The Golden Spider (The Elemental Web Chronicles Book 1)

by Anne Renwick

Lady Huntley’s fingers paused. “You refer to my indentured servitude? I understand Thornton informed you of my husband’s traitorous acts.”

  Delicacy was not her strong suit, but Amanda tried. “Is it so very awful? The conditions?”

  “Working here, with Thornton, is everything a neuroscientist could dream. Any resource I desire, I have only to ask. Socially, my life is a nightmare. When I leave the laboratory, I return to my husband’s town home and stay there‌—‌alone‌—‌until it is once again time to return here.”

  Amanda felt an upwelling of sympathy.

  The only daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Lady Huntley had stayed at her father’s side, caring for him. Though instead of needle-pointing pillows, she’d experimented with magnetic aether waves and, over time, developed the transmitter now used in the acoustico work. Upon her father’s death, she’d done the near impossible‌—‌she’d put herself on the ton marriage mart and managed to land an earl in less than a month.

  “May I ask a personal question, Lady Huntley?”

  “You already have.” Lady Huntley did not meet her eyes. Instead, she pressed a heavy metal plate onto the surface of Amanda’s hand, pushing her palm into an odd pliable substance. “You may feel a slight tingle.”

  “Do you wish you’d never married?” A faint electrical pulse ran through her fingers.

  Lady Huntley’s hand shook as it hovered above a lever. “Our marriage was mutually beneficial, my dowry for his title‌—‌and the ability to continue my work. It wasn’t love at first sight. Although, in the short time we had together, a certain…‌ understanding developed.”

  “Would you…‌ recommend marriage?”

  “That is two questions.” Lady Huntley pulled the lever. A final gear turned and the lock released. “If you’ll follow me.”

  A sore point, Amanda realized. She’d overstepped her bounds, but it was hard not to compare herself to Lady Huntley. They were of a same age and had similar interests. A husband was a complicating factor, and she wasn’t certain how one would alter the equation of her life. Lady Huntley was the only one she knew who might be able to shed light on the matter.

  Perhaps‌—‌scientist or not‌—‌the widow of a traitor was not the woman she should ask.

  She stepped through the door.

  The inner laboratory space was much like the outer one, only smaller. On a miniature operating table lay a white rat, his nose connected to a miniature ether mask. Lord Thornton sat on a stool beside his patient, manning the anesthesia. He nodded a greeting, barely glancing at her.

  The rat’s foot twitched. “A few minutes more. While we wait, Lady Amanda can inspect the device.” He indicated a small metal tray holding a number of tools and, nestled in gauze, a small pink glass sphere with a long wire protruding from its center.

  “The phaoscope?” Amanda did not touch the sterile object. “It’s so small.” She looked at Thornton. “This cannot be the device the eye doctor is attempting to activate.”

  “Of course not. This is not much more than a tiny lens, a simplified prototype.” His voice was dismissive. “The wire inserts directly into the optic nerve, sending electronic impulses to the visual cortex for interpretation. The human prototype is far more complex. Lady Huntley, if you will.”

  The widow handed her a wooden box. “This is the human prototype.”

  Amanda opened the lid and peered inside. A blue eye peered back from a nest of cotton batting. “May I?” she asked, her fingers already reaching.

  He nodded.

  She lifted the surprisingly light glass sphere, marveling in its human likeness. Pliable strips attached to its sides in strategic positions. “Artificial muscle,” she marveled, remembering the substance that had molded to her hand. “Capable of responding to electrical impulses. It contracts?”

  “It does.”

  “Amazing.”

  “So it is,” he said. “We call it myotech. As you are aware, muscle attachment to the cranial nerve and, therefore, control of eye movement is our current stumbling block. At present, all movements must be controlled by external wires and an impulse generator. Though if the myotech could be connected to the original nerve…‌”

  “There would be no external evidence that the eye is artificial.”

  “Exactly. Unfortunately, so far our attempts to connect existing cranial nerves to myotech have failed. Your device could provide the perfect solution.”

