The Perilous In-Between (The Chuzzlewit Chronicles Book 1)

by Cortney Pearson

  “Strange,” she mumbled to herself. She didn’t remember the table in here being lopsided.

  With a glance at the open doorway, Victoria knelt to inspect the table’s underside. Sure enough, the screw on the left back leg was loose. She crawled, reaching, and with the movement the ghost of a memory filtered in, pushing at the edges of her mind the way it had earlier.

  Her stomach hardened. Spots flashed across her vision. The thought pressed in, rocking her, and she flinched to push them away until they faded. Heart thundering, she reoriented herself.

  She braced her hands on either side of her, breathing hard. It was happening more and more, this remnant of a memory. But it was too overwhelming, too awful, she couldn’t allow it to come through. She tucked her fingernail into the screw’s flat end and began to turn.

  “Miss Digby?”

  Victoria jolted, knocking her head into the table top. The glass above her clattered against the bottles.

  “What are you doing?” A sliver of disappointment chipped its way into her chest. It wasn’t Mr. Birkley after all.

  “Lord Merek!” What a sight she must make, ducked below the wood as she was, with her skirts pooling around her backside. She gripped the leg and pulled herself out, dropping her pocket wrench in the process.

  Charles bent to retrieve it and offered her his hand, which she took.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” Victoria swiped for it, but Charles withheld it from her grasp. He examined the narrow handle connecting two fatter, gaping ends.

  “Miss Digby, this is a tool.”

  “What of it?” She hated how defensive she sounded.

  He straightened his shoulders and handed the wrench back to her. He took in the open case on the table, the tiny bottles she’d extracted and glass beaker with a too-late smile. “It only startled me, that is all. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, considering your position.”

  She lacked the patience to hob nob with Charles Merek that afternoon now that she had the chemical.

  She supposed she should apologize for her behavior the other evening, when she rejected Charles’s gift, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that either. Instead, she said, “What are you doing here?”

  Charles took the end of the settee near the table. “You look enchanting today, Victoria. I think there is no other man as fortunate as I am.”

  The Kreak had wreaked destruction through Down Street, Mr. Fenstermaker had just gone to the hospital, and Charles was acting as if this were any other pleasant day. Not only that, but he was interrupting her very limited time to experiment with the cog. She had to be ready for patrol later.

  Victoria quivered in frustration. This wretched engagement was the last thing she wanted to address. It was as though her mother and Charles lived in a different world.

  “How lovely to be thought of as a prize,” Victoria finally said.

  “I meant in this instance,” he hurried to clarify. “I’m fortunate to be with you in this instance. It was a compliment, Victoria.” He winced.

  “What do you know about me, Charles?” she asked, surprising herself. But after these events she could no longer hold her tongue as she had before.

  His brow knitted, and he released a laugh. “Come now, must we pretend we are strangers?”

  “Please, what do you know about me other than my outward appearance and what a fine display we will make in a mantelpiece painting?”

  “It was only a necklace and some flowers.” His tone was almost apologetic.

  “Will you deny you intend for me to be your wife?”

  He fidgeted. “I—well, no. I won’t.”

  “Then what do you know about me?” she demanded.

  Charles shifted and stared around at the entourage of flowers listening in on this increasingly uncomfortable conversation. “Well,” he said with another awkward laugh. “You are the Head Naut of your uncle’s Protection Program.”

  “Everyone knows that. It seems to me that a man and his fiancée should have a more . . . intimate understanding of one another before they make a conjugal step together. I know practically nothing about you except for the fact that your father was knighted for his military service in a long-past war, and that you have very little by way of conversation if you aren’t staring at me.”

  “I understand,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “You wish to know whom you are marrying.”

  “I never agreed to this arrangement, you know. You have never asked me.” She smoothed her black skirt and adjusted the fingerless lace gloves hugging her hands before lifting her gaze to him.

  “I am well aware of what I have and have not done,” he said, rising to his feet and shocking her into silence. “And I apologize if you’ve gotten the wrong idea of my intentions with regards to you, Victoria. Whether you want your appearance to be an issue or not, you are beautiful. Any man would be a fool not to fumble in your presence, and I can’t say I’ve acted as successfully as I’ve wanted to around you.

  “I’ve asked you on carriage rides where you barely mutter a word in response to anything I say. I’ve come to ascertain your feelings after events I assumed were emotionally taxing for you. I’ve offered you gifts you won’t receive. What more can I do?”

  Victoria’s mouth hung open.

  “I’d like to get to know you, Victoria. If you would let me,” he said softly.

  Hearing him put things that way turned the whole situation inside out. She’d never considered his feelings through all of this. And she probably should have.

  Still, she felt restless, eager to be anywhere else but with him.

  She rose to stand before him. “Charles, I’m afraid you haven’t done anything wrong. I assumed that you had things worked out with my mother and were playing on those assumptions without considering my feelings. You should know I dislike having others make my decisions for me. That is something my mother has never understood. She wishes me to marry you so that I can no longer be a pilot. And now, if you’ll excuse me.” She turned away from him, toying with her wrench, hoping he would take the hint.

