Annmar’s heart leaped. Could that be Mother’s family name? Her resemblance to Mother must carry through the family for this man to make an instant guess. “I don’t know.” She could ask—
“Here to draw for Constance Gere, are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My inventions are off-limits.”
His firm statement left no room for anything but agreement. No, she couldn’t ask. Not until she gained his trust. But she knew how. Confidentiality was second nature after working for Mrs. Rennet. “I’ve been hired to draw labels for the farm produce. If you want me to stay away from your machines, I will.”
“I can’t very well ask you to stay away from them, since you live here.” He stared for a moment before wiping his mouth and chin. “Just don’t draw them. Don’t need to alert the competition to what we’re doing here, right Mr. Slipwing?” he said gruffly.
Rivley hopped forward between the man and Annmar. “Exactly, Master Brightwell. We have a good chance of winning the Basin Mastermind Competition again this year.”
“If we can stop the help from ruining the prototypes.” Master Brightwell glowered down at Henry.
The boy clenched his jaw and flipped the lever on the machine again. “It’s not ruined. It’s still running. See?”
Indeed, the pistons cranked and turned the gears with a clatter. The thin blue light inched forward, crackled and broke. It formed again, fainter than the tea warmer’s lines.
Snap, snap, bang! Sparks sprayed everywhere. The spider shuddered and wobbled off-kilter. Henry leaped to catch it. His quickness told her he’d done so before, as did his reddening face.
Master Brightwell reached past Henry and threw the lever. He kept his hand there, clenched in warning.
The boy backed away.
“Mr. Slipwing, I don’t like the sound of that rattle,” the inventor said. “I believe the system hasn’t had enough lubricant in so long, she’s shaken herself out of alignment. This one needs a complete oil change, and while we have it in here, clean her joints good and tighten them.”
“Yes, sir.”
Master Brightwell straightened. “Henry. You understand the cause of the problem?”
The blond boy nodded.
“Good. You go report to Mr. Hortens. Tell our head grower where your equipment is for the next few days.”
The boy nodded again and backed to the door.
“Not done yet, Henry. You tell Mr. Hortens I’m going to need help here in the workshop while Mr. Slipwing takes this spider apart and puts it back together. Who does he think he might be able send over to clean?”
Henry swallowed. “Uh, me, sir? I’ll, um, volunteer.”
“Good lad.” Master Brightwell patted him on the back and walked with him through the double doors, a few swallows darting out with them.
“Thank you, sir. Sorry for the trouble, sir.”
“I’ll be glad to have your help. Might be able to teach you something about the upkeep of machines as others come in for their maintenance.”
They disappeared, leaving Annmar alone with Rivley.
“You feeling better, girl?”
She sighed. He wasn’t going to stop calling her girl. “Better than this machine. It must be on its last leg, the poor thing.”
“Don’t worry.” He laughed. “I’ll get it running as smooth as the tea warmer we sent up to your room last night. It operated fine for you, I assume.”
She nodded. “No blue sparks or bangs.”
“I should hope not.” He frowned at her, like he had no idea what she meant.
Hold on a second. He didn’t. None of the others had jumped when she did. Annmar eyed the machine. The lights streamed in lines, much like the blue threads on the plants and soil. She must be seeing the same phenomena on this spider and the tea warmer, but in real life, instead of visions. Rivley already knew about her Knack experiments, so she could ask. “A substance runs over these gears. What do you call it?”
He looked at her oddly. “Oil? I know you have it in Outside’s cities, though the color differs since ours is locally made. Our mixture is vegetable based, one part corn to two parts sunflower oil with just a touch of lanolin.”
“Lanolin?” Annmar’s brow creased. “I’ve never heard of that plant.”
Rivley laughed. “Not a plant. Lanolin is derived from the grease found in sheep wool. It’s a fine lubricant and inhibits corrosion.”
“Oh, for land’s sake.” Mary Clare strode through the doorway. “You aren’t getting Rivley started on gears and piston talk? You’ll never get the boy off the topic. And there are so many better things to discuss with him.” She lightly swatted him on the chest. “Want to go shopping with us, Riv?”
