Mechanical Rose

by Nathalie Gray

  Eleanor had no doubt he had.

  Gloves and hat on a table—or she thought it was a table, hard to tell in this place what was furniture and what was machine—she turned to the groundskeeper, but with a thunk, he deposited her trunk and left without a word or backward glance.

  “Is it something I—”

  The sudden explosion drowned the rest of her sentence. The tremor passed through her. Eleanor, forgetting her new “proper lady” persona for a split second, crouched in a fighting stance, fists up and ready. The discreet slit from the hem of her dress to the waistband opened over her leg, on which she had strapped her small pistol, its twin slid into the double back of her corset. Dust fell like snow from the rafters above. Remembering where she was—and who she was—she quickly straightened, smoothed her dress and rushed to the window. Smoke rose from the lighthouse roof.

  “What was that? Should we go look?”

  When no one answered, she turned to find Lady Frivolous gazing out the window, a faint smile playing on her lips. She hummed under her breath.

  “Lady Frivolous?” Eleanor asked. “Should we not go check on Mr. Gunn?”

  Humming, the young woman did not seem to hear her. She chuckled, twirled a lock of hair around her index finger.

  “For good fortune’s sake,” Eleanor muttered, marching out of the great room in search of an access to the back door. There had to be a quick way out of this strange house!

  After a moment of fruitless search, she found a narrow window through which she could spot a balcony that ran the entire length of the house before jutting out far enough to allow her—after a good jump—clear access to the stairs leading down. It would have to do.

  Wind whipping her hair out of its pins, she passed a leg then a shoulder, squeezed out of the house and padded to the handrail, over which she jumped. The hem of her dress in a fist, she cocked back a leg, waited for a second then leaped the six-foot divide between the balcony and the stairs going down to the ground at least twenty feet below. She landed both feet on a step but snagged her dress and tore it at the waist.

  Cursing, she rushed to ground level and had jumped onto the crushed gravel path leading to the lighthouse when another explosion, this time smaller, momentarily made her ears buzz. What if something had happened to him? The Mechanical Rose Society always primed peaceful means of resolution and loathed loss of life. She too would prefer Gunn survived and continued his genius work in a less dangerous field.

  She shivered. Cold seeped into her ruined dress, which exposed her midriff to the humid wind. She charged up the path, took a shortcut through the long grass and leaped up to the lighthouse door just as it opened.

  The door’s edge provided just narrow enough to bypass the hand she raised to fend it off and hit her in the face. She rebounded, would have fallen had the man who opened it not reached for her wrist, lightning fast, and kept her put. Eleanor’s momentum continued and she crashed against the wall, taking the man with her when she slid.

  In a snarl of limbs and curses, they tumbled into the wet grass, landed both on their sides facing the other. Brass goggles gave him a curious, insectlike look while the smoky stench emanating from his clothes would make the hardiest folk faint dead on the ground. He pushed himself up on an elbow and clawed at his goggles.

  “Good fortune!” he cried. The deep voice a perfect complement to the man’s long, lean body. An athlete’s frame. “Are you all right?” Amid a soot-covered face, dazzling blue eyes framed with “clean” crow’s-feet stared unblinkingly at her.

  Under normal circumstances, Eleanor would have had a logical reply ready-made. She had them for every situation. Had she not been the only Society member able to tackle the Assanidian ambassador? She could have at least made a sound. Not that day. She lay there and could only stare in mute shock at the soot-covered face of Leeford Gunn—the same narrow nose and mocking mouth, twenty years older—her brain, sharpened into a dangerous blade, was now as dull as a butter knife. She had never experienced such strong reaction to a man. And for the first time in her career, she feared having to play her last card if it ever came to it. She subdued that chain of thought. What had to be done would be. The common good…

  “Are you all right?” he repeated, this time slower.

  She snapped out of her mental exploration of the man’s fine traits and intense blue gaze. “Yes, er, I-I am.” Her nose throbbed, as did her cheek. “I think.”

