A thought crossed my mind, briefly, that the distraction was Father’s intention. Could he be hoping that I would become so preoccupied by Mr Price that I would forget my work and devote myself to a life of childrearing and wedded bliss instead? As soon as the thought entered my head I discarded it. Mr Price was not a handsome man by conventional standards, so Father could not have known that I would be so affected. He was also a servant. However desperate my father became, he would not wish to see me wed to a man who was well below my station.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts and quickly undid my corset. Once my chest and waist were free to move naturally, I took up my spanner and got down on my knees. The screws at the base of the engine had become loose.
While I tightened the screws, I convinced myself that while Mr Price had an interesting face he was by no means attractive. I just enjoyed looking at people who weren’t quite the same as everyone else. My reaction to him would have been the same if I were viewing an unusual painting, or a vase so ugly that one couldn’t help but stare at it. While I worked on the pistons, I convinced myself that Mr Price’s presence would be an awful nuisance – especially if he got it into his head that he could enter my attic whenever he pleased. His amusement at the potential dangers of carbon monoxide gas only proved that he did not belong anywhere near a lab. What if he came in while I was working and suffocated? Father would be furious if I killed my new manservant!
By the time someone knocked on my door again, I had worked myself into quite a mess. I’d abandoned my spanner and unfinished steam engine, and I was pacing around my various workbenches with a hot sense of dread building up in my chest. I couldn’t let Mr Price ruin my concentration. Without it, I would have nothing to distract me from the gaping ache in my chest which always pained me when my mind was left idle. My mother used to tell me that a broken heart could kill a grown man as easily as the plague. She hadn’t mentioned what a broken heart could do to a little girl, or what agonies I would endure when the consumption took her.
She used to hate the way I tinkered. She’d wanted me to be a proper lady dressed in frills and skirts, with nothing in my head beyond the latest fashions. She used to pet my curls and call me ‘dear one’ in a warm, comforting voice. When she died, I’d taken apart my father’s gramophone in a fit of heartbreak, and then I’d put it back together again. It had given me a strange sort of comfort to repair a broken instrument. It made me feel as though my own heart could be repaired, if only I could find the right tools. I hadn’t, yet. But I had repaired a great many other things.
“Enter!” I called when a second knock pulled me out of my thoughts.
Mr Price entered. I wanted to seize my spanner and smash his distractingly intriguing face. Instead, I smiled pleasantly at him.
He dropped his gaze to the floor and said: “Mr Lapointe is ready to leave, Miss.” His cheeks were flushed red. “Perhaps you would like to see him off?”
I wondered for a moment why he was so embarrassed. Then I realised that my corset was still undone.
“One moment, please.”
I took some pleasure in seeing him blush as I turned to fix my corset. I knew that I was no great beauty, but I was pretty enough in my own way. It was nice to know that a man appreciated my figure even though I had no intention of marrying. I’d often wondered what it would be like to enjoy a man’s company without the prospect of marriage to hold me back. That was, of course, a fantasy which would never come true.
When I was presentable, I turned back to Mr Price and found him staring resolutely at the ground. Well, I thought, I must call him a gentleman at the very least.
“Thank you for coming to fetch me,” I said. “I am afraid that I tend to lose track of the time when I am working.”
Mr Price nodded and finally looked up into my face. I pursed my lips to stop myself from smiling at his expression, following him out of the attic and allowing him to lead me down the rickety stairs to the drawing room. His cane clicked gently on the floor beside him.
While Father had allowed the attic to fall into disrepair before I had claimed it as my own, the rest of the house was dripping with wealth. There were tapestries in every hallway, marble statues adorning the entrance hall, and portraits of self-important men – and the occasional woman – in every room. Father made it a point to show each visitor into the drawing room himself so that he could admire their expressions as they took in the massive bookshelves and unreasonably large fireplace.
He stood at the fireplace with his elbow resting on the shelf above it, posing as though for a portrait painter. The room smelt of old paper and leather when Mr Price and I entered.
“Thank you, Edmund,” Father said imperiously. “You are dismissed.” Mr Price bowed shortly and left the room. Father watched him go with a critical eye before turning to me. “I think he will prove quite useful,” he said.
“To whom?” I replied.
The black curtain in the corner of the room fluttered, drawing my attention despite all of my effort. There was a portrait beneath that curtain my father refused to look at, but refused to take down. I had not laid eyes on it since I was seven years old. Every time I saw that curtain, it made me want to rush up to my attic and throw myself into my work. Before the memories consumed me.
Father ignored the question. “Will you promise to leave the house at least once while I am gone? And no –” He added when he saw me about to answer, “going outside to play in the garden does not count.”
I do not play, I wanted to tell him. I collect specimens. But it was no good explaining that to him. No doubt he’d left strict instructions for Mr Price to see that I did as I was told. I reminded myself that he would be gone for at least three months, so there would be plenty of time for me to work and still fulfil his wishes.
“Of course, Father,” I replied. “I promise.”
