by Nina Rowan
“No.” Sebastian frowned, suddenly wishing he’d kept quiet. “If I do marry Clara Winter, it would be for practical reasons.”
“You never do anything for practical reasons.” Darius reached for his tankard. “You only ever do things because you want to.”
That had once been the truth. Sebastian wrapped his left hand around his right, squeezing it into a fist. In the adjoining room, a man began playing a lively tune on the piano. The sound drifted into Sebastian’s ears in ribbons of yellow and white.
Although he had no wish to respond to his brother’s probing, Sebastian realized he was somewhat grateful for it. Darius knew him. Sebastian disliked the secrets that snaked through his family now, but his brothers and sister remained his only solid ground in the turmoil of the past five months.
And as his brothers knew him, he knew his brothers. Darius’s motivations for doing anything were rarely as simple as they first appeared.
“You’re here for more than the cipher machine plans, aren’t you?” Sebastian asked. “Why?”
“Bring me the plans.” Darius skimmed his sharp gaze over Sebastian again. “Eight o’clock next Tuesday. I’ll explain then.”
Sebastian pushed his chair away from the table and left without looking back. He walked down the street, skirting around pedestrians. Carts and horses rattled on the cobblestones, and lights began to glow in the windows of the braziers’ workshops lining Houndsditch. He hired a cab and instructed the driver to leave him at Blake’s Museum of Automata on Old Bond Street.
Mrs. Fox was pulling on her cloak when he entered the foyer, and she gave him a somewhat severe frown. “I’m sorry, Mr. Hall, but the museum is closing. I intend to lock the door behind me.”
“That’s fine, Mrs. Fox, as I’m not here for a tour. Are Mr. Blake and Mrs. Winter available?”
She sighed. “You’ll have to go look for yourself. Mrs. Marshall is fixing dinner, so you’d best not disturb her.”
Sebastian nodded, flinging his hat and greatcoat onto the rack before heading into the depths of the museum. He found both the music room and parlor empty, then paced to Granville’s workshop, which was cluttered with boxes and machine parts.
Clara knelt beside an opened crate, leaves of creased paper and disordered notebooks scattered around her. Dust covered her apron. Her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and long tendrils of hair had escaped their pins to wind around her throat.
Sebastian’s fervent urge from earlier returned, this time thumping in time with the beat of his heart.
“Hello, Clara.”
“Oh.” She started and rose to her feet. She rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of dirt. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Just arrived. Nearly skewered by Mrs. Fox’s glare. Deadly as a poisoned arrow.”
She smiled. He thought he’d do anything, including stand on his head and whistle a tune, if she would continue to smile at him like that. He moved closer. Close enough that her skirts brushed his legs like the glide of fingertips.
“Why have you come back?” she asked.
“I wanted to see you,” Sebastian said, only recognizing the truth of the statement after he spoke. With her standing in front of him, all other reasons and motivations faded away and left only the bright, shining possibility of Clara becoming his wife.
She looked at him. He inhaled her scent and lifted his left hand to wind a stray lock of hair around his fingers. He brushed his thumb against her neck and felt the quickening beat of her delicate pulse even through his glove.
“Do you trust me?” he asked. He was so close to her he could have counted her eyelashes. The color of her eyes was muted, but the blue flecks in her irises sparkled like light on snow.
She was silent, her gaze skimming across his mouth, warming his lips. A tremble coursed through her, vibrating against his palm. His breath almost stopped as he waited for her response.
“Do you?” he repeated.
“Yes.” The word escaped her on a whisper. She lifted her hand to his mouth. Heat pooled low in his body at the touch of her fingertips, the stroke of her thumb in the indentation beneath his lower lip.
He captured her hand in his and turned her palm upward. Rough scrapes lined her skin, gritty with dust. She closed her fingers and tried to pull her hand from his. He didn’t allow it, stroking his forefinger over the thin scratches. “You haven’t found them.”
