“Oh, dear me, is Lord Dingleproops among them?”
Sophronia gestured with her head at the table of comestibles. At the same time, the dark-haired boy slipped up to Sophronia’s side and grabbed her hand.
“Dance?”
Sophronia was entirely startled both by the overtness of the approach and the sudden appearance of the boy so close to her. She inadvertently allowed herself to be drawn into a quadrille with a young man, a Piston, to whom she had not been introduced! So many breaches in etiquette all at once! Sophronia was shocked at herself. That said, it was a testament to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s training that she executed the quadrille steps perfectly without any thought at all—half her attention on her sullen partner, and the other half on Monique.
Then, suddenly, her focus was diverted by a hullabaloo. Pillover seemed to be trying to stop Lord Dingleproops from pouring a flask of some liquid into the punch bowl. Her dance partner saw Sophronia looking and made to direct her attention back to the quadrille. Sophronia narrowed her eyes at him and left the set. He probably didn’t deserve such a cut direct, but something was afoot.
In the same instant, Monique made a break for it.
“ ’Ware!” Sophronia hissed, grabbing Dimity’s arm. She was about to follow when another observation froze her in her tracks for a split second. Lurking in the shadows behind the scuffle was an older gentleman, perfectly dressed in evening garb, wearing a stovepipe hat with a green ribbon tied about it.
Their eyes met. Sophronia flinched and turned quickly to Dimity. “You’re going to need to stay here. Keep an eye on that man, there. See him?”
Dimity gasped. “The Pickleman?”
“Yes. Monique is mine.”
“Right!” Dimity nodded once and threw back her shoulders, edging toward the fracas at the punch bowl for cover.
Sophronia took off after Monique, who had slipped gracefully away from her crowd of admirers on the arm of an impressive gentleman and out into the back garden. Sophronia followed the couple as quietly as possible, at a distance, taking a lesser-used gardener’s path between two rows of rhododendrons. The skirts of her wide dress brushed softly against the bushes, but her footsteps were silent. She walked carefully, toe to heel, in her kid dancing slippers, just as Lady Linette had instructed. The dirt path was far quieter than the dry straw on which they had been forced to practice.
Monique and her escort made their way along the brick walk and through a copse of trees to a birdbath at the center of a wisteria-covered gazebo surrounded by huge lilac bushes. It was the sort of birdbath that cranked into motion, spinning a tiny wheel that raised and lowered a little flock of automated birds for when the real ones were otherwise occupied. It was motionless at the moment.
“Very well, Miss Pelouse. Westminster received your message. You have the merchandise?” said the gentleman after a moment of standing in silence.
Westminster? Is Monique working for parliament? Sophronia inched in closer, using the lilacs for cover and tucking her copious blue skirts in about her in an effort to remain invisible.
The gentleman was a remarkably good-looking chap—well-dressed, well-coiffed, and well-suited. Sophronia’s mind instantly went to her lessons with Professor Braithwope. Did she detect the vampire touch? Was he dapper enough? There were no hives near her house, not so far as her parents had ever said, and he didn’t appear to have fangs. She assessed his attire again. Simply a very well-dressed government representative, or a drone?
Looking furtively around, Monique pulled her gloves off, then tipped the brass birdbath over with her boot and reached inside the hollow of the pedestal to remove a brown paper parasol. It was about the size of her fist, very innocuous-looking, and tied with string.
She popped it into her reticule and straightened, brushing her hands together before pulling her gloves back on. With a self-satisfied smile she turned, removed the reticule from its waist hook, and held it up, dangling, just outside of the gentleman’s reach.
“My payment, if you would be so kind?”
The dandy held up a small purse. “As agreed, minus a fee for the inconvenience of several months’ delay.”
Monique’s lip curled. “How much of a fee?”
“Now, there, Miss Pelouse, a lady never discusses money outright.”
Monique, still holding the reticule with the prototype, began backing away.
A gentleman in a top hat wound with green ribbon emerged from the shadows before she could go very far. “Good evening, Miss Pelouse. I believe you have something that belongs to me?”
Monique whirled to face this new threat. “I believe not.”
