The Golden Spider (The Elemental Web Chronicles Book 1)

by Anne Renwick

  Amanda sighed. She knew exactly where she stood, and it was not close enough.

  Was Henri right? Should she attempt to pry Thornton from his shell when he’d made it quite clear her attempts were unwelcome? Could it even be done?

  Yes. She’d felt his resolve weaken during their last conversation. The man was not immune to feminine charm‌—‌or dress. Once, he’d even been engaged to one Lady Anne Grimwauld. How had the woman managed it? Amanda might have been tempted to ask did not Lady Anne openly pity Ned’s injuries.

  Her hands tightened about her reticule, feeling the papers tucked securely within. Riding about in Simon’s phaeton seemed a sorry use of her time. She desperately wanted to review Emily’s work. Perhaps she had noted something that might be employed as an alternative to the amatiflora, something the chemists at Lister could substitute. Something that might help Thornton.

  Even a sketch of the “gypsy weed” would be progress.

  “Amanda,” Simon spoke, breaking into her reverie. He reached out and traced the path of her bonnet ribbon under her chin, his eyes searching her face. “I’m worried about you, about the vast number of hours you spend in Lord Thornton’s laboratory. Lately, you’ve seemed so…‌ distracted. Tense. Is he making demands you can’t meet?”

  No.

  And wasn’t that the problem? He wasn’t making the kinds of demands she wanted to meet.

  His demands on her time were extensive, but she relished those hours. On the rare occasions they worked together, side by side, the hours flew by, their like minds finishing each other’s thoughts as the new neurachnid took shape. Never had she made such swift progress. Yet there was something more between them, a spark that flashed every time they accidentally touched. But while she stood ready to fan the embers, Thornton carefully doused every flammable moment.

  Simon was still speaking. “Ever since you became a student research assistant in Lord Thornton’s laboratory, it seems as though you barely have any time for me.” He was jealous, and rightfully so.

  Smoothing his ruffled feathers seemed the wisest course. “It’s not that I do not wish to spend time with you, Simon. I…‌”

  He silenced her by reaching out with his hand, pressing it over her gloved one. “Then know I’m looking forward to our evening together at the Symphony House.”

  She’d forgotten. Ned’s latest program for the Steam Orchestra was scheduled to debut this week. And he was to unveil a new row of automusicians. That was why she’d heard him muttering about the delayed coal shipment.

  Simon sighed. “Please don’t tell me you planned to spend that evening in the laboratory? I won’t chance another breakthrough keeping you from my side.”

  Ned was surly enough. She couldn’t risk missing this performance. “Of course not.” She did her best to smile reassuringly.

  He squeezed her hand on the seat between them. “Would you mind if I seek an audience with your father?”

  Panic fluttered in her stomach, and she tugged her hand away. No. Not yet. She did not want her marriage contract to be the topic of conversation at next Sunday’s tea. She needed time. Time to consider other possibilities. “So soon?” she asked.

  Irritation flickered across Simon’s face, but he mastered it. “Yes.”

  Perhaps she could delay. “Shouldn’t we set aside a time to discuss our career expectations first?”

  He glanced at her in confusion. “You want to finish medical school?”

  Amanda had expected to negotiate the hours she would divide between her career and home life, but not this. Did he think her years of study, her years spent building the neurachnid nothing more than passing fancy? Did he think she’d cast it all aside to be nothing more than his wife? Did he know her at all? “Of course,” she answered. Then took a deep breath. “I intend to practice medicine as well as continue my research, though I’m prepared to make certain concessions to the demands of family. A small family.”

  Simon yanked on the steering stick, just missing a lamppost as he steered the runabout onto a quieter street. His face was flushed.

  “Simon?”

  He shook his head. “My apologies. I was under the impression that medical school was a way for an intelligent woman to fill her time while waiting for marriage.”

  She swallowed hard, trying to think of a way to salvage this conversation and failed. She’d horribly misjudged him. “You thought…‌”

  “All those fashionable clothes. Silly hats. Your insistence upon sitting in the front, clearly an attempt to attract attention. Male attention.”

