by Juliana Gray
The automobile surged forward like a shot from a cannon, building speed with shocking ferocity. Finn couldn’t hear the engine from his post, couldn’t see much except the rising cloud of dust as the vehicle raced down the dirt track, beaten out of the meadow turf just a few days ago.
Delmonico gasped next to him. “Such speed!”
The track ran in a straight line down the length of the exposition grounds before curving around to complete its oval. Finn held his breath as the steamer drew closer, its contours emerging rapidly from the glare of the sun, resolving into detail. The tires churned into the dirt, the rhythmic hum of the turbine reached his ears, the driver . . .
The driver.
Finn felt the blood drain from his head, from his hands, dropping like a stone into the center of his gut.
“By heaven,” cried Delmonico, “they have a woman driving her! A woman!” He pounded the fence with his fist.
The motor was slowing now, nearing the turn of the track. Finn sensed, dimly, that he had vaulted over the white fence, that he was running across the damp grass, that William Hartley’s steamer was making the turn to head back to the starting point.
“No!” he heard himself yell. “For God’s sake!”
But the automobile was accelerating again, exploding back down the track. It rushed past him, a hundred yards away, trailing a billowing banner of dust.
Finn turned and ran after it, legs pumping and lungs bursting, as the long, hot rays of the Roman sunrise pierced his throbbing skull. All he could do was chase after Lady Alexandra Morley in her steam-powered automobile, while her delighted laugh mingled with the throb of the engine across the motionless air between them.
* * *
Alexandra set the brake and jumped with delight from the seat. “Bloody splendid!” she called out, tearing off her hat and her goggles. Hartley and the mechanics ran up to her from the fence with identical mad grins on their faces. “Magnificent! How fast was it?”
“Forty-two miles per hour, by my watch!” Hartley brandished the instrument in question. “A record.”
“I can’t describe it! The acceleration! It was like bolting on a horse, only perfectly smooth, perfectly . . .”
“Alexandra!”
The word burst through the air, sharp and desperate.
Alexandra whirled at the sound. A man raced toward her through the yellow dust, long legs battering the ground like pistons. “Finn! There you are! Isn’t it marvelous? I . . .”
He stopped a few yards away. “You fool! You bloody fool! You might have been killed!” He whipped about to face Hartley, chest heaving. “You damned idiot! Why did you let her drive?”
Hartley’s face, already white, blanched even further. He removed his hat and wiped his forehead with Alexandra’s lace-edged handkerchief. “I . . . She insisted . . . She told me she could drive . . .”
Finn threw his hands up in the air and turned back to Alexandra. “For God’s sake, what were you thinking? A steamer’s nothing like an electric. The boiler alone . . .”
She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Well! That’s a fine greeting. I thought you’d be pleased to see me.”
He aimed his gaze upward to the pale morning sky. “Not tearing down a dirt track in an untested steam engine!”
“How perfectly unreasonable. You know I’m a competent driver. You taught me yourself.”
“In my automobile, under my supervision. And for that matter . . .”
“I don’t need supervision . . .”
“. . . why are you here at all? And with Hartley’s team?” His eyes blazed at her.
She glanced at her nephew-in-law, who stood with the mechanics, hanging on every word. “I’m an owner of the company. As you know.”
The lines of his face hardened. “Yes, I know.”
“Oh, don’t look at me like that! I only came down to watch, to see the new machine in action, and then Mr. Hartley . . . proved unable to drive this morning. I thought I might help.”
“Risking your neck.”
“No more than you do,” she said quietly, “every day.”
He didn’t reply, only looked at her with his grave, penetrating eyes. His hands clenched and relaxed by his side. “Perhaps we should continue this discussion later,” he said at last.
“Yes, of course.” She gathered herself and turned to the other men. Her heart pounded hard in her chest, shocked with awareness of Finn’s gaze, Finn’s body once more crackling with energy and emotion a short distance away. “I beg your pardon. Mr. Burke is extraordinarily protective of his friends. Shall we put the automobile back in the shed? I expect you’ll need to get her ready for the public viewing.”