“I will.” A tremble shuddered in her voice despite the declaration. “Uncle Granville is helping, but there are at least twenty crates and boxes to inspect, not to mention the sheer number of papers and diagrams. If Monsieur Dupree didn’t write down the purpose of his inventions, I have to ask Granville to interpret them for me. It all takes…time.”
Time that neither of them had.
Sebastian looked at the scratches on her hand, disliking the evidence of her pain. He brought her wrist up and pressed his mouth against the middle of her palm.
Clara gasped, her arm jerking in reflex even as her other hand closed around the lapel of his coat. Warmth spread through Sebastian’s chest, untangling the ache of fatigue and restlessness. He lifted his right hand to cover hers, forcing his fingers into the position he would use on a keyboard.
His fingers contracted, then froze. Tension pinched through his forearm. He struggled to make his hand close over Clara’s, but the muscles seized.
Clara stared at his hand, his fingers stiffened into a claw that refused to curl around hers. Fear and dismay roiled in his stomach as he watched the dark comprehension cloud her violet eyes.
“What happened?” Clara whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t…”
Her fingers closed around his. Warmth flowed up his arm, easing the persistent constriction of his muscles.
“You don’t know?” she repeated.
Sebastian shook his head and forced the confession from his tight throat. “It started a few months ago, right after I took the Weimar position. My right hand wouldn’t do what I wanted it to, almost as if it weren’t even part of me anymore. Whenever I tried to play the piano, my fingers froze and curled toward my palm. I went to several doctors, one of whom referred me to a surgeon who said it was a muscle problem. Did a surgery that bent this finger permanently.”
He touched his little finger, which was bent at a right angle. Even if he could regain control over the rest of his hand, he’d have to undergo another surgery to try to fix the damaged joint.
Clara sighed, her eyes veiled by her lashes. She didn’t release his hand. Instead she rubbed her fingers over his, as if soothing the ruffled feathers of a bird. His breath eased a little.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
He lifted a hand to her ear. “You?”
Shadows filled her expression, her mouth tightening. “Do you remember my brother, William? He also took piano lessons from you when we stayed in Dorset. He died when he was fifteen. I was seventeen. We were boating on a lake when a storm came up. A wind blew my hat into the water. I leaned too far to retrieve it and tipped the boat over. William hit his head and I couldn’t…”
The words crumbled beneath the weight of sorrow. Sebastian pulled her into his arms, breathing in the sweet smell of her hair.
“The days following were horrible,” Clara continued. “The grief tore us apart. My mother refused to leave her room. I developed a terrible pain in my ear and a ringing noise that wouldn’t cease. I didn’t tell anyone. I…I wanted to hide. I knew they all blamed me for William’s death. By the time the inflammation was treated with poultices and tinctures, my hearing was already damaged.”
Sebastian touched the delicate shell of her ear. He brushed his lips across her temple, across the soft strands of hair that had escaped their pins, and to the black birthmark at the corner of her eyebrow. Then lower, down to her cheekbone, before descending to capture her mouth.
Clara murmured his name and turned her head to meet him in a kiss that qu
ivered with suppressed longing. He covered her lips, heat blooming in his blood as she opened for him without hesitation. He probed the warmth of her mouth, slid his tongue across her teeth. His damaged hand stiffened against her hip as her body curved against his.
He wanted to crush her to him, to pull her clothes off so he could touch the bare smoothness of her skin. Urgency pulsed through him like a heartbeat as Clara’s hands came up to cup his cheeks, angling his head to deepen their kiss.
A vibrant energy crackled from her into him, searing him with pleasure and something remarkably akin to happiness. Like cool, fresh water she poured into his desiccated soul and brought him to flourishing life again.
With her, he almost felt as if he could be himself again. As if he could reclaim everything that was pleasant and joyous of his former life.
Clara moved her lips to his jaw and gave a husky laugh, her breath fanning against his skin. “You never imagined this would happen, did you?”
“Did you?” Sebastian flexed his fingers against her waist.
