Only when he was satisfied that flames no longer threatened his ancestral home did he pause to survey the damage to himself. His singed cuffs indicated the ruination of yet another shirt. His palm and fingertips stung, and the muscles across his shoulders and down his back quivered as if he’d just carried a sack of bricks a mile uphill. At least this time he smelled no burning hair, though his ears would ring for the next day or two, undoubtedly.
Taking up the blanket again, he waved it up and down to clear the smoke from the circular room set high above Harrowood’s sprawling wings. Damn and double damn. He had been so certain that this time his calculations had been correct, that the current flowing from his electrical generator was at the proper level. He’d believed he had made all the necessary adjustments to the negative and positive charges. He had recalibrated the force of the steam passing through the conducting coils, and positioned the electromagnets with meticulous care.
But flipping the lever and releasing the energy accumulated in the steam duct had brought only flames, sparks, and dashed expectations. Cursing again, he crossed the room to the brandy he kept on the bookcase beside the south window. The wide stone sill offered a convenient perch. He loosened his neckcloth, propped up a booted foot, sipped the burning liquid, and considered.
Perhaps it was time he admitted defeat. Perhaps, as people continually said behind his back and occasionally to his face, he had been tilting at windmills in this laboratory of his.
But as the pungent spirits spread warmth through his veins and eased his smarting fingertips, the old tenacity surged back. Simon was far from ready to surrender, and he couldn’t deny a certain fondness for windmills, with their wide-open arms and their ability to harness one of nature’s greatest powers and tame it for practical use.
That was all he wished, really, to tame a natural force and put it to good use. But perhaps he couldn’t do it alone.
Alone. How he had come to hate that word and the way it had redefined his life. How he detested the sidelong glances of his acquaintances, their gentle queries into his welfare, and, worst of all, the pitying whispers they thought he couldn’t hear. How he dreaded waking to the deafening roar of those midnight silences that could not be filled because . . .
Because he was alone, and there was no longer anyone to talk to or reach for or hold.
With another generous draft, he banished those and other pointless broodings. Life was what it was. His gaze drifted out the open window. From this vantage point, he could see across the open fenland to the twinkling cluster of lights that was Cambridge. Something closer caught his attention. Was that a coach speeding away down the road? Had someone passed his gates as the flames and sparks shot up, or had the passerby simply remembered that the Mad Marquess lived here, and urged his team to a gallop?
It didn’t matter; it was no concern of his. No, Simon knew what he needed to attain his goal. But he also knew that what he needed would not come easily, if indeed it came at all.
Ivy poured tea, added cream and the heaping teaspoons of sugar Queen Victoria favored, and passed the cup and saucer into her royal guest’s hands. “Drink this, dear. It will help calm you.”
Victoria obeyed with a small sip. “You don’t understand,” she said with a shake of her head. “I cannot be calm until the stone is back safe with me. Oh, I’ll be a laughing-stock, and Albert will never wish to speak to me again....”
Wondering about the identity of this Albert, Ivy held up a hand. “Please slow down and tell me why this stone is so special. You say it is not a priceless gem as reported in the newspapers?”
“Indeed it is not, at least not in the typical sense. But I dared not let the real truth be known. You see ...” Victoria’s bosom rose on a sigh. “It is infinitely more precious than a jewel. It was a gift from ...”
“Yes?” Ivy gave Victoria’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “You may speak freely. You know my sisters and I would die before we betrayed your confidence.”
A fleeting smile of gratitude softened Victoria’s expression. “The gift came from Albert, my Saxe-Coburg cousin. He is a dabbler in the sciences, you see, and this stone . . . It is believed to have fallen from the sky . . . a meteorite. And, oh, Ivy, it is extraordinary indeed.”
“How so?”
“There is a certain energy about it.” The queen’s voice dropped as if someone might overhear. “A kind of warm field that at once pushes some objects away from it and draws others to it.”
“It is magnetic,” Ivy ventured.