He grinned down at her. “I know that look in your eyes. You’re going off to some fancy female store to purchase garments to tempt the males on Market Day.”
She swatted him again. “Close, but no.”
“The venue is the bonfire, then.”
“Wrong again.”
His grin broadened. “You’ve finally given up the hunt and have set your cap for me.”
Were things that serious? Annmar darted looks between the two of them in time to catch the stiffening of Mary Clare’s jaw as the smile slid from her face.
Yet the redhead ran her hands up Rivley’s chest, over his shoulders and down his arms, stopping to squeeze his biceps.
Annmar swallowed. How brazen to take such liberties.
“Rivley.” Mary Clare gazed up into his eyes, totally solemn. “I’ve had you, you peacock.” Without warning, she dropped her hands and tickled him.
“Girl!” squawked Rivley. He jumped back and wrapped his arms protectively around his belly. “You know I hate it when you do that.” He shot a glare at her, long strands of hair falling across his brow that hadn’t been there seconds ago, strands clumped together, looking little like hair and more like…feathers.
“I know.” She spun off and linked her arm through Annmar’s. “You’ll never guess, so I’ll just tell you. We’re going to get Annmar boots.”
Rivley nodded, all the playfulness gone. He swept his hands across the crown of his head, gathering the feathers into a bunch and holding them as his gaze darted to Annmar.
She should have looked away, but couldn’t. When he released his hands, only tufts of hair remained, brownish-orange and blue-gray, colorings like the fancy chickens in the farmyard. Annmar shifted while Mary Clare and Rivley glared at each other like enemies, when seconds ago they were nearly intimate, by society’s standards.
Something was afoot. Something not really her business.
Annmar tugged at Mary Clare. “We should be going. Thank you, Rivley, for explaining the lanolin oil to me.”
His gaze fell on her, then he picked up the rag he’d dropped. “Any time.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the stall where he’d been working when she arrived.
Beside her, Mary Clare sagged. Annmar nudged gently and they escaped the bunkhouse, falling into step across the farmyard. No, it wasn’t her business. Yet she wanted to know. About many things, not the least of which was how exactly Mary Clare had had Rivley.
Once they’d passed Wellspring’s stone entrance pillars and had only the cemetery’s headstones and the neighboring farm’s fruit trees for company, Annmar broke the silence. “Maybe I shouldn’t ask, but I don’t know how else I’m going to learn my way here. Rivley’s hair turned to feathers. Did you know tickling would do that?”
Mary Clare kept her gaze on the road. “I knew.” She sighed. “It was mean, I admit, but I’m sick of him picking at me about—never mind. Under those sober trappings, Rivley is a tease. I don’t let him get away with it.” She finally looked up, staring at the church steeples rising beside a square stone tower above the town below. “I’d rather not talk about him, and enjoy our outing.”
Dash it all, she should have asked about Rivley’s species first. “Sorry. I don’t mean to pry into a row between”—lovers?—�
��friends.”
“We are friends. Have been since he arrived. That’s not going to change.” She pressed her lips together.
Fine, Rivley couldn’t be discussed, but Annmar couldn’t pass up this chance any more than she had the one with Rivley. “Do you ever see blue lights, like threads, on things here? The plants, their roots, machinery, uh, other places?” It wouldn’t do to say everywhere.
“No. But I don’t have a vision Knack. Did you see them on Daeryn, too, when you healed him?”
Rivley had told her. “No, I… Oh. I did. On my drawing, that is. I thought the tint was from the gaslight, but—” She stopped, her hand flying to her mouth.
Mary Clare rounded back to her and squeaked, “What?”
“On that drawing of him, a tradesman’s mark appeared, and I don’t recall making it.” She told Mary Clare about her standard initials becoming fancier.
Mary Clare chewed her lip. “Could this mark mean your Knack worked? Have you spoken with Daeryn yet to learn if he’s healed from that drawing?”
She didn’t want to reveal that morning’s foolish mistake. “Maybe I’ll talk to him later,” she murmured, and began walking again.
