© 2016 Nancy Campbell Allen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®, at [email protected]. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.
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All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Allen, Nancy Campbell, 1969– author.
Title: Beauty and the clockwork beast / Nancy Campbell Allen.
Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Shadow Mountain, [2016] | 2016
Identifiers: LCCN 2015041339 (print) | LCCN 2015042601 (ebook) | ISBN 9781629721750 (paperbound) | ISBN 9781629734071 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3551.L39644 B43 2016 (print) | LCC PS3551.L39644 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041339
Printed in the United States of America
RR Donnelley, Harrisonburg, VA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Art Direction: Richard Erickson
Design: Heather G. Ward
Book design © 2016 Shadow Mountain
Cover photo: Butch Adams Photography, Urban Talent Management, and Martins Vanags/shutterstock.com, siloto/shutterstock.com
Other Proper Romance NOVELS
My Fair Gentleman
by Nancy Campbell Allen
Forever and Forever
by Josi S. Kilpack
Lord Fenton’s Folly
by Josi S. Kilpack
A Heart Revealed
by Josi S. Kilpack
Longing for Home
by Sarah M. Eden
Longing for Home, vol. 2: Hope Springs
by Sarah M. Eden
Blackmoore
by Julianne Donaldson
Edenbrooke
by Julianne Donaldson
To Kirk Shaw,
for planting the idea,
and to Pam Howell,
for finding it a home.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
“You are very obliging,” answered Beauty. “I own I am pleased with your kindness, and when I consider that, your deformity scarce appears.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Beast, “my heart is good, but still I am a monster.”
“Among mankind,” said Beauty, “there are many that deserve that name more than you, and I prefer you, just as you are, to those, who, under a human form, hide a treacherous, corrupt, and ungrateful heart.”
—Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont, 1750
It had never been proven that Lord Blackwell had killed his wife, but then the man in question hadn’t actually denied it, either. The death of his sister the very next day hadn’t helped matters at all, and rumors circulated and swirled, as rumors were wont to do. According to London gossip, the police had questioned him as a formality and then left him alone.
Lucy Pickett pondered the rumors as the airship gained altitude. She stood at the railing and looked out at the dark London sky, wondering if it was wise to be going straight into the beast’s lair. Cousin Kate insisted Blackwell Manor was haunted, and anything was possible, but Kate had always had a flair for the theatrical. And dramatic girl that she was, she’d gone and married into the Blackwell family.
The night was awash in an ethereal glow that had little to do with charm and everything to do with fog and gas lamps. The air below Lucy was ribboned with even, controlled streams from the Tesla coil substations, providing convenient electricity for those who could afford it.
The airship continued to climb, and Lucy left the cold night air of the outer deck and opened the glass-paneled door to the interior. The airship was nice enough, but when she compared it with those from her brother’s fleet, she found it lacking. Daniel Pickett had impeccable taste, and his ships were not only stylishly turned out, they were comfortable as well. She had become spoiled in her travel, and the fact that none of Daniel’s ships had had a flight scheduled that night for Coleshire was vexing, but only mildly so.
Lucy sat in her assigned seat, pleased that the flight wasn’t full and that she had the entire row to herself. Feeling a slight draft, she scooted to the open window and looked down again at the city. London became a toy village as the airship reached cruising altitude, and she tugged on the heavy fabric window coverings, blocking the breeze and the sight of the city below.
She returned to the aisle and, taking advantage of the absence of seatmates, lifted the partial black lace veil from her eyes and removed her stylish top hat to which the veil was attached, placing it gently on the seat beside her. The headpiece’s adorning feathers, lace, satin roses, and small goggles had withstood the rigors of her busy schedule in the few months since her purchase of it through London’s premier haberdashery. Madame Dubois was the shop’s most recent acquisition. Supposedly she was from Paris, but Lucy had it on good authority that Madame Dubois was from a little town on the Welsh coast and had adopted her former tutor’s French accent. Either way, the woman worked wonders with hats, and Lucy wasn’t inclined to care much about her fabricated nationality.
Lucy leaned her head against the cushion and closed her eyes. Her recent research trip to the Continent had been wonderful, but she was tired. With any luck, she’d be able to catch an hour of sleep before the airship touched down in Coleshire, seat of the Blackwell earldom and her cousin Kate’s new home.
Kate—beautiful and vibrant, and earnest in her relationships. She’d fallen in love within a matter of days with the younger brother of an earl, then married and moved before the dust had settled from their whirlwind courtship. Daniel had been responsible for introducing the two, and Lucy was beginning to wonder if it had been a wise course of action. Kate seemed happy, but a letter awaiting Lucy upon her return from the Continent had concerned her enough that she’d booked passage on the first available flight.