Father nodded approvingly and stepped forward to kiss me lightly on the forehead. He was a good father, I thought as I smiled at him. Indulgent. I could only have imagined how my hobbies would have been strangled if I had been born to any other man. I walked my father to the door where his dottering manservant Jenkins was waiting, looking as though a strong breeze would be enough to end him. Mr Price stood next to him, looking a great deal more virile and dependable by comparison.
“Have a lovely trip, Father,” I said, letting him kiss me on the forehead again as he walked out the door to the cab waiting in our driveway.
Chapter Three
The weeks passed, and Edmund Price’s presence in the manor had become almost unbearable. He did not disturb my attic except to gently remind me to eat and sleep. I found myself watching the door out of the corner of my eye – waiting for him to come and grace me with a crooked smile and an amused eyebrow. It should have been illegal for a man to be so distracting. Did he not know that I had serious work to do?
Where once I would wake up each morning brimming with ideas for automatic pistols or steam-powered lamps, now I would wake up covered in sweat, my lower belly twisted with desire, with Mr Price’s face seared into the backs of my eyelids. I spent more time daydreaming about ways to modify his cane – for self-defence or utility, for I had noticed that he liked to putter in the garden and may have appreciated a cane with a spade attachment. I would sometimes watch him out of the attic window when I was letting the carbon monoxide out of the room. His strong back would bend over the garden beds and I would become lost in the lines of his breeches before forcing myself to concentrate on my work again. I wondered how such a young, physical man could find himself in need of a cane.
Mr Price would enter my attic three times a day; luncheon, supper, and bed time. Other than that, he left me alone. I hated that I found it annoying that he was not disturbing my attic nearly as often as I’d feared that he would. Some days, he would linger to observe the half-finished inventions which littered my workbenches, or watch me putter around the steam engine which still refused to work.
One afternoon, three
weeks into his employment, he came to inform me that supper was ready. Instead of leaving the attic, I invited him inside.
I do not know what possessed me to do it. A half-formed thought in the back of my mind told me that he would be less fascinating if I got to know him better – that my attraction was purely physical and that there would be less to interest me once I knew for certain that he was a dullard.
“I confess, I do not have a mind for machines,” he said, gazing around the room with keen interest that made my heart twist in a worryingly pleasant way. “I prefer growing things.”
“I know,” I replied before I could stop myself.
“You know?” he asked, and there was his amused eyebrow again.
I thought about lying, then decided that I had nothing to hide. He was, after all, in my employ. I had a right to know what my manservant did in his spare time. “I have seen you outside,” I said, pointing at my window.
“Ah, I see,” he replied. Mr Price’s eyes turned towards my steam engine, which was still stubbornly refusing to cooperate with me. “What does that do?” he asked.
“It is a steam-powered engine,” I replied. “It burns oil to produce steam.”
“Is that what made the poisonous gases?” he asked.
I nodded at him. “Yes, I’m still having trouble with that,” I said, frowning slightly. “I can get the pistons to turn when I build up enough steam. What I need is a way to keep the power going without killing myself in the process.”
“Is it the fuel?” Mr Price asked, bending at the waist to examine the oil tank strapped to the bottom of the engine.
I admired the line of his breeches for a moment before I realised what he had said. “What do you mean?”
“It’s like when you’re cooking bread, isn’t it?” he said. “Different fuels in the fire will make the bread sweeter. Oak brickets taste much better than pine,”
“I did not know that you were a cook.”
He shrugged. “I am a manservant, Miss Lapointe,” he replied. “I can be anything you need me to be.”
I thought about commanding him to kiss me and felt a flush rise up in my cheeks. Surely he hadn’t meant that. He looked up from the steam engine and caught my eye, and there was a slight curve of mischief around his smile.
“I might take you up on that someday,” I said, trying to hide my discomfort with bravado. His smile grew wider. “In any case, I have tried different oils and they’ve all had the same result.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose it would work with charcoal?” he said. “Or just, plain coal?”
“Oh, that wouldn’t –”
Then I stopped myself. I’d never even considered using a completely different type of fuel. Exchanging the oil for coal would fix the carbon monoxide problem and it would burn slower – which would keep the pistons working without my having to keep restarting them manually.
“Oh,” I said softly.
“Oh?” Mr Price asked.
“Oh!”
I rushed over to my workbench and sketched out a new fuel container – one which did not need to be airtight and isolated. I fell into an almost hypnotic state. Nothing mattered except the pencil and paper before me. After weeks of failing to concentrate on anything, the process was exhilarating. When I finally looked up again, I was surprised to see the sun had set in my window.
Mr Price was sitting at one of my workbenches, fiddling with the glass bulb which used to house one of my indoor-illumination globes.
“I suppose you’ve got a brilliant observation for that as well?” I asked, suddenly feeling lighter than air. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck and kiss him, but I thought that might be overstepping some boundaries.
Mr Price looked up from the globe and smiled. “How did you go?”
“I think you might have saved my invention,” I said. “You said you do not have a mind for machines.”
“I do not,” he replied. “Just cooking. Speaking of cooking, I’m afraid you might have missed supper.” He set the globe down and stood up to stretch his back. I watched his body arc and my mind turned in an obscene direction.
