“Not for certain.” Putnam shook his head then took a sip of his tea. “I’m sure he’s hoping you’ll come home on your own steam after a few days to beg his forgiveness. If that’s the case then it’s the things left unsaid that are soonest mended as my grandmother used to say.”
I swallowed and didn’t look over at Julian, afraid to see that he might be considering it. Not that I’d blame him. The life of a merchant scientist in France wasn’t nearly as glamorous as the life of an heir to one of the richest men in England.
“Absolutely not,” Julian said. “I’ve married, not committed murder. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“And if your father seeks to bring charges against Lady Capshaw née Mulvaney?”
“The case will be dismissed before it ever reaches the magistrate. No one would ever dare bring such charges against a woman.”
“Regardless of what you may think of him, I know your father’s reputation well enough to know that ‘dare’ is a word he does not have a problem embracing, especially when it comes to protecting his legacy.”
“What of the word ‘scandal,’ then?” Julian asked. “If Aida is brought before the magistrate, it will be a scandal of unbelievable proportions.”
“Our marriage already is.” My tea cup rattled in its saucer when my hands shook.
“Aida.” Julian took my tea cup from me and put it on the floor, then kneeled in front of me with my hands clasped in his. “No woman has ever been tried, much less convicted, of criminal seduction.”
“But plenty of Irishmen have.” I swallowed. “Do you know what happens to anyone who’s marked in the registry with an ‘I’ next to their name when they’re convicted of a crime?”
“No.”
“Hard labor at Kilmainham Gaol, and men and women both serve there. Most never leave. I’m Irish, Julian, and your father is a powerful man. If he brings charges, I’ll be convicted, and we’ll never see each other again. I’ll be as good as dead.”
“I won’t let that happen.” Julian squeezed my fingers between his own ice cold ones. “I promise you Aida, I won’t let you come to harm.”
“Neither will I,” Putnam said. “I won’t see a woman in a place like the Kilmainham. I’ve seen men who’ve been broken there. It’s a brutish place, there’s no mistake about that. “
“So you’ll help us?” I asked.
“Aye, if you want it, a place has already been made for your Lord Capshaw in our labs,” Putnam said. “I even have a small home available that may be suitable for the two of you. Nothing grand, but the neighborhood is decent, and the clockwork servants are of the very best model to be found in France. I believe they’re your own design, actually.”
“We would be greatly obliged to you,” Julian said.
“And if need be, I can always upgrade the servants to perform better,” I said. “To make up for the inconvenience of housing us.”
“That is one small, unfortunate, issue we must discuss,” Putnam frowned at me. “Lady Capshaw cannot work inside the Putnam laboratories—or anywhere else for that matter.”
“Pardon?” Julian asked. “Why ever not?”
“France has sided with the Pope,” I said quietly. “Female engineers are not allowed to hold employment in France. We’re not allowed to earn pay for our trade.”
“Preposterous,” Julian said.
“Even so.” Putnam shook his head and then gave me a tight smile. “With Lady Capshaw’s talents, it may be possible to work out a way for her to work on a more freelance basis.”
“You mean on the black market? Making trifles for those who can pay?” I asked.
Most of the luxury items that made up the bulk of our family business in England were trinkets that took barely any time or expense to make and—more importantly—were currently outlawed by France’s strict anti-clockwork laws. Given the way the words forbidden and aristocrat seemed to attract each other, there was a very good chance that Julian and I could make a very tidy profit during our time in Paris.
“Thankfully.” Putnam raised his tea cup to me in a mocking sort of toast. “Most gendarmes are oblivious to any questionable technological trade—it’s such a complicated set of laws to enforce after all—but some of the smarter members of law enforcement have what you might call a taste for the unique and the strange. You’ll want to make sure that they’re appeased and that you keep your dealings discrete. Otherwise, you may bring down more attention than you’d find profitable.”
“Of course.” I nodded and couldn’t resist a sly smile. Discreet would hardly be a problem. Given I had room to work, of course.
