Beauty and the Clockwork Beast

by Nancy Allen Campbell

  Lucy found it rather odd the oldest son and heir to an earldom would enlist for military service. That role usually fell to the second son.

  “Have you never met him?” Arthur asked as they continued their meal, the conversations flowing around them in different directions. “He can be rather alarming. But not to worry. His scar didn’t actually come from a duel with a jealous husband—I don’t think.”

  Lucy paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “You’re his cousin. One should think you would sing his praises.” She softened her remarks with a smile, her words delivered with a hint of feigned flirtatiousness. She had played this kind of game more times than she could count.

  “But I do! I do sing his praises. I would hate for you to be frightened, though, especially as you are his guest. And the rumors about him—they are mostly not to be believed.”

  Lucy glanced up at the others at the table, who were now listening in. Candice Charlesworth arched a brow at her brother and took a sip from her glass. “Arthur is merely envious of our cousin. Strong as an ox, wealthy as Croesus, and titled to boot. I shouldn’t believe much of anything my brother says, Miss Pickett.”

  Arthur looked at them in silence for a moment before laughing. “Candice is indeed a tease. Would that God had blessed me with a younger brother rather than a sister.”

  “Arthur, what a thing to say!” Aunt Eustace chastised her son with a scowl, and he laughed again.

  The entire group tried for levity that felt, to Lucy, forced. She studied Jonathan as conversation resumed and noted that not only was he not laughing, but his mouth was clamped shut and he was flushed from his forehead to his neck. Aunt Eustace said something inane, and Jonathan looked at her for a fraction of a second before forming his lips into a smile.

  Lucy maintained idle chatter with Arthur and cast a quick look at Kate, who watched her husband with a brow creased in concern and pushed the food around on her plate, eating very little. The meal progressed, and conversation remained light and inconsequential. There was an undercurrent, however, that Lucy felt. It was as though a thread ran through the entire group, taut and uncomfortable.

  By the time dessert rolled around, Lucy had formed some opinions. Aunt Eustace was full of herself, and there was very little space for anyone else in the room, metaphorically and physically. Arthur was handsome, charming, and likely a very shallow rogue with an agenda of his own.

  Candice had a quick wit that occasionally bordered on cutting. She had attended school in London while Lucy and Kate had been in Switzerland at finishing school. They had all graduated two years prior, and Lucy wondered if Candice would soon panic at her single state. Her declaration upon meeting Lucy that she was the earl’s “spinster cousin” spoke volumes. Most of the girls Lucy knew were already either betrothed or married; some even had a child or two. Candice was clearly feeling the pressure.

  Following dinner, Jonathan and Arthur dispensed with the ritual seclusion in the den with a glass of port and instead joined the women in the drawing room for a rousing game of loo. Lucy was up two hands when she noticed Kate beginning to droop in her chair. Her heart tripped, and she looked at Jonathan, who was also watching his wife. Lucy caught his eye and raised a brow. Jonathan nodded and shoved his chair back.

  “I do believe it’s time for my wife and me to retire,” he said to the group with a smile. “Of course, you are all free to continue the game without us. And Mrs. Farrell has informed me that your customary rooms in the north wing overlooking the back gardens have been readied for you.”

  Aunt Eustace sniffed and muttered something under her breath that sounded like a complaint about the view. Jonathan maintained his smile as he helped Kate from her chair.

  “Will you remain with us, Miss Pickett?” Arthur asked Lucy.

  “You must,” Candice added. “It is entirely too early to turn in.”

  “I would love to,” Lucy lied with a smile. “I do agree—the night is young.”

  Candice beamed at Lucy and offered her the same devastating smile her brother possessed. Candice was as beautiful as Arthur was handsome. They looked enough alike to be twins; the principal difference—aside from gender—was the dark strawberry strands woven through Candice’s sandy-colored hair. Lucy looked at Eustace and concluded the children must have taken after their father in appearance.