  “She—mentioned something like that to me,” he hedged.

  She whirled around. “Then you must know that I love to fly. I love it as I do breathing. I am never as alive as I am while in the air. And if you truly knew that, if you truly loved me as a man should love the woman he marries, you would never seek to take that away from me.”

  “Miss Digby, I wouldn’t dare—”

  “That savage creature killed my father. It continues attacking the banks of our town, and you and Mama think that marriage is enough to keep me from figuring out a way to stop it from happening.”

  Charles Merek lifted his chin but kept his gaze on her. “I see,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “I admit, when your uncle first approached me and encouraged me to pursue you, I was unsure. But the offer of a position on the Town Council was too much for me to turn down—you understand. At first I remained uncertain, but the more I saw you, the more interest you held for me.”

  Her blood cooled. “My uncle bribed you to court me?”

  He paled. “I only meant that I see your merits for myself now. You are a strong, capable—”

  “Lord Merek.” Victoria cut him off. This was just too much. Her uncle wanted her off the squad that badly? “I must insist you stop at once. It is clear you were part of my uncle’s plan, to get me to stop meddling. I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.”

  “Miss Digby,” Charles said, rubbing the brim of his hat, trying to recapture the conversation. “I didn’t mean to say you didn’t matter to me, quite the contrary. I find that you are beautiful and mesmerizing.”

  “You’ve said enough,” she said, her heart stuttering. “I thank you for your honesty, and must ask that you leave.”

  An unhappy cord strung between
them. Clearly he’d tried to cover his tracks and failed miserably. He paused as though waiting for her to rescind, but she would not—could not. His words tempered the hardness in her. He was forthright in a way he never had been before, and for that she was glad, at least.

  “Miss Digby, I now realize I may have said too much.”

  “You have said just enough, sir. Please, consider yourself unattached. I’m sure Myer can show you to the door.”

  If her uncle was trying this hard to get her out of the Nauts, he would find himself mistaken. Especially now. Dahlia had recovered, and the Nauts needed to pull together more than ever if there was any hope to stopping that creature.

  “I understand,” he said.

  “Good day, Charles.”

  Charles gave her a sympathetic grimace. He turned toward the door, hesitated, then turned back to her and offered her his hand. “Good day, Miss Digby.”

  Hesitating, she slipped her hand in his.

  His touch addled her thoughts. She gasped. For the third time that day her mind turned white, and images other than the decadent flowers surrounding her blurred into view.

  Instead of boxy windows spearing to the ceiling and welcoming in gallons of sunlight, new windows appeared in her mind, small and circular, and spinning like the Kreak’s metal eyes. A man stood at the end of the lineup of the spinning glass. He wore unusual, dark clothing and a scowl, but he likewise took her hand and brought it to his lips.

  A crash awakened her from the outlandish vision. The whiteness unclogged from her brain, and she heaved a breath and found herself on the floor beside a shattered hibiscus pot and its scattered bits of pottery and dirt.

  “Are you all right?” Charles asked in shock. He knelt before her, concern in his brow. “You stumbled—nearly tripped over the couch. Are you unwell?”

  “What was that?” she asked, bending to sweep the broken fragments together, as though needing something to do.

  Fear had crawled under her skin at the sight of the man, at his very touch. And what had those windows been, the side of some strange building? Victoria dusted her fingers and shakily rose, staring across the room that had transformed moments beforehand. She’d felt this before, this eerie outplacement. The memory had been threatening for days, and now that it made its appearance, she wasn’t sure she wanted it there.

  “Shall I send for a doctor?” Charles asked.

  “No! Please, Charles. I’m well, but I need some time . . .”

  “Of course.” He hesitated.

  She tricked a smile into place and made her way back to her feet, dusting her hands across her skirts. “I assure you, I am well. Think nothing of it.”

  More hesitation. “Very well. If you’re certain.”

  “I am.” Go. Go now, please!

  He gave a small bow. “Then I shall leave you.” After staring at the mess she’d made, he headed for the door. Upon stepping through, he paused and looked back. “And Victoria? I’m glad we are friends.”

  “As am I.” She managed a smile long enough to wave him away.

  Her hand pressed to her stomach the instant he was gone. What had happened? What was that memory?

  “Do not think on it,” she whispered to herself as sweat collected at her back and arms.

  But thinking was all she could do lately. She had been completely honest with Charles. She was a pilot and loved her occupation. But parading around in Elsie every evening, puffing flames at a massive, clockwork creature seemed more akin to using a bandage to cure influenza than actually solving the underlying problem.

  Graham Birkley had it right, to throw the creature off its course like that. She hadn’t seen him since their conversation the night before, since her uncle had invited the peculiar boy to board with them, and bizarrely enough, she longed for him to appear now. He’d triggered something impulsive in her, something that had taken the Kreak down in a way they never had before.

  Bolstered by the thought, Victoria opened the nultric acid and poured the fuming liquid into the large beaker. The air filled with an acrid, suffocating odor, and Victoria coughed repeatedly before plugging her nose, pinching the cog, and dropping it in.