  “You think I enrolled at Lister University to husband hunt?”

  Simon sat straight and stiff now. “It is known for accepting a large number of gentlemen. Spare heirs, as it were.”

  It was as if someone yanked her corset too tight. She couldn’t breathe. Her stomach hurt. The indignity. The embarrassment. It was too much. Did all her classmates think her nothing but a flirt? Did Thornton? “Please. Take me home.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  BETWEEN EMILY’S NOTES, thoughts of Thornton, and the aftershocks of Simon’s not-quite-a-proposal, one that he’d all but retracted, Amanda was unable to sleep, so she wrapped her dressing gown tightly about her nightdress, grabbed the notes and, throwing discretion to the aether, padded down the darkened hall.

  Minutes later, she arrived in the distillery, hunting for the dried blooms of a plant Emily had suggested and therefore worth a try. The dried flowers still on their stems hung exactly where Emily had indicated. Amanda doubted anyone had entered the room since her sister’s departure some five months past.

  She gathered the blooms in a sack and, barefoot, padded outside into the garden. Tonight, she would distill their essential oils, praying time had not destroyed their potency.

  Shadows shifted beside her, and her heart skipped a beat, but it was only one of Thornton’s agents stepping forward into the moonlight, nodding briefly to let her know of his presence before melting once more into the background.

  She entered the chicken coop. The hens barely acknowledged her arrival beyond lifting a head to point a gleaming eye in her direction in hopes of a midnight snack, only to tuck their beaks back in warm straw the minute her hands fell on the new, more secure locks Thornton had ordered installed upon the doors of her makeshift laboratory. There were no safer hens in all of London.

  As she worked through the complicated steps to free the deadbolt, she heard a squeal which cut off abruptly. Rufus, wearing his night-vision monocle, rounded the corner, a terrified, half-dead mouse hanging from his jaw.

  She held the door wide for the orange cat, and he trotted in, dropping his offering at her feet as he passed, then leapt to the counter where he sat with his back to her, tail twitching, his displeasure at her recent neglect clear. Only when she produced‌—‌and opened‌—‌a tin of sardines, were her recent absences forgiven.

  Amanda pulled dusty boxes of Emily’s chemistry equipment from their storage space beneath the workbench and set about converting her workspace into a makeshift apothecary. Then, as Rufus curled into a ball on the discarded packing material, she followed Emily’s specific directions, setting about the tedious task of distilling the oils from the dried flowers.

  With nothing left to do but wait, she sat down on a narrow cot she’d set up in the corner of her laboratory to review Emily’s notes again. It was late. Really late. The words of Emily’s notes began to blur and run off the edge of the page as she read. Her head jerked, and Amanda realized she’d nearly nodded off despite the chill in her laboratory.

  Emily’s knowledge of plants was extensive. Nadya’s even more so. It appeared they’d tried nearly every bloom that might be related to the amatiflora, and some that were clearly not. Still, the original formula had flaws that went beyond a specific, unavailable flower. Several.

  The protocol Emily had sent was maddening in its complexity, and there were non-standard measurements, chemicals named without their ionic states indicated and, m
ost baffling of all, a host of Romani superstitions. Those, at least, she could discount. What potency could picking the amatiflora flowers during a full moon possibly impart?

  As the hours passed, Amanda napped on the cot, managing to rouse herself every hour or so to check on the small glass still. The distillation of essential oils from flowers was a long, slow process. Several small, controlled flames burned beneath various pieces of glassware, concentrating liquids and speeding along chemical reactions.

  Dawn was still a good hour or more away when, blinking the sleep from her eyes, Amanda pushed herself up from her makeshift bed and stretched away her stiffness. She bent close to the glassware. Finally, enough oil had collected in the amber vial. She could attempt the final step.

  With a pipette, she dispensed the oil into the burette positioned above a flask containing a thick orange-red liquid. Drop by drop, the oil fell. The oil became sulfurous, then several drops later, shifted color to glow a sickly green.