  Aunt Eustace surveyed the card table with open disdain. “I suppose we ought to finish.” She turned to Jonathan as he and Kate made their way to the door. “You must tell Miles that I am utterly vexed he is never in residence when I visit.”

  “He’ll likely return tomorrow,” Jonathan said over his shoulder. “I suspect you’ll have a chance to tell him so yourself.”

  Aunt Eustace harrumphed but refrained from further comment, and Lucy’s heart thumped at Jonathan’s pronouncement. After the couple left the room, Lucy paired up with Candice and dealt another hand. As the game continued, Candice and Arthur became more competitive. Expressions turned grim and conversation ceased to flow as easily as it had when Lucy and Arthur had been paired together and he had been doing his best to charm her. She glanced at the players around the table with a fair amount of amusement. It was loo, for heaven’s sake. Furthermore, Candice and Arthur seemed to have come by their competitiveness honestly enough. The look on Eustace’s face was enough to have Lucy biting the insides of her cheeks to keep from snickering outright.

  Pleasant family.

  Lucy felt a momentary pang for her own. It had been a happy household. She and Daniel were thick as thieves despite the fact that he was seven years her senior, and she’d never felt the loss of her father, who had died just before she was born. Her mother was all things practical and no-nonsense, and her paternal grandmother was nurturing and affectionate. It had been an idyllic childhood, and when compared to the people sitting around the table and playing whist as though England’s national security depended upon the outcome, she was grateful for the personalities that comprised her family unit.

  She frowned as she looked down at the cards in her hands. Kate had lost her parents to illness and had spent enough time with Lucy’s family when she was young that she had become like a sister to Lucy. And now she was ill, and Lucy was at a loss to explain it. She suddenly lost all interest in the Charlesworths, and it took every ounce of her good breeding and polish to finish the night properly and not retire to her bedchamber before the others.

  Eustace finally yawned and declared the evening done. Candice drew an arm through Lucy’s as they left the drawing room and stepped into the hall where they passed Mr. Arnold, who was turning down sconces for the evening.

  “I don’t mind telling you, it’s absolutely delightful to have another woman my age about the house. I do hope you’ll be staying with us for some time,” Candice told Lucy as they strolled toward the main staircase. “Kate is wonderful, of course, but she and Jonathan are all agog for each other and seem to have time for nobody but themselves.”

  Lucy smiled at Candice, who pouted very prettily indeed. “I imagine that must be very trying. I know I am frustrated when people don’t have the time of day for me.”

  Candice cast an assessing glance at Lucy as they began climbing the stairs. “It is just that my life is so frightfully dull,” she finally said. “You cannot imagine how wonderful it is to leave Charlesworth House for any length of time. Stammershire is provincial, the people gauche.” Candice glanced over her shoulder, then pulled Lucy closer to share a conspiratorial whisper. “Although my mother seems to like them well enough. She is convinced that if we can manage to host just the right dinner ball, she will be as popular as she was when she lived at home as the daughter of an earl.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I think she is wasting her time. Nobody dares venture so far north anymore with Scotland just over the border. And as I said, the people who live in town are hardly worth the effort of fine food and
entertainment.”

  “I suppose it is fortunate for you, then, that your mother enjoys visiting Blackwell on a regular basis.”

  “You’ve no idea.” Candice’s face was resolute.

  The Charlesworths’ bedchambers were on the opposite side of the hall from Lucy’s, and after reaching Candice’s door on the second floor, she parted company with a promise to take breakfast with the family in the morning.

  Lucy made her way down the dark hallway, which was punctuated with wall sconces that gave off a low level of light. When she entered her bedroom, she switched on a lamp by her bedside and listened for the hum that signaled the connection to the Tesla control room.

  Lucy changed her clothes with a fair amount of twisting and turning. Life was definitely easier with a maid. Kate had offered hers, but Lucy’s mood was just somber enough that she didn’t care for company.

