Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order)

by Kristin Bailey

  “How did you come to be here?” He was still wearing the uniform of the Foundry. Dressed all in black, from the tam at his head to his high stockings, the only color in his otherwise traditional Scottish attire was his MacDonald plaid kilt. He must have come straight from the ship, but I hadn’t realized it had arrived already. The Foundry workers weren’t due in London until the oath.

  “I had some time and took the train. Oliver wanted me here for the reveal of his latest Amusement and asked Gordon to release me early. Lucinda wrote that David had volunteered to collect me, but when I arrived at the station, no one was there.” Will looked around the shop and scowled at the mess. He bent and lifted a tin soldier from the floor.

  I had always assumed that “seeing red” was nothing more than a turn of phrase, until that very moment. “David was supposed to collect you?”

  That bastard!

  “When I realized no one was coming for me, I took a cab. But when I arrived at the town house, Lady Briony informed me that you had left for here. What happened?” He looked around the ravaged gallery.

  “David proposed,” I confessed, though a second later I realized he was probably asking what had happened to the shop.

  Will straightened, and I felt the chill of the air on the back of my neck. “Should I be offering my felicitations?” His voice was cautious, but more reasoned than I had ever heard him when it came to David.

  “Only to Lucinda and Oliver. They are expecting a child. I turned David down.” I twisted my fingers. “It was quite humiliating, actually.”

  His shoulders softened. He looked at me. I couldn’t read his expression. I knew he had to be pleased that I had refused David, but that wasn’t what I saw when I looked at him. There was something much starker, much more serious in his face.

  “I hope that you didn’t refuse him for me,” he said. “I adore you, Meg, but if you have any affection for him at all, he is clearly the better match for you. He can give you things I simply cannot.”

  “Stop this.” My voice sounded sharp even to my own ears. My heart was too raw. “I cannot bear when you attempt to convince me of your terrible little worth. For your information I would not marry David, even if I had never met you, especially not after what he did tonight. And I would not marry him if he were as rich as Midas.”

  “He’s richer,” Will mumbled.

  I reached out and touched Will’s cheek, turning his face to mine. “And he can be as foolish. He believes me to be something I’m not, and I refuse to conform myself to his ideal. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.” I took a deep breath. “I have my own means, and I’m quite content with them.”

  I leaned in toward him and brushed my own kiss across his warm lips. “I am content,” I whispered.

  Will reached out and cupped my cheek, then leaned in and brushed the softest kiss across my forehead. I felt myself melting as surely as the snow clinging to his hair.

  “Your means are in a disturbing state of disrepair,” he commented. “What happened here?”

  “The man in the clockwork mask paid a visit. I wasn’t at home at the time. He left his calling card.” I sighed as I looked at the ruins. “At least he didn’t burn the place down.”

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” Will whispered with a strain in his voice.

  “I’m not safe. That is the problem.” I pulled away from him and gathered the matches so I could light the rest of the lamps. At least we didn’t have to remain in the cold and the dark. “I won’t ever be safe so long as I’m hunted.”

  Will let his gaze drop to the floor, then looked up with the steady resolve I had always admired in him. “I’ll start a fire, and we can set the shop right.”

  “Thank you for your help,” I said, hoping he could feel the depth of my sincerity.

  “I’m very glad to give it.” We both set to work. I took a lamp upstairs and changed back into a simple dress I could work in. By the time I came down the stairs, Will had a cheerful fire roaring in the fireplace, with a kettle of tea on the cast-iron stove in the kitchen.

  He had gathered up the letters and was leafing through them.

  “You kept these?” His deep brown eyes looked up at me in both confusion and wonder. “They say nothing of importance.”

  “I disagree.” I took the stack of letters and crossed the room to where the ribbon still lay on the floor. I tied the bundle and returned it to its place on the small table near the fire.

  The corners of Will’s lips tipped up in a slight smile. He rolled up his sleeves as we entered the gallery.