“Oh, yes.” She parted from him, her hands sliding down to his neck. Warm amusement creased her eyes, bright above her flushed cheeks. “When we were in Dorset. When I watched you weave your music while surrounded by beautiful, admiring women….Oh, I imagined it. I hoped for it.…I wanted you to look at me, dance with me, speak with me.”
Sebastian lifted his good hand to her face and rubbed his thumb across her full lower lip. When he first encountered her in the Hanover Square ballroom, he thought he didn’t remember her.
He had been wrong.
Her revelations brought an image to the surface, like the burn of a constellation in a night sky. She’d been a quiet, pleasant, young woman who hovered on the periphery of the crowds, circling the ballrooms and parlors. A sparrow, yes, but one whose plumage shone with colors of rich brown, ocher, snow-white.
He turned toward a birdcage automaton resting on a workbench and found the key at the base. With a few twists, he wound the machine and released it. A metallic but pleasant tune drifted from the mechanism.
Sebastian lifted Clara’s right hand and placed it in his. Nerves tightened in his chest, but he curled his fingers around hers and willed his hand not to falter. Then he slipped his other hand around Clara’s waist and pulled her closer.
“May I have this dance?” he asked.
Clara smiled, her eyes sparking with colors as she put her hand on his shoulder. “I’d be delighted.”
Sebastian guided her into a slow waltz. Although they were hampered by the scattered tables, she followed his lead with ease, matching her steps to his in time to the thin music and the chatter of the automated birds.
Sebastian turned, drawing her to him. His apprehension faded into the pleasure of the simultaneous movement, the ease of letting the music be his guide, the sheer enjoyment of holding Clara in his arms.
“You’re a wonderful dancer.” She looked up at him. “I remember that too.”
“I haven’t danced in months.”
“I haven’t either,” Clara admitted. “Not in the last year.”
Her eyes skimmed across his face, down to his mouth and lower to his neck. Sebastian’s blood warmed at the caress of her gaze. The automaton music wound down, the final strains filtering into the dusky air. He drew Clara to a slow halt. She remained within the circle of his arms, her hand still clasping his. For the first time in months, Sebastian realized he had forgotten about his disability.
An emotion tugged at him that he didn’t recognize, something rich and saturated with all the colors of the rainbow. His breathing shortened.
He stared at Clara’s lovely eyes. Eyes of a witch. Surely they had beguiled him into considering her proposal, for he could have conceived a dozen other ways of obtaining the cipher machine plans. Yet when she had laid out the terms, he knew it was the quickest way to obtain her assistance, to appease his father, to settle with Darius.
To make Clara his alone.
Apprehension rose to dilute his unforeseen emotions. Her approach to this agreement was calculated and practical. She needed Wakefield House transferred to his name. She spoke of warm feelings toward him, but her admiration had been directed toward the man he once was. Not the man he was now. Whereas he was drawn to all the complexities and turmoil of Mrs. Clara Winter, the woman who had sustained suffering and still burned with vital determination.
He remembered the young woman she had once been. He only wished he’d looked beyond himself far enough to actually see her.
He lowered his head to her damaged ear and spoke in a whisper that he knew she would not hear. “Now I see no other woman except you.”
She turned, her forehead creasing. “I’m sorry?”
No, he couldn’t allow her to hear such a confession. Not when her admiration for him was so misguided.
He released her and stepped back, unsettled. “I will come back tomorrow to help you look for the plans.”
A flicker of confusion passed across her expression before she glanced away. “Yes, of course. I…I’ve explained to my uncle about Wakefield House. He remains cautious, but as trustee he would not hinder the transfer of the property to you. Should we come to an agreement.”
Her voice leveled out into a practical tone, as if she sought to remind them both of the conditions underlying her proposal. And yet even with that reminder, Sebastian could not forget his caveat that their marriage would be both real and immutable.