“Have you tried to sketch not using your Knack? With practice, you can use it only when you like.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea.” Annmar grinned. “I’ll do that first thing when we return.”
Mary Clare put up a finger. “I have an even better idea. You said on the plant roots? We’ll take a shovel along when we go to the fields. It’ll be a snap to check for these thread lights while you look with your Knack.”
At this, Annmar threw her arms around Mary Clare. “Just as I hoped. Someone who knows about Knacks and what to try.”
“Ah, don’t squeeze so hard.” But Mary Clare laughed. “Come along now and maybe we’ll have time today.”
Walking to the end of the drive, Annmar ran her fingers over the coins in her waistband and recounted those in her satchel. Her prospects of staying looked better after speaking with Mistress Gere. She had to have these answers before she left. “Would it cost much to buy a pair of trousers?”
Mary Clare grinned. “Now you’re talking. Not much for a bib-and-brace. You’ve never worn trousers?” Annmar shook her head. “Then we have an additional stop, but luckily the shops are close.”
Annmar grinned back and matched Mary Clare’s increasing pace to the houses at the edge of Chapel Hollow. Shopping certainly wouldn’t take long in a town this small. The business district consisted of four crossing streets of double-story buildings with shops below and the owners’ residences above. It had no industrial district to speak of. No tram. No mechanized carts. Even carriages were rare. Instead, traffic took the form of wagons going to and fro, like the one the conductor had secured for her at the livery stable that pastured its horses out back.
A pasture, in the center of town. Annmar still couldn’t believe it, or the fenced yards containing chickens, though walking beneath the canopy of yellowing elm trees was pleasant. “How many residents are in Chapel Hollow?” she asked Mary Clare.
“Nine hundred.”
“So few?” Annmar said before thinking.
“The town serves the entire Farmlands shire. It’s large by Basin standards and carries anything a Basin resident desires. No need to go Outside,” Mary Clare said defensively. “You’ll see. We’re headed to Miss Lacey’s first.” She pointed to a crisp white shop with bay windows. They held displays of clothing, but as Annmar stepped closer, she saw other items between the fancy gowns and stopped.
Face heating, she backed from the front steps of Miss Lacey’s shop and its display of lady’s unmentionables—lace-edged, silky and colorful—very unmentionable, even to another girl. “I-I said trousers.”
“We’re here for what’s worn underneath. Davies’ sells the trousers and boots.”
“I don’t need undergarments,” she hissed at Mary Clare. “Especially not those.” A working-class girl didn’t wear silk embellished with lace. And the colors? “Oh, my Lord, what would Mother say?” she muttered, and at Mary Clare’s laugh, added, “What does your mother say?”
“My mother is the one who brought each of us here. The three oldest of us, that is. Mary Delia is hopeful each day that her monthlies will begin and she will be treated to a shopping excursion for real women’s wear.” Mary Clare’s green eyes sparkled in amusement. “Besides, your mother has passed on. You’re free to wear whatever you wish.”
“This is not funny. I never saw a display such as this in Derby, and I’m not about to shop among these wares in Chapel Hollow.” She turned on her heel and marched off.
Mary Clare dashed after her and planted herself in the way. “Problem is, Chapel Hollow has only two shops for ready-to-wear clothing. Davies’ Farm Trade and Miss Lacey’s. She sews plain undergarments, if that’s what you want. She just displays her fanciest wares in the window for all of us to drool over. It’s a business practice, just like the shop name. Ma grew up with Helen Birchwood, and when she took over the shop, she renamed it Miss Lacey’s, and everyone calls her that.”
Annmar pressed her lips together in her hot, hot face and resisted the urge to wipe her brow. “I have plenty of petticoats.”
“And ladies’ knickers?”
Heavens. Where was this going? She didn’t trust herself to ask, so shook her head.
“What do you wear under your skirt?”
Annmar averted her gaze, but it didn’t help. Her face heated again. She whispered, “Layers of petticoats. Drawers. That’s the norm in Derby.”