“Excellent.” Putnam clapped his hands together. “Well then, if we have finished our tea, perhaps you would like to accompany me to your new lodgings?”
“An excellent idea,” Julian said, helping me to my feet. “I’m sure Lady Capshaw would like the chance to freshen up and rest, and I would like to get to work.”
“That’s not necessary,” Putnam said. “You’ve time to help your wife settle. Perhaps enjoy a bit more of your honeymoon.”
“Oh.” Julian looked from Putnam to me. His eyes flamed with desire as he let his gaze rake down the length of my gown. I could feel my face flushing at the thoughts of what had happened last night between us and was sure Julian was thinking the same. “Perhaps that would be best. To make sure that Lady Capshaw is adequately settled, of course.”
“Of course,” Putnam said and I could tell that he was doing his best to suppress his own schoolboy snickers.
Chapter Eight
“So Esther dear,” I bit my lower lip as I looked at the letter I was writing and scratched out the last bit. She’d know I was hiding something if she saw the dear. “So Esther, as I wrote in my last letter, everything is progressing swimmingly here. While our current situation is modest, Capshaw is a kind and compassionate husband and I have a great deal of respect for him. I might even—”
“Darling,” Julian called out from the bottom of the dark, drafty stairs, his voice echoing around the narrow corridor. “What are you doing in the attic at this time of the morning?”
“I’m trying to make your etherographic scanner work.” I hurriedly slid the letter underneath a stack of blueprints and knocked the machine’s needle out of calibration to give credence to my fib.
It wasn’t that Julian would complain about me writing to Esther, but he would question it. After all, what could I want to tell Esther that I wouldn’t entrust to James Putnam in an etherographic scan? Besides the fact that I had found myself growing more than a little fond of my new husband, even though his treatment of me had not changed.
“The stupid thing keeps shifting and I can’t get the alignment right.” I tried to put the machine to rights again, hoping that it would be a significant distraction so that he wouldn’t notice how flustered I’d become.
“Here, let me.”
I jerked with surprise when Julian reached over my shoulder to make adjustments to the machine.
“You’re shaking too hard to get the blasted thing calibrated. Why don’t you put some coal in the stove? There’s no reason for you to freeze in this drafty lab. You’ll take a chill and then where will I be?”
“I…” I trailed off and looked over at the empty coal bucket. “I’m fine.”
Julian followed my gaze with his own, and his shoulders tensed. “Damn it,” he said before snatching my hands between his and chafing them together. “How long have we been out of coal?”
“I’ve a few pieces in the kitchen still, so if we’re careful it should last us ‘til Wednesday. The Duke of Orli has written to say he’ll send a man around with payment then.”
“Unless Orli means next Wednesday or even one two months from now.” Julian sighed. “You know how these French nobles are. They never pay on time.”
“We can make it a few more days.”
“We shouldn’t.” He slammed his fist on the tiny desk, and the scanner’s needle jumped again. “We shouldn’t need to
make it for a few more days. You shouldn’t be shivering from cold and hiding it from me. Go warm yourself in the kitchen. I’ll send your scan.”
“I’d rather stay,” I said.
“You’re going to catch a chill,” he said.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Come here then.” He lifted me by my arms, sliding gracefully into the chair I’d just been sitting in and pulling me into his lap, taking a minute to burrow his own cold nose into the side of my neck. “Now, who were you hoping to send a scan to?”
“My father. I need Putnam to tell him that my equipment was seized at the airship port again by the French authorities. For the third time.”
“What excuse did they use this time?” Julian pulled his nose back from my neck and I turned to look at him, watching his eyes go dark as his back stiffened and he put distance between us. “And why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“I didn’t tell you because it wouldn’t do any good.” I shifted so that I was facing away from him, barely perched on his knee now with my own back as ramrod straight as his own. “Your father has people in the ports at London and Paris both. They’ve seized every shipment my father has sent me for the past two weeks.”
“Christ,” Julian said under his breath.