  She was missing something. True, having both eyes track together would provide the individual with both natural appearance and greater visual acuity, but…‌ No. This device was not simply an artificial eye. A spy would be after something like enhanced vision. “There has to be more,” she said, turning toward Thornton. “Does it provide the wearer with unusually keen vision?”

  Thornton’s eyes lit up.

  “Look closer,” Lady Huntley prompted.

  Amanda rotated the glass eye in her palm, examining the iris. The radial striations were convincingly real and even contained small flecks of brown and gold, but the pupil was not perfectly round. “A hexagonal aperture. It adjusts to varying light levels?”

  Impressive.

  “If I may?” Lady Huntley held out her hand for the sphere. With a gentle twist, the eye fell open into halves. Inside was an exquisite piece of machinery. “With this lens installed, an agent could read a document over the shoulder of a man standing one hundred yards distant.”

  Amanda gasped. That alone explained the interest in the artificial eye. “How is the focus mechanism controlled?” She leaned closer, tracing the pathways of the wires. “The muscles!”

  “Exactly,” Thornton confirmed, pride melting away his icy demeanor. “With a series of preset eye movements, the agent will be able to focus at superhuman distances. What’s more, the artificial eye is a camera.”

  Eyes wide, Amanda followed Lady Huntley to a wooden box. It was plain, but for the slots carved in one end.

  “This is the receiver. Much like a traditional camera, you prepare the plate and slide it in here.” Lady Huntley indicated the slots. “Either the agent or the person manning the camera can initiate exposure. In a matter of minutes, we can see whatever the agent himself is viewing.”

  Unless one stood nose to nose with said agent, the eye would appear so real, no one would know images were being taken and transmitted. It certainly explained the over-the-top security.

  Lady Huntley walked over to the operating table and pinched a tiny pink foot. “No response. I believe we’re ready.” She lowered herself to a stool at the head of the table, and together, she and Thornton bent over the rat, working seamlessly.

  The small wire of the tiny, glass sphere was inserted into the optic nerve. Moments later, after a few well-placed stitches and an injection of morphine, the rat was returned to a small cage to recover upon a rubber flask filled with warm water.

  “As yet, we only have daguerreotypes from a rat’s-eye perspective. There have been no human trials yet,” Lady Huntley stated.

  “By you,” Amanda pointed out. “Though the eye doctor is doing his best. On gypsies. Against their will and with no regard for their life.”

  “Do not compare us to him,” Lady Huntley snapped. “Not in any way. Our techniques are always brought to perfection first.” She gave Amanda a level stare. “You can rest assured all our human patients‌—‌veterans or agents‌—‌arrive here voluntarily and already missing an eye.”

  Amanda tried to apologize. “I didn’t mean to…‌.”

  Thornton understood. “She’s not criticizing our research, Lady Huntley, merely observing that all this,” he said, waving a hand, “gets us no closer to catching a murderer. Nor will her completion of the redesigned neurachnid.” He stood, unbuttoned his laboratory coat, and hung it from a peg. “Lady Huntley is merely feeling the pressure of another investigation into her husband’s activities.”

  The woman in question crossed her arms and gave Thornton a pointed look. “I don’t appreciate the Qu
een’s agents once again combing through John’s possessions. They didn’t find his contact last time, what makes Black think they’ll find him now?”

  Thornton stabbed his fingers through his hair. “It’s an avenue that cannot be ignored. You know as well as I that John once courted Lady Amanda. He knew about the device she was developing.”

  Amanda’s heart jumped, picking up its pace. “You think he told the Germans about my device?” It had been nearly a year since she’d spoken with Lord Huntley, and then, only to wish him happy in his new marriage.

  A tight nod. “It may very well be his contact who sent the eye doctor to London, to seek out and secure the means and ability to install the phaoscope.”

  A dark cloud settled over Lady Huntley’s face. “If this gets out, my reputation‌—‌what little I have left‌—‌will be destroyed.”