  She closed the stopcock. Retrieved the limp mouse from its cage. Filled a clean syringe with the green fluid. And injected the nerve agent near the injury sight.

  Now came more waiting. Hoping.

  Smoothing loose strands of hair from her face, she sought out her cot once more. Just as she began to sink into sleep, a knock sounded on the door.

  Amanda’s heart stopped. Then thudded back to life as she recognized her brother’s voice.

  ~~~

  “Amanda?” Ned called. “I know you’re in there. Open the door.” Hens rustled in their nests. Dawn approached. He was out of time.

  He’d lost track of how many hours he’d been standing outside her laboratory, his forehead pressed against this new door, ringed with gears and pins and deadlocks. It was an intimidating door. More because it seemed a symbol of all the secrets he kept locked within himself. Ever since he’d made the mistake that ended with him in these monstrous mechanical legs.

  It gnawed at him, his sister’s angry confession that she sacrificed all hope of marital happiness in the practical pursuit of a man who would allow her to continue to labor on his behalf.

  What right had he to ask that of her? Particularly when his own impatience had sabotaged her project. He knocked again, harder this time and the gears began to turn, pulling iron bolts from their slots.

  “Ned?” Amanda’s face was pale and drawn. Dark circles beneath her eyes echoed his own. Except guilt kept him awake through the wee hours, while worry for her brother and a need to solve his problems kept his sister awake.

  It needed to stop.

  “May I come in?”

  She opened the door wider.

  Ned stepped‌—‌or rather his mechanical legs stepped‌—‌into a mad scientist’s laboratory. Gone was the familiar clockwork. Instead, bottles of all shapes and sizes held liquids of colors that defied description. Brass scales and weights were poised ready to measure out undefined white powders resting near a porcelain mortar and pestle. A small glass still dripped a viscous liquid into an amber vial.

  A little brown mouse, eyes unblinking, lay upon a cloth pad, the slow rise and fall of his chest the only hint he still lived.

  “I thought you were working on the spider.”

  Amanda sighed. “Not here. I can’t. Because of the theft, my neurachnid work is confined to Lord Thornton’s facilities.” She waved her hand at the apparatus before them. “This is an attempt to recreate Emily’s quieting nerve agent.”

  He nodded, unable to tear his gaze away from the mouse, hating that he needed to add to her burdens. “I’ve something to confess.”

  “Confess?”

  He ran both hands through his hair, tugging at the roots. “I’m the person who stole your spider. There was a physician, a Dr. Millhouse, who promised…‌” Ned swallowed. “Promised I would be his first patient, but he disappeared. Took the spider with him. I’ve sent runners looking, but none return. I’m so very, very sorry, Amanda.”

  Her jaw dropped and her knees folded as she dropped abruptly and heavily onto a rumpled cot. “You?” She choked the word out.

  “It was wrong of me.”

  “Oh, God,” she breathed, then shook her head. “Ned, it wouldn’t have worked.”

  “How can you know that for certain? For Georgina I’m willing to risk it all. Please. I’m begging you. I don’t need this,” he waved his hand at the chemicals. “I’ll endure whatever pain is necessary. Just please don’t let me miss the only opportunity I’ll ever have to bid for Georgina’s hand. I need to be a whole man.”

  “I can’t.” Her voice was a whisper.

  “Won’t.” Yes. He was being selfish again, but he only wanted this over so they could both lead the lives they were meant to live.

  “No. Can’t.” Amanda dropped her face into her palms, her hair falling forward to hide her face. “The neurachnid isn’t ready, and the procedure will not work with an un-quieted nerve.”

  “You’ve every right to be furious.”

  “Oh, I am.” Her voice hardened. “How could you?”

  “It’s been five years, Amanda. How much longer am I expected to wait?”

  “As long as it takes!” The orange cat his sister favored raised his head at her exclamation, fixing his malevolent gaze on Ned. Amanda threw her hands in the air. “You have no idea what you’ve done! None.”

  “What?” His own voice rose now. “I said I’m sorry. I’ll talk to Father about moving his deadline. You deserve better than Sommersby.”

  She gaped, then shook her head.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Are you aware of the recent rash of gypsy murders?”

  How could this possibly be relevant? But he nodded. “The one the papers call the eye doctor?”

  “The very one.” She paused. “I can’t divulge details, but we know what he’s trying to do.”

  “We?”

  “We, Ned. I’m involved. Ever since the eye doctor stole my neurachnid.” She stood now. “He’s experimenting on them.”

  “Altering their eyes?” Oh, God. No. “Using the spider? How? Why?”

  She shook her head. “I cannot share anymore details.”

  His blood ran cold. His fault. “How close is he to succeeding?”

  “Is that all you can think about!” Amanda yelled. “Yourself? And whether or not a murderer might have perfected what I could not?” She fixed him with a glare, then turned her back on him. “Leave. I need to think.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” he objected. Bitter bile hit the back of his throat. How many gypsy deaths were on his shoulders? “If he’s close…‌ if he succeeds, he’ll stop.”

  “Yes, Ned. If he succeeds, the gypsy murders will likely stop. But this device? In the hands of our enemies, many more lives will be destroyed.” Amanda turned and lifted the limp rodent. “And he’s not likely to share any progress he makes on the neurachnid.”

  She slid the mouse into some kind of examination chamber. She turned a series of dials, bringing the animal’s wound into graphic view. She pushed a button and flipped a lever. There was a loud, electrical zapping sound. Several of her loose hairs lifted away, floating in a charged cloud about her head. She bent close to the monitor, her face hopeful. Then her shoulders sagged.

  “Amanda?”

  “It didn’t work,” she muttered.

  He watched as she grabbed a packet of papers and began leafing through its pages, grumbling. “Amanda,” he said again.

  “Why are you still here? Leave. I have work. Without a functioning nerve agent, the neurachnid cannot properly spin its web.”

  He couldn’t leave. A sneaking suspicion had crept upon him as she worked. “There’s more.”

  She ignored him.

  “Tony has been searching for Dr. Millhouse. He thought he was getting close.”

  Amanda looked up.

  Today, for the first time in five long years, Tony had failed to arrive for work. Ned had sent round a footman to his lodgings, but Tony was nowhere to be fou
nd.

  Only now did the full significance register.

  Ned shut his eyes and swore. “Tony’s missing.”