Mr. Hartley started forward. “Yes, yes. Of course. Shall drive her back myself. You . . . eh . . . of course, Burke, you’re welcome to . . . eh . . .”
“I shall accompany Lady Morley,” said Finn.
Mr. Hartley leaped into the automobile and grasped the tiller, while the mechanics started off on foot. Finn stood motionless, watching them go. Alexandra’s heart gave another dizzying thump.
He turned. “So. You’re here.” He wore that fixed inscrutable look of his, the scientist’s look, studying her.
She swallowed. The glowing self-confidence that had filled her since the sight of the newspaper advertisement drained away, under the weight of that impassive gaze. Perhaps she’d misread. Perhaps he’d arranged for the advertisement earlier, before he knew about her ownership of his competitor.
Perhaps she’d just made the greatest blunder of her life.
“Would you rather I hadn’t?” she asked carefully.
He shook his head. “At the moment, I suppose, I’m only glad you’re alive and whole.”
“I didn’t mean to worry you. I didn’t know you were there. I . . .” She checked herself, and then asked, “Why did you leave like that, without me?”
His expression softened at last into a rueful smile. “For one thing, darling, you’re the devil of a distraction. And as I explained in the note . . .”
“Note? What note?”
He started. “You didn’t get my note?”
“No! I looked for one, I thought you’d left one, and then I found that list of shareholders, that stupid, stupid . . .”
He stepped forward and took her shoulders. “That damned Giacomo! You thought I’d left without a word? Oh, darling.”
“But the list . . . the shareholders’ list . . .” A tear leaked from her right eye. She brushed it away in an angry gesture. “I knew you’d think the worst, that I’d betrayed you, but I didn’t, Finn, I swear it!”
“Of course not. I realized that, once I thought it through. Once I saw you fighting to save the workshop. Oh, Lord, darling, don’t cry.” He reached up one hand to touch her cheek.
“At first . . .” She shut her eyes to keep the tears in. “At first I wanted to find out about what you were doing, to see if there was something I might learn, something that might help. I was so desperate. But, really, it was you, Finn. I realize that now. It was all an excuse to see you. I knew in my heart the idea was all useless, because yours was electric and Hartley’s was steam, but I told myself . . . I told myself . . .”
“Shh. I know.” His hands caressed her shoulders.
She opened her eyes and looked at him steadily. “From the beginning, from that first dinner in the inn, when you looked at me with those eyes of yours, looking straight into my heart. It was you. You must know that.”
He drew her against him and wrapped his long arms around her body. His heart beat against her ear, still rapid from his sprint across the field. “I know it now.”
She closed her eyes and savored him, flush and living against her. She could almost feel the blood rushing through his veins, the vibrant strength of him enfolding her. How she’d missed him! Only now, in his arms, did she realize just how much. How dull, how empty life had been without him. “What did your note say?” she whispered.
His chuckle
rumbled against her ear. “All sorts of lovesick rot. I’m rather glad you didn’t read it, after all.”
“I’d have come to Rome straightaway, if I had. I’d have taken the next train.”
He shifted beneath her head. “Hmm. And why did you come?”
“Why, to help Hartley, of course. If he wins the race . . .”
He started backward. “If he wins the race? Hartley? You’re on his side?” He took her by the arms and set her away, looking directly in her eyes.
“Well, yes. From a practical point of view. I’m a shareholder, after all.” She caught his incredulous expression and patted his elbow. “Of course I want you to do well, Finn. It’s just that he needs this. I need it. He’s got to prove to the City that the automobile’s a winner.”
Finn’s voice took on an ominous note. “And why is that, exactly, Alexandra? Why does he need to prove the automobile to the City?”
A rather uncomfortable feeling began to work its way through the Finn-induced bliss in Alexandra’s brain. “Well, so that . . . so that the shares will go up. So that I can sell my stake and have my money back and . . .”
“I assume, of course, you’re aware that the company’s owners have already received an offer to tender their shares at a generous price?”