“The norm here is knickers.” Mary Clare petted her arm in the consoling manner one would use with a child. “In colder weather, flannel knickers under split skirts, trousers or bib-and-brace trousers. We are forward-thinking in our feminine outfitting, and it’d be good for you to adopt the Basin styles.”
Annmar stared into her earnest green eyes. Mary Clare had done it again. She obviously knew Annmar’s feelings and her fears.
“You wanted something to wear in the fields, but also Market Day is tomorrow. If you show up in your prim Derby clothes, you’ll stand out like a cow in the pigpen. You don’t want people to take notice of you, right?”
Exactly the right examples and excuses. There was nothing to argue about. At that thought, the tension melted from her shoulders and Annmar drew a settling breath.
Mary Clare lifted a brow. “So we go into Miss Lacey’s?”
With a curt nod, she allowed Mary Clare to steer her back to the shop. “You are one pushy friend, Mary Clare.”
She sighed. “That’s what Rivley keeps telling me.” She mounted the steps and grasped the door latch.
“Does he also know about your Knack of reading others’ feelings?”
She flinched like the metal had stung her and whirled around, eyes wide and searching. “I-I didn’t think…”
“That I’d be able to tell?”
She blushed. “You’re from Outside.”
“You know too much about me, what I’m feeling, what will comfort me. Does anyone else know?”
She shook her head. “I’m more careful around them. Only Rivley started to figure it out, and I felt I had to confide in him once we’d had sex more than a few times.”
It was Annmar’s turn to blush and stare.
“Why are you going all bug-eyed at me…ohhh. You didn’t realize Rivley and I had—”
“I thought…I guessed, but…oh, shh.” Annmar put her hand to Mary Clare’s mouth. “We’re on the street, for heaven’s sake.”
Mary Clare snatched the hand away and drew Annmar close. “We’re on the street in Chapel Hollow, for land’s sake. There’s not a person within a hundred feet of us, and anyone that might be already knows I’ve had sex with some—”
“Shh!”
“—one. Great Creator, I’m eighteen, been on Regulatia for three years and bedded a variety of Basin male species. Enough to know my way around… Hold on a second here. Are you saying
…have you not—”
Annmar wrenched her hand free and thrust it over Mary Clare’s mouth again. “Not here. Let’s just go inside and shop for undergarments.”
Mary Clare eyed her and nodded. Annmar slowly lowered her hand. Mary Clare grinned at her. “You’ve got some push in you as well, Annmar. You’ll do fine in the Basin.”
“Lord, help me.”
Mary Clare shook her head. “I don’t know about your Lord helping you, but I sure will. You’ve got a lot of learning ahead of you to fit in here, being a vir—”
“Don’t say it.” Annmar’s fingers darted to their now familiar place over Mary Clare’s lips. “Don’t tell another soul.”
Mary Clare puffed out her breath at the digits. “Don’t have to. Boys figure these things out faster than girls. At least the kind of boys we have. Mammals have that keen sense of smell. Someone like Daeryn—”
Annmar groaned and put a hand over her eyes.
“—probably knew from the moment he met you. Don’t fret so.” Mary Clare hugged her around the shoulders. “He likes you and you have helped him. He won’t tell.”
“Daeryn isn’t the mammal I’m worried about. Jac is.”
“Right. She does take some standing up to. Plus, her cousin Maraquin likes Daeryn, though the relationship never seems to go anywhere.”
It didn’t? She wouldn’t be the one to tell Mary Clare she’d seen them together. In bed.
“Ignoring them works fine. If it comes to it, then you’ll put on your big-girl knickers, or as the boys say, grow some bollocks for the job.” Annmar gasped, and Mary Clare grinned. “Some barn talk for you to practice. Just don’t let Mrs. Betsy hear it. Come on.” Mary Clare dragged her into the shop, and Annmar was sure her face was as red as the fancy corset in the window.
chapter twenty-four
At least no other customers waited in Miss Lacey’s shop. Fine, Annmar would select a pair of ladies’ knickers and they’d leave. If she could find a plain one among the colorful materials of ready-to-wear items filling the shelves.
The Unraveling, Volume One of The Luminated Threads: A Steampunk Fantasy Romance Page 20