Asher's Dilemma (10 page)

Then he slouched further down in his chair, folded his arms across his chest and shut his eyes against the darkness.

Chapter Ten

Weak sunlight leaching through the curtains greeted Minerva when she woke up. For a while she lay prone, taking in her surroundings. She was alone in Asher’s study, she saw, lying on his chaise longue with a Tartan blanket thrown over her. The fire was out, a towering heap of ashes and blackened books sprawling in the grate. On the mantelpiece above, a handsome carriage clock ticked peacefully. As she registered the earliness of the hour, she became aware of how quiet it was, quiet enough for her to hear the clock ticking. After days of squalling gales the world had fallen silent, and the hush was almost eerie.

She pushed the blanket aside and stood. Her hair spilled all down her back, disheveled and mussed as if someone had been threading their fingers through her locks over and over all night long. Her dress was similarly awry, all rucked and wrinkled. She must have spent a restless night on the chaise longue. But where was Asher? And why had he left her to spend the night alone in his study?

She walked briskly towards the door but stopped as she caught sight of the table. Dirtied plates and glasses, congealing food, half-empty bottles—but this was not what made her stop. The table was laid for
three,
but that made no sense because she and Asher had dined alone here last night. After all the mayhem they’d faced and defeated, they’d relished the chance to be alone. But there on the crumpled table cloth were three place settings, and around the table were three chairs drawn up into an intimate circle. And the strangest thing of all was that the third place setting was pristine and untouched.

Minerva touched the sparkling-clean glass laid next to the equally spotless porcelain plate, and a sensation like hot wire threaded through her bones. She rubbed her temple, wondering if she’d imbibed too much last night. As she turned away she caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror on the wall, and for a split second it was as if she were looking at her double, someone very similar to her, but different. She squeezed her eyes shut and re-opened them. The fleeting impression lingered on. The woman who stared back at her still looked different, especially about the eyes.

As she stepped forward for a closer look, the door to the study opened, and Asher walked in, a puzzled line scoring his brow.

“Minerva.” He stopped in surprise, glanced back at the hallway behind him. “So you
are
here.”

“I’ve been here all night. May I ask where you have been?”

“I woke up on the chair just outside the study.” Asher scratched his head. “I don’t understand it. I must have intended to go somewhere and then sat down and simply fallen asleep. How odd!”

“But you were here with me last night. I remember it distinctly. We had supper together, and then we sat on the chaise longue over there, and then…” She focused her mind on the events of last night, but the memories of what had happened after supper remained stubbornly elusive.

“I must have gone to fetch something and ended up in that chair. We must both have been extremely exhausted.” He moved towards her and ran his hands down her arms. “Yesterday was a tumultuous day. Look what I just discovered.” He dug out two items from the pocket of his jacket. “My stalking compass, which I was sure I’d lost, and this note I wrote to myself last night. See, it’s dated and signed.”

Minerva peered at the note scrawled in Asher’s distinctively untidy handwriting. “How curious. You have written a vow never to rebuild your chronometrical conveyance.”

“Destroying it was the only way to stop Mrs. Nemo.”

“Yes, but why did you feel compelled to document your promise?”

“In case I forgot?”

She arched her eyebrows at him. “Surely no one could forget yesterday.”

He rubbed his forehead, looking slightly troubled. “I’m not in the habit of writing such notes to myself. How peculiar.”

“The whole of yesterday was peculiar, and last night you were exhausted. Why, you even fell asleep in the hallway.”

He nodded, his brow clearing. “So I did.” Re-pocketing the note and the stalking compass, he drew her back into his arms.

She was still troubled by the strangeness of the morning. “Asher, did we have a guest at supper last night?”

“No, we were alone. Why do you ask?”

“Because the table there is laid for three.”

He glanced at the table then back at her. “But the third place setting is unused.”

“It’s a mystery.” She pulled him back. “I don’t feel quite myself this morning. Do you see anything strange about me too?”

He took his time studying her, his expression warming. “If by strange you mean more beautiful than ever, then yes.”

She couldn’t help blushing. “My hair is a rats’ nest and my eyes are puffy.”

“Your beauty shines from within.”

Her heart thrilled at his compliment, so unexpected from this down-to-earth inventor, but the tenderness and desire in his face was plain to see. His arms slipped around her waist, her hands glided over his shoulders and around his neck. Their bodies met, and then the heat of his mouth seared her lips. At first his kisses were loving and soft, but the dam soon broke and his mouth grew passionate and possessive. Her breasts tingled and peaked against his chest, aching for his touch. His jaw rasped against her skin as he ravished her neck with his mouth, his hands roaming over her back before reaching up to tangle through her loosened hair.

She reveled in the feel of his hands fisting her tousled hair, but through her pleasure came the nagging thought that these were not the hands that had woven through her tresses the night before. The thought swam in and out and then disappeared, submerged beneath a hungry tide that had been pent up for too long. Asher had saved her from extinction, and she would never take this life for granted anymore. She loved him, lusted after him, and nothing would keep them apart again.

Just as her hands slipped beneath his shirt to caress his skin, he lifted his head and glanced about the room.

“What—what is it?” she whispered, still befuddled by the intimacy.

“I don’t know. I feel as if we’re not alone.”

“But we are. There’s no one here but us.” Even as she spoke the hairs on her nape tingled. Who had tousled her hair so thoroughly during the night? It hadn’t been her, and Asher had been asleep outside the study. Someone else, someone whose lingering presence Asher could sense too. She attempted a light-hearted laugh. “Perhaps the wind blew a ghost into this room last night and now it’s trying to find a way home.”

She expected him to laugh, to tease her that there was no such thing as ghosts, but instead he nodded pensively as if he agreed with her. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Last night was one of the strangest of my life.”