She cleared her throat. “Er. Yes.”
“I assume you’re aware of the identity of the individual making the offer?” he pressed, in a dark growl.
“Oh, Finn, really.” She smiled up at him. “It’s too kind of you—noble, really—but I simply can’t allow you to throw your money away on another company, just to give me my jointure back. I have my pride.”
He removed his hands from her arms and ran them through his hair. “Christ, Alexandra. You haven’t convinced Hartley to refuse the offer, have you?”
“I didn’t need to. He thinks we can do a great deal better than fifty shillings a share.”
“He’s mad!”
She crossed her arms. “Well, I won’t let you do it! I won’t tender my shares to you, by God, even if you offered me a hundred!”
“Why not? Why the bloody hell not?” He stood before her, arms akimbo, bristling, looking two or three inches taller and a good foot broader. The rising sun had caught his hair aflame, radiant red gold against the pale hazy sky.
Anger filled her, hot and unreasoning, at the glorious sight of him, at the way he glowed with brilliance and power and infallibility. Even the sun couldn’t resist him.
“Because I won’t! I won’t let you buy me! The way Morley did, the way every man does!” she blazed back. “I am not for sale, Phineas Burke! And neither is Manchester Machine Works!”
She whirled away and strode off in the direction of the automobile sheds. The grounds were scattered with people now: exhibitioners readying their automobiles, members of the public arriving early to peer at the machines, photographers setting up cameras.
“Wait, Alexandra!” he called from behind her.
She broke into a run, stumbling across the field in her cumbersome skirts and her awkward shoes, half hoping he would catch up with her.
But he didn’t.
TWENTY-FIVE
Why, I believe it is Lady Morley!”
Alexandra turned to see a man of medium height tilt his bowler hat courteously in her direction, his black eyes flashing. He must have sensed her confusion, for he supplied, quickly, “Bartolomeo Delmonico, your ladyship. We met in the spring at my friend Mr. Burke’s workshop near Florence.”
“Signore Delmonico! Of course.” She held out her hand.
He took her gloved fingertips and bowed over them. “Am I mistaken, your ladyship, or was it you who drove Mr. Hartley’s automobile on the track yesterday morning? A dazzling spectacle.”
“Yes, it was. Thank you.” She allowed her eyes an instant to dart past him, searching for Finn’s ginger head above the crowd. All day yesterday, she’d watched him stalk about the exhibition grounds, half a head taller than anyone else, radiating confidence and command. This was his turf, his kingdom, and he roamed about the crowds like Jupiter down from Olympus. She’d lost count of the number of times someone had nudged her and said, Look, there’s Mr. Burke, all the way from England! or Have you seen Mr. Burke’s machine? The man is a genius!
Deeply annoying, and also deeply arousing.
She’d told herself she was too proud to approach him, or that they were all too busy. In truth, she found him too strange, too intimidating, here in this foreign place where aristocratic English titles were as flimsy as paper, and only genius and initiative had the power to impress anyone. At the exhibitioners’ dinner last night, she’d been seated at the opposite end of the table, with Hartley’s team, and had hardly spoken to Finn all night. You’re enjoying yourself? he’d asked at one point, when the shifting crowd had brought them together, his voice as cold and reserved as the rainy March evening they’d first met. Yes, very much, she’d answered, chin tilted high, and then some half-drunk Belgian exhibitioner had claimed his attention, and that was that.
It had been an exceedingly restless night for her.
“Have you met my friend Herr Jellinek?” Delmonico was asking her, turning to a tall bearded man at his left. “My dear Jellinek, I have the honor to present Lady Morley, an English rose of the highest bloom.”
Alexandra fixed a smile to her mouth. “Signore Delmonico is too flattering. A pleasure, Herr Jellinek.”
“The pleasure is mine,” said the man, in a thick German accent. He straightened from her outstretched hand.
“Have you brought an automobile to the exposition, Herr Jellinek?” she inquired.
He shook his head. “An enthusiast only, Lady Morley.”