  He climbed to his knees and offered her a long, ink-stained hand that she took with relief and not a little thrill. Heat spread from her belly to her sex. She could feel the tension coiling between them. She ought to say something. Quickly.

  “I thought something had happened. The explosions…”

  After a nod, they more or less helped each other get back to their feet. He stood well over six feet tall. As he did so, his hand pressed against her exposed skin and both froze, eyes on the other.

  And as sudden as the explosion that had precipitated her downfall, Eleanor Cleverly, Mr. Clarence’s star pupil and one of the Mechanical Rose Society’s best agents, knew she had lost the edge of objectivity, the fine blade of detachment and professional separation. She had lost her indifference to a target.

  * * * * *

  Just his luck to have been saddled with another Lady Frivolous.

  A nasty red mark rapidly spread from the bridge of her nose to her eyebrow. He could not believe the gorgeous woman still stood. Anyone else would have been knocked out cold. The door had literally rattled in its frame.

  “We better put ice on that before it swells.” Was that his voice? It was not only the door she had rattled.

  With a nod she turned right around and started back down the path leading to the house. Shaking his head, Leeford followed the black-haired beauty, wondering what in the world she was made of. Steel? But he was not. Already his trousers constricted him to the point of pain. Good thing he wore a long jacket or Lady Frivolous’ relative would see just what sort of effect she had on him. And a shocking thing it was too for he made it a rule to steer clear of women—people in general—unless he went to town for that exact goal, and even then he wasted no time securing a professional companion for a cordial supper and torrid night. Human interaction unnerved him. He preferred his machines by far. They never made light of him.

  But this woman had stolen the breath right out of his chest. Literally. His shoulder ached from the door knocking back against him.

  Leeford did not remember her name though his cousin had mentioned it at least twice. But he did recall Lady Frivolous mentioning her relative’s arrival time. This, he remembered well for his propensity to pay more attention to numbers than to people. All he knew from his guest was that she had arrived on time. Punctuality ranked high on his scale of virtues.

  When they arrived at the house, she slowed. “Which way in?”

  “The same way out, by my guess.”

  He had never tried to be funny before and should remember why next time the urge took him. Leeford Gunn was many things—inventor, artist, tactless, alcoholic—but funny he was not.

  “I do not think I would manage that,” she replied with an eyebrow arched high.

  “I will help.” He offered his arm, which still smoked at the elbow. He tapped the singed fabric, knowing his awkward smile would only aggravate his situation. Typical.

  She pointed to one of the second-level windows. “I am sure there is a better way in than that one.”

  “You what?!”

  How had she managed that one? If proper decorum had not demanded he take care of his bruised guest, he would have enjoyed a demonstration very much. That window? Divine Graces!

  When she placed her hand on his arm, a stab of warmth shot through his chest. She seemed to have felt something too for her eyes flared—those striking gems were the color of a night sky—and her mouth parted. He found it very difficult to think when he started looking at those luscious lips painted a deep shade of purple.

  “Ice
,” she reminded him with a shadow of a smile.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes. I need it.”

  “For my nose.”

  He cringed inwardly and ignored the comment.

  Once in the kitchen, he tried his best not to act like a fool but ended up knocking things together in his rush to get ice from the ice maker. One of his first inventions. Not his best though. The machine creaked and moaned when he cranked the lever, waited for a few seconds—do not stare at her, for good fortune’s sake!—then lifted the grate so he could dip the copper ice scoop and measure out a fistful of the prized chunks. They burned his palms but he used this to focus as he walked around the kitchen, looking for a clean dishcloth. One hung from the chimney crane but it was filthy. Divine Graces, was there not a single piece of clean cloth in this kitchen?

  In the end, the woman herself pulled one from the slop stone against the wall—which was filled with dirty dishes—and made a sling of it. Without meeting her gaze, Leeford dumped half the ice in the miniature hammock—he should try to design a full-sized version, with a small machine to power its pendulum, perhaps even enamel handles for that touch of beauty he enjoyed adding to his work and—

  Focus, Gunn.

