The Lady in the Coppergate Tower (Proper Romance)
Page 27
“The machinery has stopped!” Marit pointed.
The gears had ground to a halt, and the outer door was visible through the corridor. Night had fallen, but the snow was bright on the ground, and the sky was a lighter version of its nighttime self, displaying shades of dark purple and gray.
She heard Eugene’s shout again, and she ran around the base of the tower. The thorns and vines she’d seen from her brief glance out the window earlier had disintegrated, turned to dust that had fallen to the snow. It was as though the count’s toxic hold on the building had dissolved.
Eugene came into view, and Hazel stopped short. He was carrying an inert form, and her knees buckled. Marit grabbed her before she collapsed to the ground, holding her close as Eugene stumbled forward and dropped to his knees, his exterior casing scratched. He was missing pieces on his arms and shoulders.
Sam was a mass of cuts and burns, and Hazel put her hand to her throat.
“He is alive, Miss Hazel,” Eugene said haltingly, “but I fear his wounds are serious.” The ’ton looked down at his employer. “And his eyes are horribly burned. If he lives, he will be blind.”
If he lives? If he lives . . .” Hazel slipped from Marit’s arms and sank into the snow. “Sam . . .” She reached for his still form and held his shoulders and head. “No, no, please—Please! You cannot leave me here, not now! Sam, we’ve done it!” Her voice was raspy from Dravor’s assault, and her words broke on a sob as she rocked him back and forth in her arms.
“Sam!” She lowered her head and kissed his hair as choking, gasping sobs wrenched from her heart. “Please, please, please . . .” She turned her tear-filled eyes to the heavens, the snow falling gently on her face.
Marit dropped next to her in the snow, her face stricken, her eyes filled with tears. She reached a hand to Hazel’s shoulder and squeezed hard.
“He must live, he must!” She looked down at him again, at the welts and burns striping across his skin and especially his eyes. “He’s a surgeon. He’s a brilliant surgeon and inventor,” she cried to Marit. “He needs his eyes . . .” She choked again, coughing and crying and feeling as though she’d inflicted the injuries herself.
“He offered to come, and I should have told him no. I should have refused!” She looked at Marit, whose face blurred through her tears. “I should have told him I didn’t want him with me, because then he’d still be well and in London, working and saving people and—”
Her voice cracked, and she looked down at his head, cradled in her arms. She touched her hand to his chest, which rose and fell with shallow breaths. The time between breaths lengthened and then shuddered out with horrifying finality.
“No!” Hazel’s scream sounded through the night, and she shook Sam’s still body. “Sam!”
“Give me your hand.” Marit grabbed for Hazel’s bracelet. She clutched Hazel’s fingers tight and touched their bracelets together as they rested their hands on Sam’s still chest.
As Marit murmured something in Romanian, Hazel threw an anguished plea for help heavenward, and as she squeezed her eyes tightly shut, she imagined Sam’s heart beating, his lungs filling with air, his organs working in concert and continuing his life. Hazel opened her eyes when she felt blood trickling from her nose. A glance at Marit showed her wiping blood from her own nose, but her focus remained on their clasped hands.
Hazel looked at Sam’s still face, and a sob broke free. “Do not leave me, Sam! You must come back!”
He coughed, then, and she gasped. She stared at Marit, who looked at Sam with huge eyes, and then Eugene, who returned her astonished expression.
Marit slowly released her hand, and Hazel rubbed Sam’s chest, as Eugene sat flat in the snow and hefted Sam into his lap. Hazel cradled Sam’s face in her hands and shifted closer, heedless of the snow seeping through her clothes.
His eyes fluttered, and in the dim moonlight, she saw the redness, the lack of focus. He coughed again and turned his head, sucking in a deep breath of air and releasing it again.
“Sam?”
He raised fumbling hands to her shoulders and then cupped her head. “I found your hair,” he mumbled, and coughed again.
“Oh, sweet man, did Renton do this to you? I hate him! I will kill him with my bare hands.”
Sam shook his head weakly. “Already done.” He lifted his hand to his forehead and touched his eyes. “Dark out here, is it?”
Hazel bit her lip, then leaned forward to place a kiss on his forehead. She rested her head on his as tears flowed from her eyes and down his face. The tears were warm, and a soft glow lit the space around their heads. “Sam, I am so sorry. I love you. This is all my fault.” Her shoulders shook with sobs. She would never forgive herself, ever.
“Hazel?” Marit touched her back. “Hazel, look.”