Delmonico laughed. “Herr Jellinek is in great demand among our exhibitioners, Lady Morley. He has a great passion for the automobile, and seeks one with particular promise in which to invest.”
“How brave of you!” Alexandra said. “I’m surprised our dear Delmonico lets you out of his sight at all.”
Jellinek smiled and glanced at the Italian. “His machine does impress me very much. He is far in advance of others with petrol engines, save perhaps for Herr Daimler.”
“Oh, Herr Daimler!” Alexandra exclaimed. “I’ve heard of him! The fellow in Munich with the four-stroke engine. Is he exhibiting here this week?”
A scowl settled on Delmonico’s face. “No.”
“A great shame.” Jellinek sighed. “I do not know why he has not come. It would be so much use to see the two machines side by side.”
Alexandra glanced between the two men, at the black and restless expression on Delmonico’s face. “A great shame,” she echoed. She noticed a young woman by Jellinek’s side, holding a large dark-haired baby against her hip and looking rather bored. She smiled kindly. “Have you brought your wife, Herr Jellinek?”
“Forgive me!” Herr Jellinek put his hand to his wife’s back. “My wife, Frau Jellinek, Lady Morley. She has no English, I fear.”
Alexandra took Frau Jellinek’s free hand and squeezed it. “You have a lovely child, Frau Jellinek.”
Jellinek murmured something in his wife’s ear, and she smiled a great proud smile. “Danke, mein Dame. Sie heisst Adrienne.”
Jellinek turned to Alexandra. “She thanks you, Lady Morley. Our daughter is named Adrienne. Though we call her Mercédès, because she is our gift.”
“Mercédès.” Alexandra bent and placed her finger in the baby’s grasping fist. “What a lovely name.”
* * *
Though Finn located William Hartley readily enough—in the center of a phalanx of photographers, his steam motor-car hissing behind him—finding a quiet moment in which to intimidate him proved more difficult.
In the end, he resorted to brute strength.
“A word with you, sir,” he said, grasping the man by the arm and pulling him away from the battery of camera lenses.
“Why, Mr. Burke!” Hartley straightened his cuffs and craned his neck to meet Finn’s gaze. �
�What can I do for you?”
For most of his life, Finn had regarded his excessive height as a matter of personal grievance between himself and his Maker. There was nothing at all wrong with being a tall, sturdy chap like Wallingford or Penhallow, but all good things had their limits. Once he’d passed seventy-four inches, during the weedlike summer of his fifteenth year, Finn cursed each successive inch—there were four of them—more roundly than the last. He grew from gangly, awkward youth to broad, long-shanked adult, always half a head taller than his companions, always bumping into doorframes and folding himself into train compartments and hanging his feet over the edges of beds. To have his six and a half feet crowned by a shock of ginger hair was only the final insult.
Now, staring down at the hat brim of the modestly proportioned William Hartley, who continued to straighten his cuffs as if his life depended on it, Finn recanted.
Height was good.
“You can do a great deal,” Finn said, in a drawling voice. “You can begin by telling Lady Morley you’ll brave the rigors of the race yourself.”
Hartley removed his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and replaced the bowler on his head. “Oh, Mr. Burke. I’m afraid . . . well, the plans are already in place . . .”
“Change them.”
“Well, I . . . I . . .” Hartley swallowed, and then burst out, “I don’t see that it’s any business of yours! Sir.”
Finn bent his head a little closer. “Oh, but it is. Lady Morley is very much my business. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want the slightest whiff of danger to so much as drift in her direction. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. But Mr. Burke,” Hartley said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and patting his forehead with it, “I don’t see how. The race begins in an hour. How am I to find a substitute driver?”
Finn shrugged his shoulders with deliberate slowness. “If you can’t find a suitable driver, I expect you’ll have to cancel your entry.”
“Mr. Burke! But you know—surely you know—we need to prove ourselves.” Hartley’s voice took on a pleading note, perilously close to a whine. His round cheeks worked in agitation. “We can’t simply cancel. Our investors would . . .” He stopped. “Oh, I see. I see.”