  To his vexation, the other half of the ice fell and skittered over the tile floor. “Pardon me.”

  “Oh, this is no problem at all,” she replied, smiling wide this time. Stretched over her pretty pearly teeth, her lips took on the shiny quality of black grapes. He would love to taste them. “Thank you.”

  Oh great, I amuse her.

  “My pleasure, Miss…?”

  As much as he tortured his brain for the name, he could not remember it. Gunn, you idiot.

  “Violet.”

  As pretty a name as her lips. Would the color transfer to a lover’s lips, he wondered. Did they taste as sweet as they looked?

  He snapped out of his trance. “Yes, of course, Miss Violet. My cousin has been waiting for you with great anticipation.” He had not been looking forward to entertaining a houseguest, but even he had the social grace not to admit it. He may have been too blunt and honest to the point of awkwardness in the eyes of “polite society”, but some modicum of etiquette had been properly beaten into him.

  He shook her hand. It was warm and strong. He knew hands—his favorite part of the human anatomy, such precise machines they were—and they were not those of an upper-class lady in need of repose in the country. “What is it you do, Miss Violet?”

  “I run several charities in Sigona. They keep me busy. I hear you are an inventor? How interesting!”

  Her eyes broke contact for a split second. As much as he loathed human interaction, he had learned a thing or two from his family, the illustrious and insufferably political Gunn “dynasty”, and realized that Miss Violet had just lied through her teeth. About which part, he was not sure. Both he suspected because hands like those did not merely hold pens and cocktail glasses.

  He felt a mocking grin pulling at his mouth. The one that had been his family’s scourge. There was one occasion where his Great Aunt Agnes had just about died of shame. No one had told him she had been deep in the business of negotiating her niece’s marriage when he had made his appearance in the great room. How had he known his mere presence at that party—dirtied from a day spent with the friendly old chimney sweep, who had shown him how things worked—would jeopardize the alliance of two powerful families? His parents, who never failed to tell him where he should not be, had put him on the train the next Monday to a boarding school across the land. They had had the largest chimneys he had ever seen there. Fascinating stuff.

  Leeford smiled graciously even if he would have preferred shaking his head at her obvious lie. “You find my line of work as interesting as I find my groundskeeper charming.”

  Miss Violet’s laugh surprised him by its suddenness and intensity. Such an indecorous woman! She would have made Great Aunt Agnes have a heart attack. With some degree of morbid delight, he pictured the Great Demise. Ha. He liked Miss Violet already.

  “I do,” she replied, smiling. “I really do, Mr. Gunn. Inventions are what make this world go round.”

  He sniffed at his singed lapel. “Or not.”

  They shared a quiet grin over the dishcloth filled with ice. He watched it melt between her fingers, each droplet coursing over her skin a small instrument of torture that twisted in his belly. He was so hard it hurt. Through the ruined dress, he saw her skin pebbling in goose bumps. Leeford had to tear his gaze away when the urge to touch her all but overpowered him. For goodness’ sake, could he not even control his own mind?

  You know you cannot, Gunn, hence the whisky.

  True. He had a tenuous hold at best on his restless mind and when an idea struck him, sleep became all but impossible. In fact, when he worked on a new project—such as the one currently occupying his nights and what little sleep he managed to steal—he forgot everything and everyone. He still could not believe his mysterious sponsor’s grant. Unlimited research funds happened only once in an inventor’s life. Since the Gunns would not part with a single ecu from their fortune—and the chimney sweep incident was a mere drop in their oh-so-superior bucket—Leeford counted on sponsors to provide for his needs and those of his household. Lady Frivolous, whose family was also affluent and a bit more generous than his, could never hold work and no one would put up with his groundskeeper’s disposition. So to dull the incessant turning of his mental gears and to get much-needed sleep once in a while, Leeford had to resort to whisky. A lot of it, thanks to his inherited ability to hold his liquor. Well, he was a Gunn, even if he would rather not be. And for once, Great Aunt Agnes would agree with him!