Hazel sniffed and raised her head. Sam was rubbing his eyes and blinking. He finally squinted against the muted night sky.
“What . . . what happened?” She looked first at Marit, then Eugene.
“I keep telling you that you’re an amazing Healer,” Sam mumbled and wiped his other eye. “Not so dark out here anymore.”
Hazel sat back on her heels. She looked at his eyes, at the abating redness. They looked sore, but his pupils were dilating, and when he blinked, he was focused on her face.
“Can you see me?” she asked in a whisper.
He smiled. “You’ll be glad to know your hair is lovely, even short.”
She put a hand to her mouth and stared. “You can truly see me?”
“I can see you. Many thanks for crying into my eyes.”
Eugene shifted and helped Sam sit up straight, which he did with a groan.
“You would be Marit, then?” Sam winced in pain and tried to smile at Marit.
“I am.” Her eyes were huge, and she looked overwhelmed. “Thank you for bringing Hazel to me.”
“My pleasure.” He shifted and winced again.
“You must visit a doctor,” Eugene told him.
“I am a doctor,” he murmured. “And my soon-to-be-betrothed is a Healer. Get me back to the inn, and I’ll be fine.” He gave Hazel a crooked smile. “I wasn’t teasing.” He held up a long rope of golden hair. “I found your braid.”
Hazel laughed a little. “You loved my hair.” She ran a hand through her sloppily cut mop of hair, now wet with melted snow.
He reached up and grasped her hand, pulling it first to his mouth to kiss and then holding it to his chest. He closed his eyes and smiled. “Long, short—I do not care. Hazel, let’s go home.”
Hazel, the groom still has scratches on his face that haven’t fully healed. Are you certain he won’t wait?” Rowena fussed with Hazel’s wedding veil in a guest room at Blackwell Manor.
The house was beautifully decorated. The holidays were approaching, and the guest rooms were completely filled with loved ones and friends. Hazel looked at her mother in the mirrored vanity and smiled. “He does not want to wait any longer, nor do I. We’ve been home for a month.”
“Exactly! You’ve been home for one month! You and your sister are Romanian countesses and nobility; I ought to have much more time to plan!”
Lucy Blake, Countess Blackwell, gently put her hands on Rowena’s shoulders. “Mrs. Hughes, I have a quandary with the bouquet, and I wonder if you would offer your opinion. I’ve placed a white rose at the center, but now I’m undecided . . .” Lucy guided Rowena to the foot of the enormous bed, where flower arrangements were laid for final inspection.
Marit smiled at Hazel from her seat near the hearth, where she chatted with Isla about possible training in Shapeshifter Relations and Therapy.
Marit was slowly finding her way in London, and while Hazel sometimes found her sitting quietly in the library, her expression sad, she was hopeful that, as time passed, the sad moments would be replaced with happy ones.
; Emme flounced next to Hazel on a stuffed ottoman. “You are beautiful, you know. I believe you’ve created a new fashion trend. Half the debutantes have cut off their hair, and their mamas have lost their wits over it.” She grinned, and Hazel laughed.
“I like it.” Hazel looked at herself in the mirror—her thick, golden curls had been artfully cut by an experienced French stylist. “And so does Sam.”
“I should say so.” Emme’s eyes glistened. “Now, you know how I hate excessive dramatics, so I will say this only once: I am so very glad you arrived home safe and whole, and I am happier still that you and your charming doctor will now live happily ever after.” Emme squeezed Hazel’s hands. “I love you dearly.”
Emme stood, kissed her cheek, and then clapped her hands at the room of laughing, happy women.
“It is time! If we are one minute late, we will have an anxious groom wandering the halls.”
The chatter increased as people bustled, passed around flowers, and then headed from the room toward the beautiful, curved staircase in the front of the house. They all descended, though Isla hung back with Hazel and Rowena.
“Hazel, as your matron of honor, I must tell you that I’ve seen the groom, and he is stunning.” She kissed Hazel’s cheek.
Hazel smiled, her stomach full of butterflies.
Marit made her way through the crowd of people outside the library and to Hazel’s side.
Hazel hugged her sister quickly and looked at her pretty, deep lavender eyes. “You are well?”
Marit bit her lip and nodded. Hazel recognized the nervous habit as one of her own, and smiled. “Are you certain?”
“I am. You go, now, and marry your handsome love.”
Isla took Marit’s arm, and they found their places in line, along with Oliver Reed, Daniel Pickett, and Miles Blake, who were Sam’s groomsmen.