“My father won’t thank you for that,” I replied. “You’re supposed to keep me on schedule.”
“I did not want to interrupt,” he replied, gesturing to the work bench where my rough blue print sat waiting to be turned into a physical object. “I do not think I’ve ever seen you so happy.”
I tried to suppress the smile curling around my mouth, but I failed.
A flash in the corner of my vision made me turn. Something had lit up outside of my window.
“What on earth –” Mr Price began.
Then the light grew impossibly bright, and before either of us could move there was an almighty crash and a blast which knocked me off of my feet and into the wall.
My breath was knocked clean out of my chest. My ears rang but I could hear, as though through a long tunnel, the sound of Mr Price shouting and then a solid thud as if he too had been thrown into a solid wall. The attic window had been completely obliterated. Glass and brick dust was scattered around my pristine workstations, and there was a hard wind blowing in from the gaping hole in the wall. Outside, I could hear the chop, chop, chop of propellers.
I tried to push myself off of the floor, but my legs shook too badly for me to move. There was a shuffling to my left as Mr Price tried and failed to stand. He lay crumpled against the wall like a ragdoll cast aside by an impetuous toddler.
Screams from downstairs. The maids! I desperately hoped that none of them had been injured in the blast. I crawled over to Mr Price, feeling my dress rip on some glass, and laid my hand gently on his. “Mr Price?” I asked. “Edmund? Can you hear me?” My own ears still rung with the force of the blast.
He looked at me with dazed eyes. “You’re quite beautiful,” he said. His voice was slurred as though he were drunk, and a dribble of blood oozed down his face. “Did you know?”
“I did not,” I replied. I would have been more flattered by his words if he were not clearly delirious with shock. His cane lay broken in the rubble beside him. I ran my hand over his face and tried to assess the damage.
“You’re like a bird,” he said, his voice still slurring as the blood trickled slowly down his temple. “A beautiful bird locked up in your cage. Do you sing?”
“Not if I can help it,” I replied, only half listening.
There was a scuffle at the window and I turned to see two figures standing in the hole there. Their silhouettes were corseted and plump. I watched as they swung through the gaping hole the explosion had left in my home, landing nimbly on the wooden floor. Their skirts fluttered around their boots as they surveyed my attic.
“Get the device,” one of them said to the other. Her voice – for she was most certainly a woman – was deep and echoed through the room. Both of their faces were obscured by dark scarves, and they wore tool belts which were packed with odd gadgets.
The other woman nodded. Outside the window, a spotlight illuminated my steam engine prototype. She went straight for it.
“Hey!” I shouted. I used the wall to hoist myself up and stumbled forwards. I did not know what they intended to do with my engine, but I knew that I needed to protect it.
The first woman, the one who had spoken, stepped forward and raised a pistol at my face. I froze several feet away from her. I could see wires curled around the barrel and for a moment I forgot that they had blown apart my house – I even forgot that I was being threatened – because all I could think was: what do those wires do?
“What do those wires do?” I asked, because my curiosity had held up in the shock of that night’s events despite everything.
I could not see the woman’s lips, but I could see her cruel eyes which turned up as if she were smiling. “Come a little bit closer and find out.”
“Don’t –” Mr Price had pushed himself into a standing position as well. He leaned heavily against the wall.
I kep
t my eyes fixed on the woman with the gun, my hand twitching towards my tool belt where I knew there was a spanner and screwdriver I could use as a weapon. If only I knew that I could strike without getting shot in the process.
The woman cocked her head, apparently listening to something – though I couldn’t know what. The other one gathered all of the papers on my workbench and stuffed them into a satchel at her hip. I bit my tongue to keep my fury in check, acutely aware that there was a gun still aimed at my forehead. The woman holding the gun nodded to some unseen voice and then lowered her weapon.
“She’s coming,” she said to the other woman. “Get everything inflammatory onto the ship.”
The chop, chop, chop of propellers grew louder, and suddenly a gust of wind blew through the hole in the wall. A massive, grey flying machine rose into the gap. I gaped at it. It was so much more extravagant than any of the hot air balloons I’d seen in the papers. I could see the blur of the propellers and the ropes tying the balloon to a glass compartment at the bottom. Its conical shape seemed designed to cut through the air like a hot knife through buttered toast.
“Well bugger me,” Edmund gasped, staring at the machine with wide eyes.
“My thoughts exactly,” I whispered back.
A lone figure in full skirts stepped out of a glass boat and swung over to the hole in my attic wall. She landed with a soft thud, like an angel of mercy descending to smite the wicked. Her white dress glowed in the spotlight. For a moment, I could not make out her face – which was bare and unadorned. Finally, the spotlight shifted and I could see her.
I recognised her long black hair, her ears, and her nose. I saw them in the mirror every day. My knees nearly buckled when I recognised the face I hadn’t seen since my seventh birthday, when my father closed the curtains on her portrait for the last time.
“Mother?”
BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: The Unforgettable Southern Billionaires: The Complete Collection Boxed Set (Young Adult Rich Alpha Male Billionaire Romance) Page 95