“So what do you say, Miss McTavish? Will you do me the honor of becoming Lady Scott?”
“I’m afraid not,” Iris said. “I have my own plans, and I cannot consider marrying you until my father returns.” Which is to say, never.
“Oh.” The curves of his face rearranged themselves into a fleshy frown. “I thought, being one of those rare, logic-minded women, you would be excited for the ability to help your husband with research.”
“Well, we logic-minded women do tend to think for ourselves,” Iris told him. She stood, and he hesitated and looked with regret at his half-full plate. Finally he set it aside and rose.
“Are you sure you will not reconsider? As I said, I can offer you a small fortune as well.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more convincing than that,” she said. “Sophie will let you out.”
“This will not be our last discussion about this,” he said.
Iris lifted her chin. “If my father returns and gives you his blessing, I will marry you without a word of protest.” With that, she swept out of the room and up the stairs. She heard him finish his teatime snacks before leaving.
That evening after she, Sophie and Cook had enjoyed a light meal—there was no other kind at the moment—Iris went into her father’s study to see what she needed to bring with her. She and Sophie had packed most of what he’d had in his university office and had it delivered to the house, and the boxes stood under the windows, in chairs, and anywhere else they fit.
If nothing else, we can burn old papers for heat this winter. Not that Iris could stand the thought of burning her father’s papers, whether he wrote them or if he’d saved them for some reason. Or selling off his prized artifacts. She walked to the shelves and ran her finger over a stone bowl held on either side by strange little beasts, possibly lions. The features of their faces had softened into vague curves, but they held some sense of their former ferocity. She cleared her mind and focused on it. Old things tended to have a fog around them because of all the people who had touched them, and although the most recent contact came through the clearest, she liked impressions from the past the best. Sometimes she got images of life long ago showing how the object was used—this one was for a ceremony in a dark, smoky temple—or what the object once had been, in the case of potsherds and fragments. Although they’d never talked directly about it, Iris suspected she and her father shared the talent. Otherwise, how could he have made such brilliant deductions that proved true every single time based on so little initial information?
What needs to come with me? She didn’t expect the objects to move by some sort of magical force, but nothing suggested itself to her with a nudge. No, wait, that wasn’t quite right. Something called to her. It wasn’t a sound, although it pressed on her ears in waves, like the ripples on the water after a stone is thrown into a pond. The sensation danced across her mind with the delicacy of a feather and the ponderous insistence of a funeral bell.
Iris turned to her left to a shelf between the windows. She didn’t expect anything important to be there. Common sense said that the most significant items would be on or within easy reach of the desk, but she found a lump of black rock. Her father had talked about volcanic stones found at sites where no volcano had been because ancient peoples believed them of divine origin and carted them there. She picked it up and dropped it when a jolt of panic made her stifle a scream.
Danger, danger, danger!
She sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around her stomach, rocking to keep from sobbing out loud and bringing Cook or Sophie to her side. What would she say? That a rock made her cry?
There is something very wrong with that thing. She gulped a few deep breaths to clear the stifling sense of threat and doom around the rock, and her rational mind reasserted itself. Why did he have it in here?
She picked it up again, this time attempting to block the sensations, and brought it over to the desk, where she could examine it in the lamplight. A lump of dull, black stone with striations over the surface regular enough to have been carved by ancient hands, it felt less dense than a stone that size should feel, and she guessed it might be hollow. She remembered accompanying her father to a lecture he’d given with one of his geological colleagues on such stones. The volcano eggs, as they were called, had crystals in the middle of them, which led to legends of them having been the eggs of dragons or other mythical creatures.
The object seemed to warm to her touch, and Iris put it on the desk and flexed her fingers to clear the sense of dread it inspired. Why would it put forth emotions without giving any images or thoughts? Could it be blocking something inside? She reached for it, then drew her hand back. I can’t do this right now.
She lit all the lamps in the office and told herself she needed the light to see, not to dispel the eerie feeling of impending threat the volcano egg gave her. She piled books and objects on the desk, attempting to figure out what she needed, but she found it difficult to concentrate. The volcano egg’s force poked at the edge of her consciousness with the persistence of a street urchin begging for a shilling to buy his dinner, and Iris found herself with a dull headache. The situation horrified as well as intrigued her. She’d never come upon an object that called to her with the strength to force her to read it. Finally, she gave up and cradled it in her palms. This time it didn’t put off dread but rather urgency as if its original emanations were some sort of scream to get her attention.
“What do you want to tell me?” she asked it in a low voice and focused on that question in her mind. She turned the volcano egg over in her hand, and her thumbnail traced one of the deeper striations. It gave, and she worked her nails further into the crack until the stone popped in half, revealing a center of small crystals so red and sharp Iris checked her own fingertips to make sure she hadn’t cut herself. A sense of the air around her sighing accompanied the egg’s opening, and some primitive part of her told her to freeze and listen.