“Ah, better to say that I believe you have something I want.” The Pickleman tipped his hat at the dandy. “Westminster is here? I should have guessed.”
The man tilted his head back. “Your grace.” In the same movement he pulled out a small gun, which he pointed in turn from Monique to the Pickleman. “Give it to me, Miss Pelouse. Now.”
Sophronia watched, wide-eyed. Her attention was focused on the prototype, which now dangled from Monique’s hand. The key is to try to sneak it away while the others are distracted and get it back into the safety of the crowded ballroom. Clearly no one wants a public scene—not the Pickleman, not Monique, and not the man from Westminster.
The Pickleman raised a whistle to his lips and blew it sharply. At Sophronia’s waist, Bumbersnoot the reticule woke up and began thrashing about, hissing steam, his little legs churning and catching in the skirt of her gown. As he was suspended from a lace strap, he could go nowhere, but he did make an awful noise and a terrible fuss.
Luckily, he wasn’t the only one. Something much bigger and much louder was causing even more of a racket. A hissing, clanking, crashing sound commenced as some large mechanical object made its way through the shrubs, destroying Mrs. Temminnick’s garden. It broke through the lilacs behind the Pickleman, careening into one side of the gazebo.
It was a huge mechanimal, shaped like a bulldog and as tall as man. It belched smoke out its ears; its four stubby legs were as big as birch trees; its mouth was a wide-open cavern of flame. Unlike Bumbersnoot, this mechanimal was not made to transport, only to destroy.
The Pickleman held a small object in one hand that he was threatening to throw at Monique. She now faced the mechanimal on one side and the dandy with the gun on the other.
Assuming her nemesis was well distracted, Sophronia edged her way around through the lilacs to get behind the girl. Bumbersnoot quieted once the noise from the whistle faded. Suddenly, the lilac bush in front of Sophronia rustled all on its own. She only just managed to swallow down a shriek of surprise.
Dimity popped up.
“Where’s Pillover?” Sophronia whispered, the noise of the massive mechanimal providing some cover.
“Dealing with Pistons. He said he would tie them up right and tidy as a cravat.” Dimity did not sound optimistic. “Oh, my, what’s that?”
“Monique, an angry Pickleman, a dandy from the government, I think, and a very big mechanimal.”
She could see Dimity pale, even though it was nighttime. “I thought they weren’t supposed to build them big. And it’s not on tracks. Is that legal?”
“I’m thinking very little of any of this is legal.” Sophronia considered their options. “We need a distraction. Could you and Pillover get the Pistons to come outside, cause a kerfuffle? It seems a particular speciality of theirs.”
Dimity wrinkled her nose. “Must we? I hate kerfuffles.”
“Best solution I’ve got on short notice. And please bring me one of those pies we saw the cheesemonger deliver this morning. You remember the ones, wrapped in brown paper? I know Mumsy didn’t allow all of them out for the party. She loves cheese pies and would have kept some in reserve.”
“If you think it best.” Without further argument, Dimity crept back to the house.
Sophronia turned back to the conversation before her.
“Instead, I offer you… y
our life,” the Pickleman was saying melodramatically to Monique.
Monique was not impressed, even trapped as she was between a gun and a mechanimal. “Throw in an engagement to your oldest son and we have a bargain.”
The dandy did not like that Monique was negotiating with the Pickleman. “Now, now, Miss Pelouse! We had an agreement.” He pulled back the hammer of his pistol.
The Pickleman laughed. “Not that you wouldn’t make an admirable wife to the boy—appropriately cunning, and well-trained, I’m sure, but no.” He rolled the object in his hand threateningly. Sophronia suspected it was like Professor Braithwope’s crossbow—whomever he threw it at, the mechanimal would attack.
“Come back here, you little worm!” There came a sharp yell and a series of yodels and cries. Pillover, flask in hand, came bumbling through the garden on chubby, rapidly churning legs and stumbled directly into the middle of the lilac dell that housed the Pickleman, Monique, the dandy, and the mechanimal.
Dimity reappeared at Sophronia’s elbow, panting, and handed her a cheese pie wrapped in brown paper.
“Thank you,” said Sophronia politely.