“Oh, more than that. It is electromagnetic, and Albert believes it might even be a key to providing scientists with the means of generating . . . someday . . . useful and efficient electricity.”
A ripple of excitement traveled Ivy’s length. “To replace fire and steam in the powering of our industries, yes?”
Victoria gave a little shrug. “To be quite honest, I’m not certain what all this hocus-pocus is about.” With a faint frown, she raised her cup for another sip.
Then her features crumpled in dismay. “Oh, but what does it matter? Albert entrusted this stone to me as a symbol of our commitment to each other.” In a whisper, she said, “Ivy, he has asked me to marry him.”
In a burst of elation, Ivy threw an arm around her younger friend, careful not to upset her tea. “That is wonderful news. My dearest, I am so happy for you. When will the joyous occasion take place?”
She didn’t ask if she would be invited, for she knew the answer to that. The Sutherland sisters had stopped being suitable companions for the then princess Victoria some seven years ago, when she had become heir apparent to the throne. Soon after, they had lost touch with her, only to reestablish ties—secret ones—last spring when Victoria had appealed to them for help in a matter requiring the utmost discretion.
“I don’t yet know,” Victoria replied to Ivy’s question. “These things must be handled through the proper channels. But once we are married and Albert is here in England, he intends to put the stone in the hands of the right man, a scientist of singular brilliance. But now I have lost it and . . . Oh, Ivy! Albert will be so angry with me! And so will my dear Lord Melbourne.”
“Your prime minister?”
“Indeed, yes.” Placing her cup and saucer on the sofa table, Victoria leaped up from the settee and began pacing the small area of faded carpet in front of the fireplace. Ivy noted that her petite figure had grown plumper in the months since her coronation, her youthful features more careworn. Or was the latter due to her present predicament?
“I don’t understand why Lord Melbourne should care one way or another about such a private matter,” Ivy said.
Victoria came to an abrupt halt, her eyes as round as an owl’s. “That is exactly the point.”
When Ivy stared back blankly, the queen continued impatiently, “My dealings with Albert should never have been a private matter. I am a monarch, and for me there can be no affairs of the heart, not in the truest sense. Such matters must be conducted through proper diplomatic procedures, but Albert and I have been skirting those procedures on the sly. Nothing has been officially approved, not yet. Should anyone find out that I have already pledged my hand . . . Why, think of the scandal!”
Ivy could indeed imagine the tittle-tattle certain to fill England’s drawing rooms should it become known that the queen had behaved in a manner deemed inappropriate. “It isn’t fair. Your uncles—”
“Were men. It is one thing for a king to carry on with his mistresses, but let a queen set her big toe beyond the dictates of proper decorum, and oh!” She made a noise and tossed her hands in the air to simulate an explosion. “Royal or no, I am foremost a woman in the eyes of my subjects, and an impropriety like this ...”
“I understand.” Ivy pushed to her feet and went to stand before her queen. “What can I do?”
“Find the stone, Ivy. I don’t know how soon Albert might visit again, but I must have the stone back before he discovers the theft. What if he should speak of the stone in his
letters? What will I do then?” Her eyes widened with alarm. “I couldn’t possibly lie to him.”
“Good heavens, no.” Ivy clasped her hands together and considered. “Do you have any idea who might have taken the stone?”
“Indeed, I do. One of my ladies-in-waiting, Gwendolyn de Burgh.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yesterday morning the stone was gone, and so was Lady Gwendolyn—quite without my permission. Why, she’d been asking so many questions, I should have realized her interest in the stone was more than cursory. But I trusted her as I trust all my ladies, or most of them. Never could I have imagined such treachery from within my own private chambers.”
Ivy’s heart fluttered. If only Laurel and Aidan were home. If anyone could recover the queen’s stolen property, they could. Last spring, Victoria had sent Laurel to Bath disguised as a widow in order to spy on George Fitzclarence, a royal cousin whom Victoria had suspected of treason. Together, Laurel and Aidan had followed a dizzying maze of clues to solve a murder, stop a financial fraud, and put a very nasty individual behind bars where he belonged.