  We set to work. It took us most of the night, but as we restored things to order, I told about finding the Méduse. He listened intently as I recounted everything I had seen in the ledger and the possibility that the man in the mask would be traveling across the Atlantic in a matter of weeks. I confessed that my lack of resources disheartened me, but there really wasn’t much evidence that could prove my grandfather was in France.

  He could still be anywhere. We only knew that the man in the mask frequently traveled to France, but I couldn’t tell if he was traveling beyond to the rest of Europe.

  “I don’t know what I should do,” I said as I set the remainder of the cloth dolls on their shelf.

  Will looked up from repairing one of my alarm balls. “You’re right. We need to know more.”

  “We?”

  He tossed the ball to me, and I caught it and put it into my pocket. “You pulled me into this entire mess nearly a year ago. You think I don’t wish to see the end of it?” he asked.

  “I thought you were more clever than that.”

  “Not nearly clever enough, it seems.”

  I shook my head in bemusement. “I’m not willing to take a risk on so little information,” I said, looking around at the clean and restored gallery. “It would be foolish.”

  “Then we need more information.” He bent over and inspected the lock on the door, then searched through my box of tools. “This all started when you found a letter from your grandfather in Rathford’s workshop.”

  I felt a chill run down my neck. “Yes, what of it?”

  He looked up at me, and the light caught in his dark eyes. “Perhaps it is time for us to return.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “DEAR LORD, WHY DIDN’T I think of that?” I asked.

  “Because I’m the clever one.” Will flipped a hammer into the air and caught it again by the handle. “You’re good friends with Rathford’s heir, aren’t you?”

  Lord Rathford had been our former employer and an Amusementist. He had surreptitiously invented a powerful and extremely dangerous invention, and then manipulated both Will and me into opening the locks that my grandfather had used to keep him from finishing his abomination and destroying the fabric of time itself. Rathford had been the last person to contact my grandfather. Rathford must have known something.

  After Lord Rathford’s death, his estate had been inherited by one of my fellow apprentices.

  “I can write Peter a letter. He wouldn’t have any objections to our searching the workshop.” It felt as if a heavy weight had been suddenly lifted from my chest.

  “No, Peter would not.” Will’s expression took on a roguish quality, which was accentuated by the ruggedness that suited him so well in Scotland. I felt the tremor of excitement deep in my middle. He was a very attractive man, and I was completely alone with him. I had to remember to keep a wary eye on my baser nature. I now knew how impetuous it could be.

  Will hammered at the door, realigning the broken latch. Then he set to work on the frame. “Peter’s mother might have some objections to your spending time in a secret workshop alone with an unmarried Scot and her son.”

  “That’s a very good point. We can’t do much confined to the parlor while under the eye of a chaperone.” Peter’s family was forced to endure a lot of scrutiny from the Order and needed to maintain the strictest propriety to avoid scandal. “I’ll still write him. He’ll know the best way around his mother.
Would you deliver the letter to him on your way to Oliver’s town house?”

  “Of course.”

  I took a sheet of paper out of my counting desk and penned a quick letter explaining the situation to Peter, then sealed it and handed it to Will. He tucked it into his sporran.

  I stood before Will, unsure of what to do with myself. Now that the house was in order, the impropriety of being alone with him had suddenly come into stark relief.

  “You should be going,” I mumbled. The wind outside made the house creak. I didn’t want him to go, but he had already stayed most of the night, and if anyone saw him leave the shop in the morning, I would be ruined.

  Instead he took my hand and led me back to the restored parlor, where hot tea waited on the table.

  “We’ve been working all night. Let’s just take a moment,” he murmured as he took a seat.

  I found myself watching his lips. I’d be too tempted.

  Far too tempted.

  He reached out and touched my arm above the elbow. His fingers slid down the length of my forearm until they wrapped gently around my hand. He drew me in, and I was helpless to resist.