  She slipped a long, white nightgown over her head, adjusting the cuffs at her wrists. The fire in the hearth was banked and the room’s temperature pleasant enough, but her feet were cold. Locating her slippers in the wardrobe, she put them on and sat in a chair near the fire. She curled her feet under her and leaned back in the comfortable chair, noting with pleasure the hot teapot that had been placed at the side table near her elbow. Pouring herself a cup, she gently blew over the top of it and took a cautious sip.

  Closing her eyes with pleasure, she swallowed the herbal brew and relaxed. She replaced the teacup on the tray and began pulling pins from her hair, eventually shaking out the mahogany mass and allowing the curls to fall down her back. Sighing, she massaged her head with her fingertips; the pins had been tight, and the release was sublime.

  Lucy enjoyed the glowing coals of the hearth as she finished her tea, finally replacing the cup and saucer on the side table and rubbing her eyes. She feared her mind was twirling with too many thoughts to get any rest, but once she switched off her lamp and lay down, the comfortable bed lulled her into a blessedly relaxed state.

  She couldn’t exactly define what it was that roused her from sleep. The room was dark with only moonlight streaming in from the turret window. And there was a woman at the foot of her bed, watching her.

  Kate?” Lucy’s voice was scratchy and her vision blurred. She blinked, trying to focus.

  The woman was dressed in a gown of deep red, and although she seemed real enough, there was a slight translucence to her that gave her an eerie, ethereal glow. The apparition remained silent.

  Leaning up on one elbow, Lucy squinted carefully at the woman before sucking in her breath and scooting back against the headboard with a thunk. “You’re not Kate,” she finally whispered, heart pounding.

  The expression on the woman’s face was flat, emotionless. She was pretty, with dark hair like Jonathan’s. She also seemed to have his nose, her features a more feminine version of his. Lucy had seen her before, in the portrait gallery. “Marie? Lady Blake?”

  The woman continued to stare, unblinking, at Lucy’s face.

  Lucy’s heart thudded in her ears, and she struggled to control her breathing when the figure put a hand on the tall post attached to the footboard.

  The bed moved. Infinitesimally but noticeably.

  The woman shoved at the bedpost again, and Lucy fought to smother a scream. She scooted to the far side of the bed.

  “Wha . . . wha . . . ?” she gasped.

  Marie’s nostrils flared slightly, and with flashing eyes, she shoved the bedpost one last time and crossed the room to the door, which she promptly walked through.

  Lucy blinked. Trying to muscle the experience into something that made sense to her was proving difficult. She lay absolutely still for one long minute, then two, breathing as though she’d run a mile. The room was as silent as a tomb except for the quiet ticking of the clock above the mantelpiece. After what seemed like hours but was in reality only minutes, she sat up slowly and put a hand to her forehead.

  “Warm tea,” she whimpered. “I need warm tea.”

  She pulled herself out of bed on legs that trembled and stumbled. She found the wrapper that matched her nightgown in the wardrobe and thrust her arms through, missing several times before finally tugging it into place. She tied the white ribbon into a bow at her throat with trembling fingers and wondered why she bothered.

  Horribly rattled, she finally took a deep breath and slowly approached the footboard, placing her hand on the post where Marie’s had been. Giving it an experimental push, her heart thumped once, hard, when she realized it took a fair amount of effort to move it the way Marie had. It was an extremely heavy piece of furniture. The frame was solid oak; there was no give to the connecting points, no squeaking hinges.

  Lucy stood at the bedpost for a long moment before turning to pour herself a cup of tea, which was now cold, and the cup rattled against the saucer before she had the wherewithal to set it back down.

  “The kitchen,” she murmured aloud. She could make some tea in the kitchen.

  Frightened to move yet too frightened to stay, she eased herself out of the door and looked down the long hallway to be sure a beautiful woman in a red dress wasn’t wandering about. Closing the door behind her, as if that would do any good, she made her way noiselessly down the carpeted floor, hoping that Marie was busying herself with Aunt Eustace and had no further plans to rattle Lucy’s bed.