  It sank down slowly to the bottom, gathering bubbles as it went. She waited with bated breath for the reaction, for the metal to begin to dissolve. But apart from the tiny bubbles popping near the circular, swirled cog, nothing happened.

  Disappointed, she covered the beaker with its lid, blocking out the smell. She waved a fan, attempting to air out the space, praying the pungent odor had no adverse effect on the flowers.

  Victoria lowered herself to the settee once more, sank her head back, and soaked in the heat penetrating through the sunroom’s windows.

  It hadn’t worked. The metal was stronger than she’d thought.

  “What are we to do?” she asked the silent room.

  “You tired?”

  Victoria’s eyes shot open. The bright sky peeked through the glass along the ceiling. The world closed back in around her, and Graham Birkley stood before her in the same short-sleeved blue shirt and bluish, faded trousers he’d worn yesterday.

  His nose wrinkled. “What is that smell?”

  “Mr. Birkley.” She straightened, grateful at least Graham had not caught her with her back end sticking out from beneath the table. She folded her hands in her lap, her nerves humming.

  Handsome as he was, Victoria couldn’t help but find his appearance odd. He traveled without packing? Of course, he hadn’t had a trunk or a bag of any kind with him when she’d picked him up yesterday. Perhaps he left it at the inn in town.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said.

  “Do what?”

  “Spiff yourself up just ‘cause I walk in the room. Slouch, if you want. I don’t care.” He crouched beside the shattered remnants of the hibiscus plant Victoria had brushed to the side near the sunflowers. But instead of investigating the damages, he interlocked his fingers and examined her.

  This was so different from Charles Merek’s possessive admiration. It was a look of analysis, as though he were trying to find the parts of her she kept tightly hidden and welcoming her to share them with him all at once.

  Victoria longed to smooth a hand through his tangles of black hair, or perhaps feel its softness in her fingers . . .

  Stop it, she chided herself.

  “Where is this place anyway?” he asked.

  “Gingham Range,” Victoria said, uncertain whether the jitter in her composure was because of his presence or the flicker of thought she’d experience moments ago. “It belonged to my grandfather. It was a wedding gift, when he’d married my grandmother.”

  Graham’s brows rose, and he glanced around the sunroom at the various plants sprigging up here and there. “This estate was a wedding present?” He whistled. “Some gift,” he added with admiration.

  “It was a fitting gift.” Victoria couldn’t see the reason for his astonishment. Did they not have homes where he came from? Perhaps he was from the lower class, and considering his dress, that wasn’t too far off. Somehow the thought made him all the more intriguing. “Houses are passed through families, Mr. Birkley. As my uncle has no children of his own, someday I shall inherit Gingham Range and its outlying properties.”

  “And what about Chizzazzle? Or whatever it’s called.”

  “Chuzzlewit.”

  “Yeah. That.”

  “What about it, Mr. Birkley?”

  “Where is it?” he asked, as if it was the most obvious question in the world.

  Victoria straightened.

  Graham fanned his fingers in her direction. “You’re doing it again. Slouch. Please, for the love, just slouch.”

  Against her will, a smile pricked at the corners of her mouth. She fiddled with a bit of her black skirt and tried to think of where to begin. “Chuzzlewit is—well, w
hat do you mean, where is it? It’s—”

  Her mind was wiped clean, a literal blank slate. It wasn’t as though she couldn’t think of the answer at the moment. It was as if she’d never known it in the first place.

  “Here.” Graham strode to the desk in the corner, which was situated perfectly for writing a letter amid the lovely scenery. To her relief, the powerful smell was dissipating, and he didn’t ask about her beaker. He retrieved a piece of paper and bent to inscribe something upon it.

  Curious, Victoria followed the strokes of his pen. A thick black line outlined what appeared to be an animal skull with lopsided horns.

  “This is the U.S., right? The United States?” he added when the abbreviation didn’t sink in. He drew a dot in the upper center. “This is Chicago. Where I’m from.”

  Victoria had studied geography in her lessons. She’d spent countless hours in the room on the third floor of the Range with her governess, studying her father’s globe, pointing to locations as Sophia had rattled off names of places she’d longed to see. Yet, she could not recall the places Graham mentioned. Her mind was a dark room, even when she tried to press it for answers.

  “I’ve never heard of either of those,” Victoria said. “Chicago. An interesting name.”

  “Not as interesting as Chuzzlewit,” Graham said with a laugh. “Sounds almost, I don’t know, made up.”

  Victoria’s eyes narrowed. “What are you insinuating, Mr. Birkley?”

  He shrugged and leaned his weight on the table. It no longer lilted under his weight. She flicked a glance to the cog in its beaker, but nothing had changed. It was still as it ever was.

  “Just that I feel like I’m stuck here for a while, and I’d like to know where here is.”

  “How can you be from a place I’ve never heard of either? Perhaps it is your town that is made up.”

  Graham laughed. “No, it’s there all right.”

  “How did you get here, then, if you claim this Chicago of yours is so easily located?”

  Graham stared at Victoria with an amused, diagnostic expression, and she found herself trapped in those eyes. Heat pooled in her cheeks when she realized she was staring back.