“As it stands, if the Duke of Orli doesn’t pay me on time as he promised, not only will we be without coal, but I won’t be able to complete my order for the Marchioness of Dubois. I need more equipment and there is no one here in Paris who can risk their machines being seized if we’re raided.”
“Understandably.”
“So I need to ask my father to find another shipping route because if we don’t find a way to get the necessary equipment I’ll lose the commission and without the commission from the Marchioness—”
“Our funds will run even more perilously low.” Julian set me on my feet, stood, and paced around the room angrily, slamming his fist into his other hand. “How low? How long can we last on the money we’ve stashed back if the Duke doesn’t pay on time?”
“If the butcher will extend us more credit, then we’ll be able to buy coal. If not, let’s hope Madame Redoulette downstairs decides to keep her flat extra warm.”
“God damn it.” Julian slammed his fist on the table, and the needle on the scanner jumped again. “God damn my father and the Queen and the whole situation.”
“We’ll figure something out.” I touched his hand lightly, hoping to soothe him, but the muscles in his arm twitched in what was most likely irritation. I pulled my hand away and tried to swallow down the hurt I felt that my husband appeared to loathe my touch outside of our tiny bed.
“Perhaps I can find the parts I need on the black market. Horloge Jacques will give me the parts he has and will let me pay when the Marchioness has paid me. That’s what I did the last time with the Vicomte of Ravelline’s personal secretary.”
“Clockwork Jack charged you 300 percent interest on the parts,” Julian said. “You barely made a profit on that commission.”
“It gave us the funds to find this place.” I narrowed my eyes and waved my hand to encompass the ugly little garret we’d found ourselves living in, struggling to stay warm on the days our downstairs neighbor didn’t keep her flat as warm as the Turkish bath on the Rue Comptine.
“This place?” Julian looked around and then shook his head in disgust. “That’s a step in the right direction then, isn’t it?”
I looked around the tiny, dark attic of the upstairs flat we’d been forced to rent in the Latin Quarter after Putnam’s French division had been unable to find work for Julian. Not unable, I corrected myself, unwilling.
There was work for a skilled etherographic chemist in their labs, but the board of Putnam and Sons had been too afraid of angering Queen Victoria and losing her business to let Julian work—even in secret—no matter how much Terrence and Putnam had argued in Julian’s favor.
I clenched my jaws as I remembered how defeated he’d looked when they’d dismissed him. A useless nobleman he’d called himself. A man who couldn’t even earn enough to feed his wife. Worse than a street thief.
I’d wanted to kick Terrance Putnam, but not nearly as much as I’d itched to fly back to England and slap Julian’s father. The man had taken it upon himself to ruin his son’s fortune with a single-minded determination that was almost nightmarish in proportions. It wasn’t enough to just disown Julian—he’d requested that the Queen exile his son and strip him of his property and his titles, and she had complied, with an almost unseemly amount of glee from what the gossips had reported.
Then, once he had taken Julian’s past from him, the Earl had used his own fortune to bribe all the best firms in Paris not to employ his son. In short, the Earl of Capshaw’s wrath had forced us into a penniless exile in Paris, subsisting on whatever I could scrounge together through illegal work while Julian tried to find us a better situation or somewhere safer that we could decamp to after the last of the winter storms had run their course.
Every day my husband grew more dejected. He’d become cold and angry, dependant on my living but resentful and jealous of the work all the same. More than once I’d heard him pacing back and forth, cursing himself when he thought I was asleep.
“I’ve made plans to talk with the American Ambassador today,” Julian said.
“What?” I asked.
“The new ambassador. James Putnam is an acquaintance of his, and he arranged for a meeting. He seems to think the man may know of some opportunities in America for me to work.” His shoulders dropped some, but he still kept his back to me, not meeting my gaze.
“Work?” I asked as he strode to the window and stared out of it at the street below. “In America? Are you sure that’s necessary? There are no other opportunities to be found here instead? Switzerland perhaps? Or the Low Countries? I’ve heard they’re desperate for scientists at the new university in Copenhagen.”