  ~~~

  Brilliance could not be rushed. A grim smile pulled at Wasp’s lips. Still, it had taken Lady Amanda long enough to figure it out. A spider able to make diffuse connections was finally under construction.

  When Wasp had first learned of her device, then beheld its brilliance, it was clear Lady Amanda Ravensdale was nearly a mental equal. Worth watching. Worth keeping close. Worth prodding into reaching her potential.

  She suspected nothing. For now, Wasp would continue to employ only soft suggestions, gentle assistance, and careful watchfulness to nudge her along while maintaining a normal routine.

  Annoyance had surged when Lord Thornton became involved in her life, pulling her under his wing and into his laboratory. Seeing her eyes shine for the titled lord was an irritation that was a struggle to bear, but it seemed her infatuation was to be to an advantage. Wasp certainly couldn’t have foreseen the enormous investment of time and effort she would devote to her clockwork spider, all to please a man.

  Such cliché.

  Though Lady Amanda labored diligently away, it was bad form not to attempt independent modifications to the neurachnid.

  A rotating blade was not the solution. Attempting the procedure on the other eye had not been worth the bother. Wasp had chosen instead to send a message to the old gypsy woman that her efforts did not suffice. Yet today, Wasp had new hope. This new pin and spring might allow the neurachnid to make the multiple insertions necessary to connect to the entire cranial nerve root.

  But all this work would be wasted unless the old gypsy provided the necessary numbing agent. The green fluid that had filled the neurachnid’s abdomen was key and long since depleted.

  Diethyl ether left a test subject unconscious but also made the nerve root incapable of responding to the spider’s gentle probing. The resulting gold web was too diffuse and often misdirected. Accuracy was required.