  “You can trust me, you know.” He curled his warm fingers under my tender palm and placed a chivalrous kiss on the back of my hand.

  “I fear I can’t trust myself,” I whispered. “I’m not ready for this.”

  Will’s gaze turned up beneath the dark fringe of his thick lashes. We seemed to breathe as one being, slow heavy breaths that carried the weight of the longing between us. “I understand.”

  He pulled me forward and onto the seat. I curled my body into his and rested my head over the beating of his heart. He held me and stroked my arm as we watched the fire dance in the hearth.

  If only we could stay this way forever. I had never felt so filled with contentment. Will began humming a tune. The sound resonated through his body as I kept my head close to his heart. Eventually he sang. It was the same melancholy tune he had sung to the horses when I’d entered the carriage house a year ago.

  I wanted to marry this man. I wanted a million nights like this without having to push him away, but it wasn’t our time. Not yet. Four long years where I served as an apprentice stood between us, and I wasn’t so naïve to think our lives couldn’t change in that time. As I listened to him sing, four years seemed such a terrible long time to wait.

  I didn’t know at what point I succumbed to my exhaustion and lost myself in restless dreams of heather and mountains, fire and the forge. They were misty images, fleeting through my mind. Men’s good-natured laughter, dizzying folds of plaid.

  When I finally regained a sense of my own body, I found myself lost in a heavy fog. The metallic clang of gears turning surrounded me. A man strode toward me through the mist.

  At first I didn’t know who it was, but he had a regal presence and proud, wide shoulders. He wore a naval captain’s coat that reminded me of the one I had taken from an automaton on a clockwork ship. As he emerged from the haze, I recognized him at once.

  “Papa!” I called into the darkness, and ran to him. His eyes were hidden behind dark goggles. He embraced me without saying a word. “Where were you?” I asked. He didn’t answer, his expression stony. I had to see him, to know it was really him. I lifted the goggles from his face.

  His eyes had been sewn shut like a corpse’s.

  I stumbled backward and fell into a deep dark hole. A lid closed over me with a loud boom. I pounded against the lid, kicking against the dark box, a coffin. Heavy thumps banged against the coffin from falling shovelfuls of dirt. I knew I would die, buried alive.

  I screamed as I woke, feeling confined and restricted. Suddenly I tumbled, and hit the floor hard. I was in the parlor, though the fire had gone cold in the grate. I was still dressed, and tangled in a thick blanket.

  “Goodness, Miss Whitlock. Have you hurt yourself?” Mrs. Brindle’s granddaughter, Molly, came in from the front of the shop.

  “Molly, what are you doing here? I . . . I don’t know what happened,” I stammered. I looked back up on the seat for Will, then glanced in a panic around the room, but he was nowhere in sight. A dried thistle rested near my stack of letters. Thank heaven. Suddenly the image from my dream tormented me, and I wished he were there.

  It was irrational, I knew, but I wasn’t fully awake and was still shaken.

  “Lucinda sent for me. She said there was some trouble, that someone had tried to break in. She thought you might need help setting things right, but I see you’ve already done it.” Molly reached down and helped me up. “Goodness, did you work all night? No wonder you’re so exhausted. I rekindled the fire in the stove. There’s boiled eggs with toast and tea in the kitchen.”

  “Thank you, Molly. I’ll be ready in a moment.” I took several deep breaths and tried to slow my racing heart. It took me most of the morning before I felt I had regained my composure.

  With the shop restored I was able to open to patrons in spite of the broken window. Having the shop full of customers kept me distracted until tea. Molly and I took tea in the narrow kitchen. I was too exhausted to insist on anything formal. Toast, cheese, and jam at the worn table in the corner was enough.

  “This note came for you,” Molly announced as she placed it on the table. I recognized the badger’s head of Peter’s seal at once. I quickly ripped the note open and read.

  Meet at midnight at the Lion’s Gate.

  Excellent. Hopefully I would find the answers I was searching for.