  “We’ve no choice. No other leads,” Thornton countered. “Black and his men have found nothing but rumors and vague descriptions of the eye doctor that fit nearly half of London’s inhabitants. Beyond gypsy bodies, he leaves no evidence of his…‌ work.” He released a long, burdened exhalation. “I won’t sit idly by waiting for him to make a mistake at the cost of more lives. If he manages to connect the cranial nerves to the myotech, he’ll disappear. Once the phaoscope is operational in German hands, it will be used against us. Against our own agents. Against our own country. We must do something.”

  “Fine. Do as you must.” Lady Huntley turned away and, with abrupt, angry movements, began to set the small laboratory to rights.

  “What of his knowledge of the nerve agent?” Amanda asked. She was almost certain she’d not discussed that with Lord Huntley.

  A clang rang out as Lady Huntley set down a tray with more force than necessary. “It seems my husband paid court to quite a number of young ladies before we met. Why not your sister?”

  Why not? Emily had danced with Lord Huntley on more than one occasion.

  Thornton looked pained. “In any case, your father has taken steps to ensure his daughters’ safety. Even now, agents posing as gypsies are in her camp. You will find agents by your side as well. Please show your newest footmen kindness. They are not enamored of the required uniforms.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE NEXT MORNING, Black stopped him with a yell in the hallway outside the lecture hall. “Lord Thornton!”

  Several of his students cast curious looks in their direction. Neither of them were at their best and, quite possibly, looked every bit like dissolute peers. Black sounded harassed; his face was drawn and lacked his usual cheeky grin. Thornton himself had glanced in the mirror earlier and noticed a gathering darkness beneath his own eyes.

  Unpleasant thoughts raced round his head constantly‌—‌Amanda. The eye doctor. His failing leg‌—‌and sleep eluded him.

  “Find anything new?” Thornton asked, referring to the search of the Huntley townhouse.

  “Nothing.”

  “I suppose it was too much to hope John kept a hidden diary with details of his German contacts.”

  Black didn’t smile. “He left nothing behind. I begin to suspect he didn’t intend to return.”

  That surprised Thornton. With his debts cleared, Huntley had plenty to return to. A beautiful wife, his estates, his research, his family. Perhaps John had intended to leave on the pirate airship after all. Though the way the short, burly pseudo-pirate had sliced the neck of his former friend certainly didn’t indicate he was interested in a new alliance.

  Thornton ran a hand over his eyes. He’d dragged John with him, into the evacuation glider, the extra time devoted to saving his friend earning him a cutlass slice to his leg. John hadn’t lived long enough to reach the ground, despite Thornton’s attempts to save him. If not for a kind farmer in the fields below who bound his leg and delivered him quickly to Henri, he too would have died.

  He’d certainly felt like dying. What with the infection raging through his bloodstream and the new knowledge that his closest friend had turned traitor. They’d been en route to a conference on nerve conduction, all research prototypes left securely behind on British soil. The discovery that Huntley had been transporting the phaoscope prototype had shattered five years of companionship and trust.

  “The Queen asks too much of you,” Thornton said, dragging his mind back to the present. Helping the agent adjust to his new acousticotransmitter and all its accompanying abilities, reopening the investigation into Lord Huntley’s treasonous activities, forcing the gypsies to accept the presence of government agents, and overseeing Lady Amanda’s protection.

  Black sighed.

  “Leave Lady Amanda to me.” He could at least coordinate the guards that stood watch. He wouldn’t put kidnapping beyond the eye doctor, not if the man thought he could harness and direct Amanda’s clockwork skills.

  “That would be a great help,” Black said. “I’ll tell them to report to you.”

  “Good. Now, I’ve a class to euthanize.” Leaning on his cane, he turned to go.

  “Wait.” Black reached inside his coat and pulled out a brown paper-wrapped package. “I’m not certain how much longer I can obtain extra doses. The pace at which you are consuming this has caused eyebrows to rise.”

  “Thank you.” With thinly veiled relief, Thornton took the Somnic and tucked the package of vials inside his pocket. “I won’t need it much longer.”

  “How soon to failure?”

  “A month or so,” Thornton lied. Until the eye doctor was caught, he couldn’t admit the truth to Black. Not if he wished to be allowed even the rare moment of fieldwork in pursuit of the eye doctor. According to his calculations, he had less than a week.