  The house was eerie in the dark. Lucy amended that thought: it was eerie in the day as well. But with all the living occupants safely abed, the notion that otherworldly creatures roamed the halls made the long shadows and creaking noises all the more macabre.

  Finding the kitchen deserted, Lucy set one of the wall sconces to low light and hunted for a stash of tea and a teapot. Locating both and firing up the stove, she sat on a stool near one perfectly polished countertop while the water heated. Her heart still thumped more rapidly than she was accustomed to, and she checked the tea canister for the third time to be sure she wasn’t going to drink something loaded with a stimulant that would send her flying to the moon.

  She needed a book. Reading would soothe her nerves and help her forget she’d seen a ghost, which she was now forced to admit, existed. The library was down the long hallway. She would drink her tea first and then stop there before heading back to her room.

  When the teakettle whistled, she strained the liquid into a cup and looked at it. It was cold in the kitchen, and the single lit sconce on the wall could hardly be considered cozy; she didn’t want to stay there. Changing her plans, she emptied the cup into the white stone kitchen sink, and, holding the tea canister in one arm, she took the steaming pot instead. She would return it in the morning.

  She made her way to the library, entering quietly through the one double door that stood ajar. A soft glow of lantern light shone from within, and as she moved farther into the enormous room, she inhaled the wonderful smell of cedar wood and old books.

  She closed her eyes briefly and calmed her furiously beating heart, only to have the silence shattered by a loud, masculine start of surprise and the sound of splintering glass. Her eyes flew open in horror, and she stared at a man with fury stamped across his face.

  The earl of Blackwell.

  She would have known him anywhere. He had features similar to Jonathan’s, only his jaw was more angular, his entire appearance more harsh. And he was much taller, much more . . . everything. It didn’t take her long to assess the scene. She must have caught him by surprise, which caused him to drop his drink. Liquid puddled at his feet on the stone hearth amidst chunks of thick, broken glass.

  “I apologize, my lord. I wasn’t aware anybody was here.” Lucy swallowed and began backing toward the door.

  The earl looked at her for a long moment, his ice-blue eyes eerie and bright even in the darkened interior. He approached her steadily, his movements sure and unhurried, and she turned to run from the room.

  “Stop.”
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  Perhaps it was the tone or the fact that she had been frightened enough for one day, but the one-word command gave Lucy the backbone to turn and stand her ground. She was not a servant or ’ton; she was a guest in the home. She refused to be bullied. It had often been her ­downfall—her patience was nearly limitless, but it eventually ran out.

  By the time the earl reached Lucy, she had had to crane her neck back to continue meeting those eyes. His broad shoulders blocked the view of anything else but him, and she was given no other alternative than to maintain her false sense of bravado while her very last nerve was stretched to the snapping point. She felt herself trembling. What a wretched family! Obsequious and insulting relatives? First an angry ghost and now an angry lord? Jonathan was the only pleasant one in the entire bunch.

  Blackwell was dressed in black trousers with black riding boots spattered with mud. His discarded overcoat was slung over the back of the sofa, his unbuttoned vest was black, as was his cravat, which was undone and hung loosely about his neck. He’d rolled back the cuffs of his snowy-white shirt, which was the only contrast on an otherwise intimidating male with black hair.

  A thick scar ran the length of his profile on the left side of his face. It extended from his temple, across the cheekbone, and down to his jawline just beyond the corner of his mouth. The flickering lamplight showed that it continued under his chin and down across the front of his neck, where it eventually disappeared under his shirt.

  She frowned and drew her brows together, studying his face.

  “Do you have something you would like to say?” he murmured, his voice deep, strained.

  She spoke before giving any real thought to her words. “Your scar isn’t nearly as fearsome as others suggested.” Her voice trailed off as she realized the extent of her social gaffe. Not only was she wandering about in the wee hours of the morning in nothing but her night clothing, but she had also just insulted the lord of the manor and her cousin’s brother-in-law. She was usually much more circumspect.