With a frown, she pulled Kate’s letter from her reticule, along with a still-sealed missive from the Botanical Aid Society of London.
Lucy, I am afraid. Jonathan is delightful and a very gentle husband, but this house . . . It has eyes, a presence. A ghost. I feel someone watching me night and day, and Jonathan’s brother—Lord Blackwell—ca
n hardly be bothered with our concerns. He refuses to hire a Medium to investigate the manor and insists there is nothing unusual. The man has no heart, I am convinced. What’s worse, I fear I may be ill. My energy is lagging, and I have been enduring excruciating headaches . . .
Lucy smoothed the creased paper. She’d read the letter at least fifty times, and she had to admit that, despite Kate’s proclivities for storytelling, there was a note of uneasiness in the letter that had given Lucy pause the first time she’d read it—and every time since.
For all of Kate’s dramatics, she was as healthy as an ox and not given to bouts of hypochondria. She had always prided herself, in fact, on her robust health. For her to be ill—it might be nothing at all. Or it might be something, and that was what had upset Lucy’s sense of well-being.
Lucy was content when those in her realm were happy, and very rarely had she ever come upon a circumstance she couldn’t somehow manipulate for the better. She could host a ball and work a room to her advantage, barter and cajole, charm and finesse. And when she came upon stumbling blocks, she removed them one by one with relative ease.
But Lucy wasn’t a Medium. It wasn’t as though she would arrive at Blackwell Manor and be able to exorcise Kate’s supposedly ghostly visitor. She wasn’t even certain she believed in ghosts. Vampires, shape-shifters, zombies—they were all anomalies verified by science. And science, she trusted. As an accomplished research botanist and public spokesperson for the Botanical Aid Society of London, she was comfortable with things she could prove with fact.
Lucy considered what she knew about Kate’s new brother-in-law, the Earl of Blackwell. Her brother, Daniel, had fought with Lord Blackwell in the war and spoke very highly of him. She had never met the earl, however, and all accounts of the man were less than complimentary. It was readily acknowledged that he had a good head for business and had saved the family estate from ruin by marrying an American heiress, but he had few friends, and most people found him intimidating, if not downright frightening. The fact that Blackwell’s young bride had died under mysterious circumstances one month after marrying him did nothing to aid his reputation.
Lucy sighed and opened the envelope from the Botanical Aid Society. It was quick and to the point.
While our search for the Anti-Vampiric Assimilation Aid must continue full steam ahead, Director Lark feels that you must enjoy a few weeks’ holiday to rest and recuperate. While your time abroad was likely pleasant, she is well aware how little time you take for yourself. She insists that you do not darken the door of these offices until well into next month.
In response to your recent request, the following is a summary of what we’ve accumulated from the research team to date:
It appears that the Vampiric Assimilation Aid allows the vamp to walk among the living undetected for a period of only one year, not two, as we previously suspected. After approximately twelve months, the Aid wears off and is no longer effective. The vamp then cannot eat regular food, walk in sunlight, or disguise the fangs.
The vamp appears to lose a significant amount of speed and agility while under the influence of the Aid. The ability to transform into black mist also seems to be affected and can only be held for a limited time. Vamps in mist form may still inflict damage on victims, however, requiring the immediate application of anti-venom.
We have just learned from officials in Glasgow that a vamp who ingests a significant amount of human blood can temporarily reverse the Aid’s limitations—but only for roughly three hours.
Be on your guard, as always, Miss Pickett. While cloak-and-dagger stealth is not necessary, use discretion with whom you share sensitive aspects of your work. And be aware that while Bow Street tells us the threat to the public is significantly lessened because of the mandatory vamp banishment to Scotland, the recent advent of the Vampiric Assimilation Aid has made it all the more easy for the undead to hide among us.
The letter was signed by the director’s assistant, Gregory. Lucy folded the paper and returned it to the envelope. She closed her eyes and suppressed a shudder at the unbidden memory of a young woman’s body that had lain in a London alley, eyes open wide, skin unnaturally pale, blood drained. Evidence of green vampire venom had pooled around the signature bite marks at the victim’s jugular vein, the skin gray and showing signs of decay. Though Lucy had already begun working at the Botanical Aid Society, it was that macabre sight that had propelled her to petition for a coveted spot on the Anti-Vampiric Assimilation Aid team.
She enjoyed her work; it allowed her to travel and to study botanicals, and she was very content. Her recent trip, in fact, had yielded promising results, and she was anxious to pursue her observations in the London lab. Yet now she was on an official holiday—one she didn’t necessarily feel the need for. However, it would allow her the luxury of spending time with Kate without feeling rushed.