Heat coursed down his spine. He would bind his emotions tightly because he would not lay himself bare before a woman who looked at him through the lens of the past, whose desire to marry him sprang from a practical and desperate purpose. And he would not lose sight of his own agreement with Darius, now laced with suspicions about his brother’s motives.
“Tomorrow then.” He fisted his right hand and headed for the foyer.
“Tomorrow,” Clara echoed.
Sebastian gave a short nod and opened the door.
“Sebastian?”
He stopped, but didn’t turn to face her.
“Thank you.” Clara paused, then added, “I’m glad we both remember how to dance.”
Clara didn’t want to believe it.
Not him. Not the talented performer who wove music like an intricate tapestry. Not the man who drew people into the warmth of his disarming presence. Not the man who had colored her Wakefield House days with brilliant strokes of red, green, and purple. Not the man who danced with a lean, masculine grace that made her feel as if she were floating.
Not him. Her heart ached, even as she knew the captivating man of her youth was still there, locked behind the despair of a new and indescribable infirmity.
She threw an empty box into the corner of the room and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Perspiration trickled down her backbone. Her hands were dry and grimy from breaking open crates and boxes, rummaging through machine parts and papers that made no sense to her.
Disappointment roiled through her. Monsieur Dupree might have written pages and pages of hieroglyphics, for all she could understand of his notes.
Every time she found a diagram that appeared to resemble a machine, she handed it to Uncle Granville for translation. Every time he shook his head.
“Music box,” he said, placing another drawing atop the pile already at his side. “A clock made of a birdcage. Letter keyboard. A cabinet with chimes. Look for a drawing that contains a cylinder and a rotating circuit wheel.”
“I am looking,” Clara replied with a touch of annoyance. They had been looking all morning, and so far had found nothing resembling a telegraph machine. “Perhaps he didn’t send them to you after all.”
Granville didn’t respond, which Clara interpreted as agreement. She thrust another empty crate to the side and reached for a box.
“Mrs. Marshall has breakfast prepared, if you’re both hungry.” Mrs. Fox appeared in the doorway, her eyes skimming the room in one glance. “Have you found what you’re looking for?”
“Not yet.” Granville stood and stretched, pressing a hand to his lower back. “Clara, come break your fast. You’ve been up since dawn.”
“You go. I’ll be in later.”
Granville’s hand closed on her shoulder. “Don’t make yourself ill over this.”
Clara whirled to pin him with a glare. “I’ve been ill since the moment I left Manley Park, Uncle Granville.”
Pain flashed behind his glasses. His grip tightened on her shoulder. “I know.”
He glanced at Mrs. Fox. “Please tell Mrs. Marshall we’ll take breakfast later.”
Mrs. Fox gave a crisp nod and turned. A few minutes later, she returned. “Perhaps I can be of some assistance. I’ve locked the front door, so visitors will have to ring for entry.”
Clara and Granville exchanged glances. At her nod, he told Mrs. Fox what they were searching for. The other woman pulled a chair to the table and began unrolling a stack of scrolls.
Clara’s hands stung with cuts from the wooden crates, and a layer of dust coated her apron. She wiped her hands on a cloth.
She tried not to think beyond this one goal, the desperate need to find the machine specifications. She tried not to think of what would happen if she didn’t find them.
Sunlight began to press against the windows, making it easier to see in the dusty storeroom. Mrs. Fox stopped once to return to the foyer, then came back with Sebastian behind her.
Clara’s heart jumped at the sight of his tall figure, his thick, black hair rumpled from the scrape of his fingers.
“Good morning.” His deep voice rumbled over her skin.
Clara could not help delighting in the sensations he aroused in her, not only because of him, but because they were such a pleasurable reprieve from her ever-present fear. Seeing Sebastian, being near him, was like taking a breath of fresh, clean air after escaping a smoke-filled room. Yesterday she had thought she would never want to leave the protective circle of his arms.
She rose, experiencing a new surge of hope as Sebastian greeted Granville and explained the reason for his presence. Her uncle responded with wariness, which Clara knew sprang from his concern about her new plan.