A knock on the door made them both start. The door creaked open and Cheeves appeared. At the reassuring sight of the impassive butler, Minerva released the breath she’d been holding and discreetly disentangled herself from Asher’s embrace.

The good butler pretended not to notice that he’d interrupted an intimate moment. “Begging your pardon, Miss Lambkin, sir, but you have a visitor downstairs in the parlor. Mr. Schick.”

“Schick!” Asher raised his eyebrows at Minerva. “Rather early to be calling at this hour.”

“He’s most anxious to speak with you, sir.”

“Very well, I’ll be down shortly.” He waited until the servant had withdrawn before turning to Minerva. “Whatever Schick wants, it can’t bode well. I don’t suppose I can prevail upon you to remain here while I see to him?”

“You suppose right.” She cupped his unshaven jaw. “We will confront Herr Schick together. Remember, he had no idea what my mother was up to. He was merely a pawn in her diabolical game.”

“We have only your mother’s word on that. I don’t trust him, and I’m not taking any chances.” He opened a drawer in his desk and picked out a tiny gun which strapped neatly to his right wrist. “A Scorpion ray gun. Small but deadly.” When he flung on his jacket, the sleeves of his garment concealed all sign of the miniature weapon.

Minerva followed him downstairs to the front parlor where they found Herr Schick pacing the floor, his hair and clothes in disarray.

“Ach, I’m sorry to disturb you so early in the morning, but I had to see you!” Schick pushed up his spectacles and tugged at his coarse black beard. “May I ask if my associate, Mrs. Nemo, has been to see you?”

Asher tensed and discreetly flexed his right arm. “She called yesterday afternoon.”

“Oh, she did? And did she give you any results from the computations you wanted my analytical machine to perform?”

Asher answered tersely, “Yes, in a manner of speaking.”

“Mein Gott!”
Schick pulled out a large handkerchief to mop his perspiring brow, his Adam’s apple bobbing convulsively. “Sir, I sincerely hope you have not made use of the figures she gave you because they are totally and utterly erroneous.”

“How can that be? Your analytical machine is famous for its accuracy.”

“My Hedwig is infallible, but she is only as accurate as its operator. Mrs. Nemo has always been an exemplary programmer. I trusted her with all my computations. But this morning when I was inspecting my machine I happened to notice something caught between the pegs in one of the rotating drums. I was instantly alarmed because such an obstruction could cause an error in the simplest of calculations, and the more complex the calculations, the more this error would multiply in magnitude. I managed to get hold of the obstruction. It was this.” With a grimace, the German held up a small, black stump. “The remains of one of Mrs. Nemo’s cigarillos!”

Minerva gazed at the charred bit of cigarillo before Herr Schick tossed it into the fireplace with a grunt of disgust.

“Time and again I told her to stop smoking,” he continued. “Very bad for her health. She tried to hide it from me, but I knew.”

Minerva could see how it might have happened—her mother smoking while she worked on the analytical machine, Herr Schick coming into the room, her mother panicking and tossing aside the cigarillo butt, which then got caught up in the machinery.

“I didn’t want you to think I was providing you with false information,” Herr Schick said to Asher. “Please be assured that I will personally see to it that your calculations are correctly computed.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Asher replied. “I’ve decided to abandon my line of enquiry. It seems I’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”

“Ja?”
Herr Schick’s eyes goggled behind his spectacles as he struggled to understand the idiom.

“I mean I haven’t found out anything. I’m sorry for wasting your time, Herr Schick. I’ll come round later today to collect all my papers from your house.”

“No need. I could not find them anywhere. Mrs. Nemo must have taken care of them. But how disappointing, Mr. Quigley. I had heard you were making exciting discoveries about the aethersphere.”

“No, I must admit I’ve failed, and I shan’t persist any longer. From now on I shall leave the aethersphere to better men than me.”

Asher’s hand hanging by his side curled into a fist, and Minerva ached for him. How it must gall him to pretend he had failed in front of his fellow scientist. There was none better than he, but only he and she knew that.

“I have not seen Mrs. Nemo since yesterday,” Herr Schick said. “When she left here yesterday, did she tell you where she was going?”

Asher’s fist tightened once more, but his voice was even as he replied, “No, she didn’t.”

Herr Schick turned his attention to Minerva. “Fräulein, I did not expect to see you here. Do you have any idea where your cousin might be?”

“I’m sorry, Herr Schick. My, er, cousin does not confide in me much.”

He squinted at her some more. “I had not noticed it before, but your likeness to your cousin is most remarkable. Most remarkable.”

Minerva forced herself not to wince. “A fluke of nature, I’m sure.”

“I suppose she will return in her own good time.” Schick lifted his shoulders and shook his head, resigned. “She comes and goes as she pleases.”

For the first time Minerva found herself sorry for the man. At first he’d repelled her with his hectoring manner and menacing appearance, but now she saw he was no more than yet another poor dupe of her mother’s. Moments later Schick took his leave, his manner far more subdued than when he’d arrived.

“Poor man,” Minerva said to Asher when they were alone. “He will wait in vain for my mother to return.”

Asher didn’t appear too concerned. “He won’t miss her when he returns to his first love—mathematics.”

“Spoken like a true scientist.” She linked her arm through his and gave him a teasing look.

“No, spoken like a true romantic.” He spun her into his embrace, his lightness returning. “A true romantic who finally has
his
first love.”

Arm-in-arm they wandered through the back garden, marveling at the damage left behind by the windstorm. A large elm in a neighboring garden had toppled over. Trees and shrubs were stripped bare, tiles and chimney pots had come crashing down, debris lay strewn everywhere. Inside the workshop they examined the crushed remains of the chronometrical conveyance and heaved a sigh in unison, relieved that this greatest of inventions was no more.