Lucy sensed someone standing in the aisle next to her. She cracked one eye open and glanced at the automaton flight attendant who had appeared noiselessly at her side. The attendant appeared as a human woman, but Lucy knew her metal-and-clockwork interior was cloaked with biologically-engineered facial features and limbs.
“Would you care for some tea?” the automaton asked. Her black eyes blinked mechanically.
“No, but thank you,” Lucy murmured.
The attendant inclined her head in acknowledgment and stepped to the next row, her movements nearly as smooth as those of an actual person. Perhaps it was for the best that automatons—or “’tons”—could still be distinguished from the human population. Science was evolving at a rapid rate, however, and advancement in ’ton programming had progressed to a point where personality traits were available for the choosing. The differences between human and ’ton might not eventually be so easily discernible.
Sleep was frustratingly elusive for Lucy, but it wasn’t long before the airship began its descent and then settled onto a landing field where docking workers secured it to the ground. The noise from the propellers eventually quieted, and Lucy donned her hat and gathered her portmanteau. She held her luggage claim ticket in one gloved hand.
After disembarking and handing her ticket to a ’ton airfield attendant, she waited while he retrieved her trunk from the cargo hold and then, with an android strength impossible for a human, carried it to a waiting, open-topped horseless carriage.
“Blackwell Manor, please,” Lucy said to the carriage driver. She attempted to give him the address, but he nodded and rolled his eyes.
“I know where it be, missy.” He gestured with his shoulder while preparing to release the brake. “Get in, then.”
The airfield attendant closed the rear boot and then offered his hand. She took it, noting the coldness of the metal through her glove. The ’ton sketched a brief, stiff bow and then returned to the airfield. Lucy lifted her hem and climbed into the carriage, which jerked forward with a grinding of large, clockwork gears that were in sore need of lubrication.
Perhaps the journey would have been a little less disconcerting by day. As it was, the world was dark. Tree limbs stretched across the narrow lanes like thin, black arms, forming an eerie tunnel punctuated with pockets of dense fog so thick that the dampness invaded Lucy’s clothing, chilling her to the bone. If she ever decided to visit her cousin at night again, she would see about finding a covered carriage with heated bricks for her feet.
The path twisted and turned, and she lost her bearings as they wound their way farther into the countryside. Every now and again she saw a small inn, pub, or humble cottage, but a sense of isolation crept upon Lucy as the conveyance traveled deeper into the forest.
Thirty minutes passed before the vehicle finally came to a stop in a circular drive. The full moon hung above an enormous house of black stone with sharp angles and turrets that stretched into the sky. One saving grace, she supposed, was that there were lights on in some of the windows. Had the house been
entirely in the dark, she might well have instructed the driver to return her to the airfield.
She heard a loud thud as the driver dropped her trunk on the ground next to the carriage and then opened the door for her. Looping the strings of her reticule over her wrist and grabbing her portmanteau, she took the driver’s hand as he helped her disembark. She raised a brow at him when he made no attempt to pick up her trunk.
“Do you suppose you might at least carry it up the front steps for me?” she asked.
He smiled, the skin around his black eyes crinkling. “For another coin, I might be able to do that.”
She glanced at him askance and set down her portmanteau. Opening the reticule, she withdrew a coin while still watching the amused face of the driver, a ’ton who had clearly been programmed to be savvy. The conveyance company likely brought in a fair amount of coinage from this one.
“Carry it to the stairs, and then I will give you this.” She waved the coin at him between two fingers but closed her fist around it when he leaned toward her.
Eventually, trunk and portmanteau at her side, she found herself at the top of a wide stone staircase leading to a vast front porch that spanned the entire width of the house. The driver quickly made his way back to the carriage with her gold coin in his coat pocket.
He looked back at her once, his smug smile faltering as his eyes rose to examine the house behind her. “God be with ye, then.” He wasted no time firing up the vehicle, leaving with a loud grinding of gears and puffs of steam.
Lucy turned toward the enormous pair of front doors that brooded over the porch and yard. She lifted the cold, wrought-iron door knocker and banged it resolutely against the door, wincing at the resounding crack that split the night. It took another thirty seconds and two more eardrum-splitting assaults with the knocker before the door finally began to creak inward.
Between rumors about the “Beast of Blackwell Manor” delivered by gossipy young girls at tea in London and the odd reaction of the carriage driver, Lucy found her heart beating rapidly as she waited in the cold night air. A sliver of light shot across the porch and into Lucy’s eyes, and she leaned back slightly as she looked with equal parts curiosity and dread at the person on the other side.
Beauty and the Clockwork Beast Page 1