  Snapping out of his trance, he reached for her hand and raised the dishcloth to her face, gently pressing it to her forehead. “There, it will not do any good if it does not touch.”

  She arched an eyebrow but let him minister to her. A drop of water escaped from the cloth and ran along her cheek, made it look as though she were crying, which pulled at his heartstrings for no good reason at all. Leeford thought about the bottle of whisky waiting on his night table and wondered if it would be enough today. He had a lot to forget. With a thumb, he brushed the “tear” away.

  Those luscious lips of hers glistened after she moistened them. Satin. He wondered if they would be just as smooth. Of course they would. Just look at them.

  She took a step forward, stood a mere hand from him. He could smell her, sense her. Her chin tilted upward. Those dazzling black eyes.

  Lady Frivolous waltzing into the kitchen and humming broke the moment as effectively as if she had used a hammer to open a glass cabinet. Which she had done once. The Gunns owed a debt of gratitude to their closer relatives the Escorailles—Lady Frivolous’ family—and had thought it a perfect plan to get rid of him and to have someone watch over the unmarriable, absentminded woman. Perhaps they had meant to punish him for being a constant, clumsy thorn in their refined side. Truth be told, he would rather spend his life with Lady Frivolous and Max than a single minute with any member of his own family. The whole snobbish lot of them. She might misplace things, enter into daydreaming episodes at the least opportune times and repeat herself a lot, but her heart was in the right place. To him, nothing else mattered.

  He sighed, stepped back so Miss Violet could take over the dishcloth, which she did with a long look at him.

  “Oh Violet, what happened?” In a rush of swirling burgundy dress and loose brown curls, his cousin padded to the other woman and raised herself on the tip of her—naked—toes. “You are hurt!”

  Miss Violet shook her head, cleared her throat. Leeford had the distinct—and very satisfying—feeling she was trying as hard as he to clear the air of the sexual tension thickening it. Had he really had an effect on her?

  Other than amusement, that is.

  “I am fine, really.” She shrugged. “There were these explosions, and, well, I thought it meant trouble.”

  Lady Frivolous laughed
. The sound of crystal bells. He did enjoy her company more than everyone else’s. Well, maybe no longer everyone else’s.

  “Not here, my dear.” She turned to him, surprised him with a penetrating glance then sat on the counter, feet swinging below the frayed hem, a finger toying with the sugar nipper. Little chunks of precious sugar came loose from the cone and littered the blue ceramic tiles. “Explosions are commonplace here, are they not, Leeford?”

  “Not that commonplace, I assure you,” he retorted a bit too huffily for his pride. “My house is perfectly safe.”

  Now that he thought about it, maybe it was not so safe anymore. For his self-discipline anyway.

  Chapter Two

  Eleanor could swear the man’s hand still touched her long after he had taken it away. But his warmth remained. And the thrill, which had started at the base of her spine and now spread outward to her limbs, tingled to her extremities and hardened her nipples. She could hardly breathe, even if her corseted dress was for all intents and purposes torn in half under her arm and along the waistline.

  And the attraction was mutual.

  She could tell. In the way his gaze roamed over her when he thought she was not looking, and how his hands, contrary to the jerky movements that had made him dump the ice on the floor, slowed whenever he touched her. Heat wafted out of Eleanor’s adjusted collar and suddenly all she wanted was to yank it off and plaster herself against him. Because under the soot, singed clothes and disheveled hair, beneath the façade of eccentricity and social awkwardness, Leeford Gunn was a very energetic, very handsome man.

  His cousin’s arrival ruined the moment and saved her from becoming entangled in her emotions. Eleanor was not sure she was grateful or not. She should be. She just was not sure she was.

  “Well,” Gunn said, retreating by a step. So tall with long legs partly hidden underneath an adjusted jacket that had seen better days. He gestured at something above their heads. “I bid you good day. It has been a long night.” A quick nod and he walked away.