A small gold box covered with strange symbols sat inside the stone. Iris pried it out. This object gave off dread, betrayal and fear, but the only image she got from it was of a pair of gloved hands tearing open a packet of powder, which was poured into a drink. She tried to see if the gold box, which was the size and shape of a flattened cigar, could be opened, but it was impossible with her fingers as sore as they were from prying apart its hiding place. It was either stuck or had some sort of catch she couldn’t find. She slipped it into her pocket after checking to ensure there were no holes, closed the stone, and placed the volcano egg on the shelf where she found it.
Interesting. I need to figure out what the symbols on the box mean so perhaps it will tell me how to open it. She looked at the books on the shelves with renewed interest in finding something that would give her a key to deciphering the box’s symbols, but she shook her head to clear the sense of waking from a vivid dream where reality blurred with imagination. I can play with it later. I need to prepare for the journey first.
Iris returned to her sorting and organizing, but a thunk against the window drew her attention and set her heart thrumming in the spot below her throat. The curtains were drawn, so she was sure no one could see in. Still, she paused, her senses on high alert.
Another thud and a series of scratches made her race for the fireplace poker and brandish it toward the windows. Like most gentlemen of the age, her father had inherited guns and pistols, but they were in the sitting room, not his office, and she wasn’t sure she would know how to shoot one if she could find them. She counted a hundred breaths before she dared move, and she doused the lights. After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she peeked through the curtains. No intruder or creature could be seen, but a circle with a box inside had been etched on the glass pane.
Iris suspected she and her father might share a special talent, but it hadn’t occurred to her that others might also be able to sense objects. Now it became apparent they could, and
someone knew she’d found the box. As for who and what they wanted with it—or her—she didn’t know.
Iris slept with the fire poker and one of her father’s ancient swords in the bed beside her.
Chapter Seven
Haywood House, 10 June 1870
Edward woke with a sense of dread and looked at the clock beside his bed, which the early morning light illuminated. It told him it was five thirty, and he rolled over, relieved he had another two hours to sleep. He’d been having an awful dream of having to pack his things for a journey he didn’t want to take, and a woman whose dark blue eyes bored into him and gave him the feeling she could read the tale of his failures with Lily. Thankfully he could look forward to a productive day at the office with his new aetherometer, and—
A pounding on his door roused him.
“Come on, Edward, it’s time to get up,” Johann Bledsoe, who must have risen earlier, called. “The train leaves in an hour.”
The memories of the past few days rushed in with the inexorable force of a large engine. Edward’s reality wasn’t a quiet, productive summer free of teaching responsibilities and clumsy students. It was a horrifying journey including women and the possibility of him losing his position and indeed his beloved Aetherics department if he didn’t go.
Edward rolled out of bed and dressed without assistance. He was sure the servants were busy packing last-minute things, whatever that might include, and he didn’t want to call for anyone. He suspected these would be his last few moments of quiet for a while.
He packed a couple of books, the last two he deemed necessary, in his valise before someone knocked on his door for his personal trunk. He allowed the two burly servants to take it but held on to his own travel case so at least he would have his books and important notes with him. He saw his niece Mary’s paper on earthworms and grabbed it as well. It would make a useful bookmark.
Johann breakfasted in the dining room of the Duke of Waltham’s town house, where Edward lived in one of the extra bedrooms. The family rarely came to town and bothered him since the duchess seemed determined to have a child each year and deemed the country air to be better for her babies. The musician looked chipper in spite of having been out the previous night for a “farewell tour of the pubs” with his favorite actress.
“What time did you go to bed?” Edward asked, prepared to remark on his friend’s profligate lifestyle. Not that Johann deserved it, but Edward wanted to scold someone for something, and he wasn’t going to take his irritability out on his brother’s servants, who did their best for the family.
“Haven’t been yet,” Johann said around a mouthful of eggs. “The train is for sleeping. Bloody boring.”
“Are you still drunk?” Edward asked with a horrifying premonition that his friend might vomit in the middle of their journey.
Johann gestured to his plate, which in spite of his working on breakfast for a while, held a large amount of food. “That’s what all this absorbent material is for.”
“Right.” Edward sat at the table and buttered his toast. A servant poured a cup of tea for him without allowing Edward to put cream in his cup first, but he didn’t say anything. He would have to deal with all sorts of privations soon enough—might as well get used to it now. He put a whole sugar cube in the tea as well.
“Getting ready to rough it, eh?” Johann asked.
Edward glared at him, and his butter knife went through his toast. He dropped it on the plate and checked his fingers for injury.
“Your brother thinks this will be good for you.”
“He would.” He put jam on one of his asymmetrical toast fragments and ate it in misery alternating with sips of his too-sweet tea.
No matter how much he sulked or tried to do anticipatory penance for his sins of pickiness, Edward couldn’t revert everything to the way it once was or delay their departure forever. Even his brother came to see them off.
“Where is Miss McTavish?” Johann asked and checked his pocket watch. “We weren’t supposed to pick her up, were we?”