  It wasn’t until I had shut down the shop and Molly had returned home that I realized I had no way of getting to Peter’s house. It was very late and bitterly cold outside. I didn’t trust hailing a cab at so late an hour, not on my own. It simply wasn’t safe.

  I had to reach Peter’s house somehow. I didn’t have time to waste. My grandfather was out there, and Rathford had probably known where he was. I buttoned my heavy coat and secured my bonnet, then wrapped a thick shawl around myself. I wished I could hide my silhouette to avoid attention from men in the street, but I couldn’t dress myself as a man, so I had to hope that the dark and cold would keep most people off the streets between the toy shop and St. James.

  I decided to take a chance.

  With my keys in hand I pushed through the door and turned to lock it. A hand grasped my shoulder.

  I spun and screamed at the man behind me.

  “Easy, Meg. It’s me.” Will stood there, though he looked much less Scottish without his kilt. Instead he wore simple dark trousers and a heavy coat.

  “Oh, thank heaven.” I embraced him, then quickly locked the door. “Scare me like that again, and—”

  “And you’ll what?” Will smiled, full of mischief.

  “Never you mind. Trust that my revenge would be swift and horrible.” I cuffed him on the shoulder. “Did Peter send you a note as well?”

  “Of course,” Will said as we started off down the street. During the day the wide avenues and shop fronts had been bustling with people and the spirit of holiday cheer. Now that the deep part of the long winter night had settled over Mayfair, the cheer was gone, and a sense of desolation and cold misery set in that the holidays could not quell. Will stepped closer to my side. “I had intended to visit the shop so we could make a plan, but Lucinda mentioned she had sent Molly to help you, and I didn’t want to rouse any suspicion.”

  I let out a breath that turned to mist and curled around my face. “I’m glad you’re here now,” I said as I wove his fingers with mine.

  A bony old horse with a low-hanging neck and a deeply swayed back pulled a knacker cart. The driver looked equally bent as he listlessly snapped the reins and the horse plodded forward with weary steps that rang against the street. The image from my dream still haunted me. Over the course of the last year, I’d found myself in danger more times than I could count. Will had almost lost his life on several occasions, and the thought had the power to stop my heart cold. A year ago I hadn’t thought of the consequences. Now they
invaded my mind even in sleep.

  And in spite of all that, I was still glad he was with me.

  As we entered St. James, we walked beneath the tall London plane trees, with their branches dusted in a fine white snow. Occasionally the muddled conversation of a holiday party would escape the confines of the elegant homes with their high garden walls, and reach the street.

  Finally we arrived at a large townhome surrounded by a thick stone wall. On either side of the gate stood bronze lions with glistening black eyes. One lion peered at the street, the other watched the courtyard. I knew of the device within Rathford’s workshop that allowed him to see through the eyes of the lions. Perhaps Peter was watching for us. I waved at the statue facing the street, but the house remained quiet and still. Peter had told me he had intended to tinker with the lions to increase their function as a security device. Perhaps he could hear us now.

  “Peter?” I called. “Are you there?”

  The lions remained motionless.

  “Now what?” Will asked, gazing in through the wrought iron gate.

  “We could always scale the wall,” I suggested, even though it would be nearly impossible for me in my dress.

  “And contend with those spikes? We’re not desperate yet.”

  And so we waited, and we waited, but time kept slipping by, leaving us shivering in the cold, and there was no sign of Peter. “What time is it?” I asked Will through clenched teeth to keep them from chattering.

  He glanced at a pocket watch. “A quarter past one. Something must have happened.”

  “Well, I refuse to stand out here like a frozen ninny any longer.” I inspected the gate. It was locked. We’d have to climb. “Give me a lift up.” I found purchase on the foot of a lion, then climbed up onto his knee and found a handhold on a curl of mane behind his ear. If I went over the masonry of the wall closest to his shoulders, I could avoid the black iron spikes along the top of the stone. I didn’t wish to get a hem of my skirts caught on one of them.