The music began from inside the library, and Hazel turned to her mother, who was still fussing with the veil. “Mother, everything is beautiful.”
Rowena flushed, but smiled. “I am so proud of you, my Hazel.” Her eyes filled, and she waved a hand. “Silly mother, I am.”
“A wonderful mother, you are.”
The procession moved forward, and as she and Rowena walked down the aisle, she locked eyes with Sam, and her heart swelled. The butterflies—good butterflies—took flight again in her stomach, and as much as she loved being with the people gathered in the room, she couldn’t wait to have Sam all to herself.
Eugene stood at the end of the line of groomsmen, and while many considered it odd, Sam insisted the ’ton be part of the proceedings. Eugene pretended he hadn’t cared one way or the other, but when Sam had insisted, Eugene had smiled.
Sam watched her approach as if there was nobody else in the room, and Rowena tearfully kissed her cheek and handed her to Sam.
“Happiest day of my life,” he murmured and clasped Hazel’s hand. He still bore some of the scratches and scars from their traumatic day at the tower, but Hazel thought they only increased his handsomeness.
They exchanged their vows, and Sam gathered her close before the priest had even finished pronouncing them married. He kissed her soundly to the laughter and happy cheers of their friends.
“I hope you realize this means you must include me in all of your mad schemes from now on,” he whispered in her ear.
She laughed. “Now that Marit is free to explore life on her own, I doubt I will be compelled to undertake any more mad schemes. I am content to be the reserved one.”
“Reserved, perhaps. But you, Hazel Hughes MacInnes, are the bravest person I know.”
So many, many thanks go to my patient family, who got really used to dinners without me, outings without me, house-cleaning chores without me, just about everything else without me as I wrote and revised this book. I am so grateful. I am also grateful for my extended family (Allens and Faulsticks!) who forgave my spotty attendance at the family reunion so I could write.
Thanks, also, to Bob Diforio and Pam Victorio, of D4EO agency, for their work on my behalf, and also to Heidi Taylor Gordon, Lisa Mangum, Heather Ward, Richard Erickson, Malina Grigg, and the rest of my publishing team at Shadow Mountain for helping this book be its best. Additionally, I couldn’t do my job half as well if not for my writing friends, The Bear Lake Monsters, and especially to Josi S. Kilpack (Daisies and Devotion) and Jennifer Moore (Charlotte’s Promise).
To my sweet readers who have embraced my steampunk world, thank you so much for sharing in the fun. There’s a genre for everybody, and that there are readers who enjoy steampunk fairytales (who knew?) makes me so happy.
1.The Lady in the Coppergate Tower is a steampunk retelling of “Rapunzel.” What elements of the fairy tale are present in both stories? Where do the two stories diverge?
2.Hazel has a quieter personality than Lucy, Isla, or Emme, but that doesn’t mean she is any less heroic than her friends. In what ways does Hazel demonstrate her heroic qualities?
3.Hazel’s particular gift is in healing other people, but she doesn’t believe that talent is remarkable. What talents do you have that you could value more than you do?
4.There are several mother figures in the story—Johanna, Rowena, Dravor’s mother, and Sam’s mother. How do the relationships between mother and child help drive the story line? In what ways were Dravor, Sam, Hazel, and Marit shaped by their respective mothers?
5.Sam suffers from claustrophobia due to his wartime experiences in India. In what ways does he overcome his fear during his journey aboard the Magellan? What are some of the ways you confront and conquer your own fears?
6.The steampunk ’tons play a large role in the story, especially Eugene, who has more of a personality than other automatons. If you could have a ’ton of your own, would you want one with a personality and a measure of independence? What might be some of the difficulties that could arise from that?
7.Hazel and Marit are able to defeat Dravor by joining their powers together. Is there someone in your life who brings out the best in you, and with whom you are stronger than you are on your own?
8.In the story, Sam sees himself as Hazel’s protector, but in the end, she saves him. How did you feel about that?
Nancy Campbell Allen is the author of fifteen published novels and numerous novellas, which span genres from contemporary romantic suspense to historical fiction. In 2005, her work won the Utah Best of State award, and she received a Whitney Award for My Fair Gentleman. She has presented at numerous writing conferences and events since her first book was released in 1999. Nancy received a BS in Elementary Education from Weber State University. She loves to read, write, travel, and research, and enjoys spending time laughing with family and friends. She is married and the mother of three children. Visit her at nancycampbellallen.com.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapt
er 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
Landmarks
Cover