  Thornton made his way to the front of the lecture hall. In large letters he wrote the day’s topic on the chalkboard: Theory of Synaptic Transmission. He didn’t need to turn and look to confirm when Lady Amanda entered the lecture theater. A certain heated and hushed whispering always accompanied her arrival. Today there were even low whistles of approval.

  His hand paused not one bit as he finished sketching a chalk outline of a nerve. Beside it, he wrote the central theorem that was today’s commonly accepted explanation for nerve conduction and began a list of supporting evidence. At the end of the lecture, he’d throw in a few ideas that most thought to be mere hypotheses or far-fetched possibilities.

  They weren’t.

  Perhaps a bright student would see though his abstruse and cryptic comments to divine the truth. It was the purpose of Lister University to find those brilliant minds, to harness them in service of the Crown. Such students, like Amanda, promptly found themselves sworn to secrecy and working in a secure laboratory.

  Thornton knew the moment she took her seat, the empty one next to Sommersby, for it didn’t require extraordinary powers of hearing to regret overhearing their conversation.

  Sommersby sounded wounded. “You were much missed at last night’s dinner party. Though our hostess was grateful to Lady Olivia for making up the numbers.”

  “My apologies, Simon. A breakthrough in the laboratory occurred, and I simply couldn’t tear myself away. Please, allow me to make it up to you.”

  Her conciliatory tone irritated him. As did her use of Sommersby’s given name. Thornton snapped the stick of chalk he held. He set aside half and continued with his list, grinding the calcium carbonate into the board somewhat more firmly that perhaps necessary.

  “Your research consumes all your attention,” Sommersby whined. Thornton’s hand paused. “You are forever in Lord Thornton’s laboratory.”

  “Not on Sundays.”

  He could hear her eyelashes bat.

  “Excellent.” Sommersby’s normal cheer returned. “I’ll pick you up Sunday afternoon then. I’ve a new phaeton I’m dying to take out.”

  She giggled.

  Giggled! He threw aside the piece of chalk he held and spun to face his audience‌—‌and had to clench his jaw to keep it from dropping. He shouldn’t have looked. That was hi
s first mistake. Ever since the kiss they’d shared at the ball, he’d made a concerted effort to keep his eyes firmly above her neck. For it didn’t seem to matter what the woman garbed herself in, his mind immediately began plotting the most satisfying method of removing it.

  Today, she’d outdone herself.

  Though a brown velvet jacket covered her from neck to wrist, it cut away in front just below her shoulders. This allowed the cream ruffles of her shirtwaist to emphasize the fullness of her bosom above a striped, wasp-waisted cincher that itself served only to outline and uplift two particularly large and round feminine assets.

  A few snickered. At him.

  His teeth ground away a millimeter of enamel as he realized he’d just been reduced to the level of his students. He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on her face, but that was no better. Her eyes sparkled with amusement and knowledge. She’d caught him staring at her chest and not even discreetly. From the faint curve of her full lips, he wondered if perhaps that had been her very goal.

  She was going to be his undoing.

  His face carefully impassive, he launched into his performance, concentrating instead upon searching the faces of his students for sudden insight and understanding of his cryptic comments‌—‌any face but hers. “And that is why Johannes Webber speculates that the constant factor of stimulus places a significant limitation on the magnitude…‌”

  All his students were scratching notes, looking thoroughly confounded. Among them, only Lady Amanda sat immobile and serene. She wrote not a single word. She alone saw through him. It was unnerving.

  Nevertheless, he had an hour to fill.

  As he droned on, in the back of his mind, he evaluated the irrational emotions that coursed through him. It seemed women were fickle, even the bright ones. At the ball, Amanda had hidden from Sommersby. Today, she encouraged him. Yet it was Thornton she’d kissed. His laboratory that took precedence over a dinner party.

  Insight struck like lightning.

  He turned his gaze in Amanda’s direction, careful to prattle on. Her lips twitched. He was right. She’d purposefully encouraged Sommersby here, in his presence, her intent clearly to annoy. She dressed not for Sommersby. She dressed for him, her anatomy professor. She was toying with him.