
“The Weak Link”
“One of Those Days”
“Hero for a Day”
“Two-Edged Sword”
Wear Black, a novel, is available now in electronic and in print forms
DEATH DID NOT END HIS SERVICE TO THE BRITISH EMPIRE
Beneath Windsor Castle, a shadow network of immortals keeps the British Empire safe. Army captain Lucas Fitzrobbins becomes one of them when the cure for his mortal wound turns out to be a vampirism potion. He is abruptly inducted into the secret St. George Protector Society…and it’s not long before the Society’s newest recruit discovers it has dark mysteries as well…
MARKED AS A TARGET
Hampering Lucas’s efforts to adjust to his after-life is An Tighearn operative Nellie Clifton, a beautiful and enigmatic assassin, who has marked Lucas as her latest quarry. But then…
SECRETS ARE THREATENED TO BE REVEALED
A brutal killer stalks the seamy underside of London. Protectors and assassins alike must leave the shadows to find the fiend before their existence is revealed to the world. Tasked with the job of tracking down the murderer, Lucas discovers that the crazed butcher may have connections that go to the heart of the British Empire. One thing is certain:
THE QUEEN MUST NEVER KNOW
Seven Seconds, the second Wear Black novel, is coming soon
In Which Details Do Not Add Up
The machine’s sword slashed through the air, forcing Lucas Dudley to leap out of its way. He landed three feet south, on one of the marble half-walls of the alcove, his boots sliding on the slick surface. The automaton projecting the image of the assassin Nellie Clifton offered intense, dangerous battle to anyone who chose to try it, but Lucas didn’t want to be the first vampire to break his neck while avoiding its weapon. He jumped, somersaulting smoothly, landing with his sword on guard.
Jumping when the Nellie-ton thrust low, he dropped his sword when he grabbed for the overhead lamps. The brass and iron machine continued to jab in his direction, even without an opponent in front of it. Steam gushed with every hissing thrust of the pistons controlling its arms.
Right then, Williams walked into the alcove and stopped to stare at Lucas’s dangling feet. When Lucas had first been introduced to the big russet-haired inventor, Williams had seemed the dourest soul he’d ever met.
He’d been wrong.
Williams laughed heartily, blood-red tears running down his cheeks. “I take it the automaton is winning,” he said. “Fortunately, the real Nellie Clifton is either less effective or has a soft spot in her heart for you, because otherwise you would be quite dead by now.”
With a flip of a switch and a tap on the automaton’s back, Williams stopped the Nellie-ton, the gears within the machine easing down.
Shaking his head, Lucas dropped to the floor, his boots momentarily sinking out of sight beneath the steam cloud. “Thank you,” he said, chagrined. “I don’t know why the usual shutoff didn’t work for me. I thought I’d give it a go—”
“Fotheringay didn’t build it for a simple demonstration, you know,” Williams, who was the Society’s technology and weapons master, reminded him. “Of course, he also rejiggered it a few days ago. It runs faster now and adapts better to its opponent. The chap is a genius. Don’t know what he changed.”
“I doubt he’s of a mind to enlighten us at the moment.” Lucas picked up his sword and sheathed it in the cane scabbard all Society protectors used to disguise their primary weapon. Charles Fotheringay was sitting in a Society cell in the dungeon.
“No,” Williams said. “Not without persuasion.”
Lucas winced as he wiped blood-sweat from his forehead. The Society’s interrogations were intense. “He tried to kill me, committed treason. Still I can’t help but feel sorry for him.”
“Don’t,” Williams said, pushing a lever on the back of the Nellie-ton. Wheels appeared at its base and he tilted it back.
The two vampires left the alcove and heading toward the science labs. “Fotheringay knew what he was doing. He had been working to betray the Society for decades. You just stopped him before he could put his plans into motion. The theft of the Hohenzollern crown was only the beginning.”
“I can’t find the device he’d intended to plant in it, though,” Lucas admitted, glancing through an open door into the lab that had been Charles Fotheringay’s domain. “We have been searching for days.”
The large, gaping hole in the wall, where the treacherous scientist had secreted the stolen crown, leered like a madman’s grin. The hidden room had also been where Fotheringay had been living, as close to his beloved technology and science as he could. “He wanted to use a mesmerism device in the crown to control the Kaiser, but he couldn’t miniaturize it. It’s not here, though.”
“Maybe he was lying,” Williams said as he wheeled the Nellie-ton into the corner.
“About the device or where he hid it?” Lucas asked. “Of course, there’s a lot there we have to sift through yet, and we don’t know what it looks like, either.”
The lab was still being picked apart, piece by piece, by the St. George Society technicians and scientists, and would be for some time. But Fotheringay had been working on his plans in that lab for decades, and a great deal awaited closer examination. What else could be hidden there, and why?
Williams rubbed his jaw. “This is Fotheringay we’re talking about. If it exists, it will be in the last place we’d expect. I’ve known him for many a year, Dudley. We can’t underestimate him. Right now I’m taking control of all his devices so I can give them a thorough look.”
Something occurred to Lucas. “Maybe the device exists, but it’s not in the shadow castle.”
“Maybe he had a partner. Consider that, old man.”
“I have,” Lucas said, shaking his head. “I’ve only been with the Society a few months, but I’m living proof that some of the Society members have interests outside of our cause.”
Lucas, then Baron Fitzrobbins, had been in London planning his wedding only a few months before when he was killed by a footpad seemingly intent on robbing a lady. He was given a potion that restored him to life…rather, an afterlife, as a science-created vampire.
He learned His Royal Highness Prince Albert, the late consort of Queen Victoria, was inadvertently killed and brought back to life by his cousin. Henry Coburg had hoped to cure the prince of his fatal illness. He had only partly succeeded, however, because he’d made Prince Albert a vampire—and the prince could never inform the Queen that he still lived, albeit in altered form.
Thus was the St. George Society created. In the nearly three decades since, Albert had kept a close eye
on his beloved family, knowing he could never communicate with them again. The society grew as the potion was offered to royals, scientists, visionaries—everyone who could aid the organization in protecting the empire, and the Queen, from underworld threats.
“There’s more,” Williams warned him. “The Society’s like a maze. There’s always something around the corner you don’t expect. It still surprises me, after all this time.”
“Nothing simple or straightforward,” Lucas said with a sigh. “It is times like these that I miss the army.”
“It’s times like these I’m glad I’m here and not in the army,” Williams said, with a flash of a grin. “Simple and straightforward can be boring after a while, Dudley. A little mystery does wonders. Gives you a reason to wake up every day. Or every night, depending on your preference.”
“I can think of better reasons,” Lucas said. One last glance around the lab, and a glance into what remained of the hidden room, and he was ready to move onto other priorities.
He didn’t think Williams would notice he left. The transporting device Fotheringay had claimed he was working on lay in pieces on the work table now, and Williams stared at it as though the box-shaped machine was his entire world.
That had to be nice, Lucas mused as he let himself out. The world was a simpler place for those like Williams, in which Science was all.
Lucas had had an eventful year, one that had radically changed his own world view. First his brother had died, forcing Lucas to leave the army to take up his title. Soon thereafter, he himself had died. Now, he served a calling other than the army, though he still served the British empire. But he wasn’t always sure what was best to do on a daily basis.
Dancing in Red (a Wear Black novella) Page 5