Dashing after Pillover came Lord Dingleproops, the dark-haired boy who’d danced the quadrille with Sophronia, and two other Pistons, all looking annoyed, yet thrilled by the chase. Lord Dingleproops grabbed Pillover and began pelting him about the chops. Pillover instantly dropped to the ground in the middle of the gazebo and curled into a ball around the flask, like a grub. The dandy swiveled his gun around to point it at them instead of Monique. The Pickleman looked like he wanted to turn the mechanimal loose on the boys.
Sophronia said, “On my mark, you get the flask from Pillover. Try to pour it onto that mechanimal. I’m going after the prototype.”
Dimity let out a little huff of anxiety, but nodded.
Sophronia kilted up her skirts. “Mark!”
Dimity dove for her brother, swirling out from the bushes with a trilling war cry. She went in and down, startling the attacking Pistons with the fluffy presence of a female.
Sophronia rushed Monique. “Oh, Monique, you poor thing, are these men behaving ungentlemanly toward you? Should you be out in the garden unchaperoned with all this roughhousing? Let me help you back inside. You’re missing the better part of the ball.”
Sophronia pretended to trip as she rounded the tussling boys. She lurched to one side, knocking the gun from the surprised dandy’s grasp. “Oh, dear, pardon me, sir. Whoop—oh!” In the same movement she spun, simulating a continued stumble—Lady Linette would have been proud.
She blundered against Monique. With one hand she reached out and tore down the front of the older girl’s dress, popping the decorative buttons and making certain to expose plenty of undergarments. “It is a certain truth,” Mademoiselle Geraldine had said, gesturing at her own heaving cleavage illustratively, “that a lady’s attention dwells overmuch upon the state, condition, and sanctity of her own assets.”
Monique shrieked, clapping both hands to her exposed corset, and dropped her reticule.
Sophronia continued to the ground, rolling both her upper body and the reticule underneath Monique’s full skirts. Under cover of those copious petticoats, she slipped the prototype out of the reticule. In almost the same movement, she replaced it with the wrapped cheese pie Dimity had handed her only moments before.
Monique kicked at her viciously, but Sophronia was already rolling away, her borrowed ball gown mitigating the force of the blow. She emerged in time to see Dimity wrest the flask free from Pillover and the Pistons and pour its contents over the head of the massive mechanimal bulldog.
Monique bent and retrieved her reticule triumphantly and turned to run, no doubt thinking to take advantage of the chaos. The Pickleman, not as distracted as the others, hurled his target blob at her fleeing form. The mechanimal roared to life and charged Monique. Acceleration required the creature to send new power to his limbs from the internal boiler. All it took was one excess spark for Sophronia’s plan to work. The contents of the flask were, as she had guessed, alcoholic, and thus highly flammable.
The mechanimal caught fire; so, too, did one of Mrs. Temminnick’s lilac bushes, part of the gazebo, and the hem of Monique’s gown as the creature blundered after her. Monique dropped to the path and rolled around to put out the flames, at the same time stripping off what remained of her overdress. The target must have adhered to that, for now that she had squirmed out of her gold gown, the mechanimal began savaging it to smithereens with sharp, superheated teeth. The dandy and the Pickleman came running up.
The Pistons were partly distracted by this short but excitingly fiery chase, and partly distracted by a new threat in the form of a small but enraged Dimity. Dimity, bless her heart, was reciting one of Mademoiselle Geraldine’s longest lectures on proper behavior at a dance, finger shaking in autocratic fury, Lord Dingleproops notwithstanding.
Still seated on the ground, Sophronia fed Bumbersnoot the prototype parcel, trusting that it was not actually combustible, but figuring it was better destroyed than in the wrong hands, regardless. Bumbersnoot immolated the paper and the string and swallowed the contents whole. He emitted a puff of steam and donned a contemplative look. There was crystalline clanking inside his metal belly cavity. Fortunately, there was still so much noise that no one heard it.