But Laurel and Aidan were away in France on some mysterious business neither seemed inclined to discuss.
“If only Laurel were due back soon ...”
“No, Ivy, it is you I need.”
“But I’m not the adventurous one. Everything I know I’ve learned in books—”
“Precisely. I need someone bookish, someone who would fit in with scholars and men of science. I am all but certain Lady Gwendolyn has headed to her home outside of Cambridge. Her brother disowned her some months back, and I believe she intends giving him the stone as a peace offering. You see, he’s something of an amateur scientist, if a rather mad one, and the stone would be of particular interest to him.”
At mention of Cambridge, home of one of Europe’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, all of Ivy’s senses came alive with interest. What she wouldn’t give to be allowed to attend lectures in those celebrated halls. The word scientist, too, had seized her attention. But she hadn’t at all liked Victoria’s one quick reference to the disposition of the man in question.
“Mad?”
After a brief hesitation, Victoria admitted, “Some call him the Mad Marquess of Harrow, but I’m sure it is merely collegiate fraternity nonsense. He maintains close ties with the university. That is where you will find him, Ivy, and perhaps the stone as well.”
“I see.” Ivy tapped her foot nervously on the carpet. “Then I am to appeal to him for the return of the stone.”
“Goodness, no!” Alarm pinched Victoria’s features. “He may not be mad, but neither is he known for being a reasonable man. He disowned his sister, didn’t he?”
“Then . . . ?”
“You must earn his trust. It so happens he is presently searching for an assistant for his experiments. If you could win the position, you would gain access to his private laboratory, and you could steal back what is rightfully mine.”
The outrageous proposal sent a chuckle bubbling in Ivy’s throat, one quickly coughed away when Her Majesty’s expression failed to convey even the faintest trace of humor.
This, apparently, was no jest but a true call to Her Majesty’s service, one that left Ivy more than a little perplexed. “How on earth shall I, a woman, track down a man in an academic setting? I wouldn’t gain admittance through the front gates, much less the lecture halls.”
Victoria smacked her lips together. “I have a plan for that, though admittedly a shocking one. More shocking, even, than when I asked Laurel to pose as a widow last spring and work her charms on my inebriate, adulterous cousin.”
More shocking than that? Ivy dreaded to ask, but ask she did. And the answer she received stunned her more than anything she had ever heard before in all her twenty-two years on this earth.
Chapter 2
“Oh, Ivy, surely not all of it?”
In the Sutherlands’ small kitchen to the rear of the bookshop, Ivy sat perched on a high stool. A linen towel was draped over her shoulders, while another covered her lap. Holly, her twin sister, stood directly behind her, a pair of freshly honed clipping shears clutched in her trembling hand.
“Yes, Holly,” Ivy replied. “Every bit of it. But do stop shaking or you’ll nip my ears clear off.”
Sitting at the head of the oblong kitchen table, their younger sister, Willow, hugged her arms around her middle and attempted, unsuccessfully, to stifle a sob. “Couldn’t you simply tuck it up under a cap?”
“No, Willow,” Ivy responded with stoic calm that surprised even her. “Caps come off, and then what?”
“Oh, but why, Ivy?” Holly gathered a handful of Ivy’s nearly waist-length tresses, letting them glide through her fingers to swish down her back in a torturous reminder of what she would shortly no longer have. “Why must you cut it all off?”
“Because Victoria asked it of me,” Ivy said. “Because she needs me, and, as you’ll remember, we have more than once pledged to be her secret servants. Are we to go back on our word simply because of a minor inconvenience?”
“But . . . it’s so beautiful.” Willow’s last word emerged as a wail.
Ivy shook her head. “It is not so very beautiful.”