Grange House, 10 June 1870
Iris woke to a very quiet house, sure she had forgotten something important. This was the fifth time her sleep had been disturbed by such panic, but this time, she couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
Although it was dark outside, she got out of bed and touched her trunk, valise and reticule in turn, then moved toward Sophie’s luggage. Instead of leather-covered wood, air met Iris’s questing hand, and she hurriedly lit a lamp to reveal that Sophie’s trunk was gone. She ran into Sophie’s room, a small bedroom off Iris’s, and found it to be empty of Sophie and all of her things. Her sleep-fogged mind told her Sophie had been taken by whatever had made the strange symbol on her father’s office window, which had remained the following morning. She found herself jumping at every little sound the previous day, when she and Sophie had finished their packing.
“Sophie?” Iris called. “Sophie, where are you?”
She dashed down the stairs and found Cook in the kitchen. Her eyes were red from crying.
“Cook, where is Sophie? She’s been kidnapped with all her things.” As she said it, Iris knew how silly it sounded, and her brain put together Sophie’s strange absences and distant looks of the past weeks.
“Yes, Miss, but not in the way you think.” Cook gestured to a letter on the table. Iris picked up the folded sheet of vellum with trembling fingers and sensed regret and fear but also joy and excitement.
The emotions must be intense for a material as flimsy as paper to hold them.
Dear Miss Iris,
I am sorry to leave you like this, but I can’t bear to go on a journey. I’ve been seeing the Scotts’ footman and was hoping you’d accept Lord Jeremy’s suit so we could be together, but since you’re determined to go on your adventure rather than being sensible and marrying him, I had to take matters into my own hands. With Lord Jeremy’s help, we’ve run off to Scotland to be married. I will see you when you return and would be happy to resume my position as your lady’s maid.
Best, Sophie
Accept her back after she’s run off like that? Hardly. Cheeky wench! Iris’s cheeks burned, and she crumpled the vellum. What was she going to do now? She couldn’t go on the journey without her maid.
“Miss, begging your pardon for bothering you at such a time because I know how much Miss Sophie meant to you, and I’ll miss her too,” Cook said. “But I need to buy eggs today since our chickens aren’t laying, and I need money for the market.”
“Of course,” Iris said. “The hens seem to know when something is amiss. I’ll get some money for you and leave enough for the household while I’m gone.”
“Yes, Miss. Are you still going on your journey?” Cook shot her a concerned glance, but unlike Sophie had never voiced her opinion of Iris’s actions.
“I need a moment to think.”
Iris went into the office, where she fetched the key for her father’s strongbox, and she opened it and counted the money remaining. Even if they were down to a household of two—and Iris would need another maid if she were to maintain the appearance of her social class—she needed to bring in an income. She closed her eyes and thought about her options—stay and accept Lord Jeremy’s offer of marriage or go on the journey by herself. The thought of his shocked look when she turned him down and the way the scone crumbs clung to his puffy lips made her stomach turn, but thinking about how he would desecrate her father’s study and ruin his work made up her mind.
I cannot marry him. There’s no other option. I’ll go on the journey unchaperoned. If I return with my reputation ruined, it will be with enough income that Cook and I can go somewhere and start over. And if I don’t return…
She refused to consider the possibility.
A line from Sophie’s letter came to mind—with Lord Scott’s help. What if she had revealed the plan for
the journey to her lover’s employer?
The grind of wheels on the stones outside made Iris grab enough money for two months of household expenses for Cook, some for herself for the journey—in case of emergencies, she admonished herself, since Parnaby Cobb had promised he would pay their expenses—and slam the lid of the box. She locked it, hid it and the key and ran into the kitchen. Three loud booms echoed through the house, but from the office Iris couldn’t tell whether it was the front or side door.
“Cook, go to the door and see who it is,” she called. “If it is Lord Scott, please tell him I am not at home. If it is a porter for my trunk, send him in.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Iris dashed upstairs and finished her toilette. She attempted to pin her hair up and hoped her buttons in the back weren’t askew, but there was little she could do about either. Her fingers trembled too much.
Cook appeared in the doorway followed by a tall young man whose eyes took in everything about the bedroom including Iris herself. The look he gave her made her stand straighter and lift her chin to show she wouldn’t be intimidated. Instead of bowing or looking away, his lips peeled back into the sort of smile one expected to see on the patron of a naughty peep show.
“These your things, Miss?” he asked, his tone respectful unlike his expression.
“Y-yes,” Iris said. The whole situation seemed ill put-together, so she asked, “And who are you?”
“Name’s Lamar. I work for Mister Cobb. Your train’s in fifteen minutes. We better get a move on.”
Once again, the sound of the knocker on the front door echoed through the house. Iris went to her window, where she saw the familiar lines of the Scott coach with its matched four chestnut geldings in front of the house. She couldn’t remember what the itinerary had said about who would pick her up, but Lamar seemed close enough.
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