Sophronia stood, adjusting her Bumbersnoot reticule slightly. No one noticed her. The Pistons were shouting and tussling with Pillover, who in turn was squealing loudly while Dimity yelled at them all to get away because the gazebo really was going up in flames and could come tumbling down on them at any moment. A little ways off, Monique lay in the path, half undressed and screaming as the stomping, flaming mechanimal moved ever closer to her. The great beast had one foot placed firmly on her petticoats, effectively immobilizing her. The Pickleman was slapping at his mechanimal with his overcoat to put it out. The dandy was standing over Monique, waving his gun around and instructing her to hand over the prototype, which Monique thought was still in her reticule, which she was clutching firmly to her breast.
“Good dogs,” said Sophronia softly to both mechanimals.
Getting the prototype to safety was of paramount importance. The dandy or the Pickleman could get hold of Monique’s reticule at any moment and discover it contained no prototype valve at all, but a cheese pie.
From among the tussling Pistons, the young man with the pale face paused indolently and looked over at Sophronia. He tossed a lock of dark hair out of one eye with a casual sway of his head. One corner of his mouth twisted up into a heartbreakingly sweet smile. Rake in training, decided Sophronia.
She shook her head at him once and then took off toward the house at a dead run. “Dimity, Pillover, scatter!” she yelled as she did so, using Soap’s favorite term.
Dimity and Pillover understood the instruction. Pillover managed to extract himself with a quick twist, and Dimity left off her yelled lecture. Sophronia could hear them panting behind her.
She attained the relative safety of the crowded dance floor feeling as though she had been through a small war. No one noticed her entrance at all. Dimity and Pillover followed shortly after. The Pistons did not. They had taken Dimity’s lecture to heart, or were still cavorting with the burning gazebo, or had realized they had stumbled upon something more dire than their normal uninvited antics and escaped to their carriage.
Sophronia, Dimity, and Pillover looked as if they had been rolling about on the ground in their fine dress—which they had. A quick smoothing of one another’s hair, repairs to smudged faces with handkerchiefs, and brushing off of dirt, and they were mostly respectable. Sophronia was merely once more the Sophronia of before finishing school—scruffy youngest daughter, a mild embarrassment. Her appearance resulted in nothing more than a few disparaging glances from some of the older matrons present.
That was partly because Petunia, belle of the ball, was having hysterics in one corner of the room. Apparently, someone had done something
to discolor her punch. Once a cheerful pink, it was now swamp-grass green. Mrs. Temminnick was ordering up barley water and lemonade, which Petunia felt were summer beverages and thus embarrassingly out of season. Why could they not have mulled wine?
Dimity, Sophronia, and Pillover snuck through the crowd, looking for Mrs. Barnaclegoose. Well, Sophronia looked; the other two, who had never met that good lady, were busy saying, “Is that her? Is that her?” in a slightly annoying way.
Petunia’s hysterics were just winding down when Monique de Pelouse came dashing into the ballroom. Her appearance caused more of a stir than Sophronia’s had. All attention drifted off of Petunia and the problematic punch to this new exhibition.
Miss Pelouse was decidedly indecent—her fine gold dress was entirely gone, and she stood in a towering rage, wearing nothing but singed and torn undergarments.
Behind her Sophronia swore she could see the dandy and the Pickleman skulking in the garden shadows. If they had the right kind of mind, they would suspect any one of the Pistons of absconding with the prototype. That is, if they believed it had been stolen from Monique and she wasn’t still hiding it about her person.
Monique, however, had a pretty good idea of who would have pinched the prototype. Her hair was wild, her eyes were flashing, and her tattered underskirts floated around her. She looked like a glorious avenging goddess from some ancient erotic myth. She marched through the room, in a vicious temper, and straight into a halfhearted waltz.
Sophronia pretended not to notice her. The crowd parted. Simply behave as though nothing is out of the ordinary, she told herself. I do this every day, hide extremely desirable inventions in my fake reticule.
Monique stood, arms akimbo, some six or seven paces away from Sophronia, and letting forth a scream of unadulterated anger, she hurled a cheese pie at Sophronia’s head.
Petunia Temminnick’s coming-out ball was pronounced a resounding success by all in attendance. There had been highly intoxicating punch, a variety of dances, good music, and intermission entertainment. No one knew why the beautiful Miss Pelouse had stripped, rolled about in the garden, and then chucked a cheese pie at the youngest Temminnick girl before being taken away in floods of tears, but it was surely the highlight of a most enjoyable evening.
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