No, while shiny and thick, her hair had always lacked the natural curl society deemed fashionable. Being neither golden like Laurel’s nor auburn like Holly’s, nor boasting Willow’s wondrous combination of both, Ivy’s dark chestnut mane, forever slipping from its pins, possessed little to recommend it and would therefore hardly be missed, not by her or anyone else.
Yet, as Holly obediently raised the shears and began snipping, a part of Ivy cringed at each snaking shank that littered the floor at her feet. But then, her misgivings amassed around far more than hair, or the loss of it. Victoria had led such a sheltered life that she could have little grasp of the sundry ways in which this plan could go awry. A woman in trousers was bad enough, but a woman pretending to be a man and entering a university’s precincts on her own, without a proper chaperone . . . She would be ruined—ruined for all time—and the queen herself would not have the power to save her.
For several minutes the only sound in the cramped kitchen was the ticking of the wall clock and the metallic scrape of the clippers . . . and Ivy’s labored breathing, which she hoped her sisters couldn’t hear. She would simply have to make certain that no one at Cambridge ever learned the truth, or ever traced the young male student back to the Sutherland sisters. It wasn’t so much her own reputation for which she feared, for to her, marriage seemed little more than a silk-lined trap.
She’d take her books over a husband any day. If the truth be told, she wished she could be a university student, and spend her days reading and learning and being among the intellectuals fast shaping a modern world. As far as marriage went, she doubted she would ever be as fortunate as Laurel in finding a husband who respected her intellect and treated her as a partner rather than a subordinate.
But what of Willow and Holly? With their parents and now Uncle Edward gone to their graves, it remained up to them to make their own decisions in life, yet in a world where breeding and background played such vital roles in the marriage mart, Ivy feared her manly masquerade could utterly obliterate her sisters’ chances of future happiness.
She had not explained any of that to Victoria. She had taken a vow; they all had. Surely their queen’s needs superseded their own. . . .
“You know, of course, that I am going with you.” Holly’s assertion broke the silence and made Ivy wince.
“Me, too,” Willow said eagerly, but with a conspicuous sniffle. “We’ll simply have to close up shop for however long it takes.”
“To what purpose?” Ivy shook her head. “How many university men do you know that have female chaperones?”
Willow pulled a lace-edged handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. “You know very well that there are no university men in our acquaintance.”
&nb
sp; “No, nor will there be,” Ivy said. Then, “Ouch! Holly, that was my earlobe!”
“Sorry! Hold still.”
“That’s enough. Holly, don’t cut it any shorter than that.” Willow came to her feet. Mopping her cheeks with her hankie, she cast Ivy a look of sober assessment and drew a shaky breath. “You know, it really isn’t so very bad.”
“How reassuring,” Ivy said drily. She gathered her courage and ran a hand through it, only to experience a burst of frustration when far too much length glided through her fingers. “That can’t be short enough. Holly, please continue and this time do the job properly.”
But Holly held the shears to her bosom and stepped back. “It is plenty short. Many a university student has unkempt hair. They either don’t have time to visit their barber or consider such details beneath their notice.”
“Holly’s right, Ivy,” Willow concurred. “And since it has suddenly taken on a propensity to curl, it feels much longer to you than it looks.”
“Truly?” From under the towel, Ivy stretched out an arm. “Holly, hand me the glass.”
“Perhaps the ends do want a bit of neatening first....”
“The looking glass, Holly, if you please.”
Ivy resolutely clamped her fingers, gone cold these many minutes, around the gilt handle. Upon discovering, however, that she was not quite as brave as she would like to pretend, she pressed the mirror facedown in her lap.
Then she looked—really looked—at each of her sisters in turn. Were they horrified by her new appearance? Dismayed? Their countenances revealed no trace of either sentiment. Quite the contrary. But then, Ivy had long considered herself the least attractive of the four Sutherland sisters. That she might now be less attractive was perhaps a matter of marginal significance.
Outrageously Yours Page 2