“It’s too close to my father.” Julian kept his eyes on the street, but his shoulders slumped, and my heart ached to see him feeling so low. “What happens if he makes inroads with the dons at this new university, or uses his contacts to see me dismissed from a job on the Continent? What if I’m out of work again? How are we supposed to eat? I can’t even feed you properly now without taking credit from the butcher.”
“I’ll take in more work.” I stepped forward, wrapping my arms around his back and burying my face in his coat. “Do you hear me? I’ll take on more commissions.”
“With what?” He pulled away from me and threw his hands in the air. He reached the wall and turned on his heel to glare at me. “The equipment that was seized at the docks? You’re forced to go into the Montmarte and deal with black market smugglers like Clockwork Jack at rates of interest that would make the most hardened rookery owner weep with envy. You’ll work yourself to exhaustion before spring and never make enough to earn us more than some bits of bread and a disgrace of a flat even the rats have quit.”
“But—”
“I know that you don’t want to be so far from your family,” Julian said before I could protest. “But this is our safest choice, our only choice. My only choice. You can either come with me to America, or I can send you back to your father’s house and make my way on my own. In all likelihood, once I’m gone, my father won’t bother you again.”
My heart dropped into my stomach and tears prickled at the back of my eyes. “You’d leave me? You’d send me back to England now? In disgrace? To do what?”
“To get on with your life,” Julian said.
“What life?” I balled my hands into fists and fought the urge to reach out and smack my husband across the face, desperate enough that I was almost willing to try to beat sense into him like he was a small, particularly stubborn boy. “There’s nothing for me in England. I’ll be a disgrace, the scorned wife of a man who’s fallen out of favor with the Crown. What sort of future do you expect will be waiting for me?”
“You can have the marriage
annulled and find someone else.” Julian pushed past me to the door. “Or you can stay with your father. Or come to America with me. But I’ll tell you this. I’d rather give you up and let you face a scandal, knowing that you’re safe and well in England, than take the chance of you starving here in Europe. I will not save my pride only to watch you die in slow degrees because I can’t provide for you.”
“Jul—”
“I care too much about you to watch you starve. I lo—” He stopped, his chest heaving and glared at me for a moment before storming out of the room and slamming the door behind him.
I took in a deep, shaky breath and let it out slowly, trying to stop the trembling in my hands. He cared about me. I’d known he cared about me, but perhaps now he meant as more than a colleague? As more than a friend, even?
My heart began to pound in double clockwork time at the thought that Julian might feel toward me even an inkling of what I’d felt growing in my own heart for him. But even if he didn’t, I knew that I couldn’t bear to be apart from him. I wouldn’t stand in front of a magistrate and claim that my feelings for my husband weren’t love and that our marriage hadn’t truly taken place.
Now, I just had to find some way to change our fortunes here in Europe before the man I loved did something desperate and took us off to the former colonies. I glanced at the scanner and sighed. Julian was right. Even if my father sent more supplies, the French authorities would seize it and collect their payoff from the Earl of Capshaw. Then they’d auction off my equipment and make an even higher profit.
I waited a few more minutes, until I heard the outer door slam closed and I was sure that Julian had left the apartment for his daily attempt to find some form of employment. I watched from the window as he stormed down the street, then made my way out of the attic and down the stairs to our tiny flat. Once inside, I grabbed my heavy black cloak and brushed my hands across the skirt of my secondhand brown serge dress. Neither piece was fashionable, but both were clean and would keep me warm in the frigid Parisian winter wind.
I pulled the hood of my cloak up to cover my head and started down the main stairs to the front of the building, letting myself outside and turning in the opposite direction from the one Julian had taken. We were equidistant between two of the Metropolitan Public Steam Tram stations, and I knew he took the MST toward Defense. It would be better for me to start toward the other one if I wanted to reach the Pigalle and Horloge Jacques’s dingy office.
A Riveting Affair (Entangled Ever After) Page 17