Gilded Lily (2 page)

T
HE HAT WAS
too large, and it gave her away. Only to somebody looking hard, of course, but Freddie knew the risk was there. Someone looking hard, or someone who knew what they were looking for.

It was practicality, as much as vanity, that made her balk at cutting her hair off. As long as she kept it, she could blend seamlessly back into that other world. The world in which, ostensibly, she belonged. And it was far easier to disguise the hair in this world than to explain its absence in that one. Lately, some daring young ladies had taken to bobbing their hair. But it was not yet the general rage, and Freddie hesitated to draw excess attention to herself by leaping into the vanguard of fashion.

So for now, at least, she remained the plumpish, round-faced lad in the comically oversized hat. Fred Merchant, tinker-makesmith extraordinaire. Quick and curious, clever with his hands and known not to adhere to Marquess of Queensberry rules when cornered in a fight. Handy chap to know, bad chap to cross, such was the consensus on the streets of London.

Chap whose bosoms have been strapped down far too long for one day.
Freddie tucked an almost-escaping auburn curl more firmly back under the outmoded black top hat, mindless of the engine grease on her fingers. She was sweating under the bandages and padding, the many layers of her disguise. The device in front of her was still in pieces, the purposeful array of parts revealing the order of their removal. She loved looking at them like that, their symmetry and sense. She could discern the purpose each component served in the whole, could already see where the flaw was. And she saw, as clearly as if the process were playing before her on a stereopticon, how it would all fit together and work again in the end. Where everything belonged, and how and why. The machine flew back together in her mind, whirring into seamless action.

“Wot, then? Beyond repair, is it, Fred?”

“Never.” She spared a scowl for Dan Pinkerton, who always assumed things were beyond repair. “It's an easy fix, I just haven't time to finish today. And you know sod-all about steamers, mate.”

That last was reassurance for the client, who had shown some dismay at Dan's assessment.

“You'll not get a farthing until that dog's running again,” the butcher warned. “If I'm not making anything off it, you won't neither.”

“I'll be back same time tomorrow,” Freddie reassured him. “Finish it up in no time.” The butcher depended on the mechanical “dog” to run the spit on which he roasted his newest product, ready-to-eat sliced meats. He'd taken a chance by setting it up as a spectacle in his shop window, to draw the attention of customers. The prospect of losing his competitive promotional edge was clearly weighing heavily on him, and it bothered Freddie as well. Her clients among the fishmongers were closing up shop left and right lately, the result of an unusually high rate of fishermen gone missing on the job and a simultaneous decline in the numbers of local fish schools. The rivalry between butcher shops had only heated up as trade shifted to place a higher demand on them in the absence of fish.

“Why not now?” the fat man demanded. “Pressing social engagement?”

Dan snorted into his glove, then tried to cover it with a cough. Freddie just smiled and shrugged. “When the Queen calls, Mister Armintrout.”

He looked ready to take offense, then shrugged it off. Freddie was his only real option and they both knew it.

“Give Her Majesty my best.”

The laughter carried them outside, where Dan bustled Freddie onto the trap and down the lane in less than his usual time.

“You'll get caught, joking like that,” he scolded once they were on the high street, safely ensconced in the noisy flow of traffic. The little trap bounced along the cobbles, tugged along behind the steam “pony” that Dan controlled with deft flicks of the levers in front of him. Most of London's flesh-and-blood horses were inured to the steam engines now, and didn't even shy at the noise and sudden bursts of speed from the surrounding vehicles.

“I'm bound to get caught eventually. I don't think cracking wise will make much difference one way or the other. Bloody hell, it's warm out here for May.”

“You're sitting right in the vent path. Told your father we needed a cowling on this thing when it was converted, but would he listen? And you shouldn't be using coarse language, it ain't ladylike.”

“Don't be such a prig, Dan. You sound like my old nursemaid.”

“Because your old nursemaid was my mum, or have you forgot?”

“How could I? You're the very image of her. Oh, bother. I've ruined these trousers with grease. My last. I don't suppose you could procure another pair for me tonight?”

“You're supposed to be saving your earnings, I thought. I'll get Mum to clean those ones.”

“But they're not your size, won't she suspect?”

Dan's laugh rang out above the noise of the street. “You don't think she already knows? She knows everything, miss. She probably knew your scheme before you even thought of it yourself.”

Freddie glanced around, a reflex with her now. “Don't call me that now.”

“Right. Pardon, Fred old chap. Are we headed for your piece of skirt among the quality, my lad?” He swung wide to get around a slow horse-drawn carriage, then cut through a narrow gap between two cabs and down a quieter side street.

“Who's the coarse one now? Yes, to Lady Sophronia's.” Freddie's closest friend and ally aside from Dan himself, Sophronia Wallingford could always be counted on to provide a hot bath and the loan of a maid when Freddie completed one of her little moneymaking ventures and needed to clean up before returning to proper society.

“Ah, the beautiful widow Wallingford.” Dan let his voice deepen, and his rough accent managed to make even those few innocent words sound like lewd speculation. Freddie knew he teased to cover his genuine adoration of Sophie, a poignant longing that society would always make it impossible to requite. A footman could love a gentlewoman from afar all he liked, but the emotion could never bring him anything but empty daydreams and misery.

Freddie didn't know why Dan subjected himself to it, but she tried to be sympathetic while at the same time subtly discouraging him. “You wouldn't say that if you'd ever seen her before her maid was through with her in the morning.”

She also didn't understand the embarrassed laugh and cough Dan hid in his glove, much like he'd done at old Armintrout's earlier. But that was Dan, he'd always had inscrutable moments as long as she'd known him. All her life, in fact. He was the big brother she'd never had, except that she'd more or less always had him.

A heavier-than-usual patch of traffic and slow-moving pedestrians held them motionless for a few minutes, long enough for Freddie to grow anxious. The nearest walker, a youngish gentleman, had stopped alongside them. He stared in bewilderment from his map to the surrounding scenery, then in dismay at the cobbled road beneath their carriage.

“Haven't they ever heard of asphalt?” she heard him say into the lull, apparently to no one in particular. Clearly the street noise was too much for him. Delicate sensibilities, perhaps. Or he was a tourist; he had a foreign look about his clothes, an accent that hinted at time spent in the American Dominions.

“They've started it north of the river,” Dan remarked to him, leaning down sociably from his seat. “But it'll be a cold day for Lucifer before the nobs this far west allow that much change. Not to mention the smell when they lay it down. Nah, here it'll be cobbles and setts until they die, I'd wager.”

Unheard-of cheek, especially coming from Dan, who was usually so sober and proper. The tourist was obviously no commoner. But it was safe enough, Freddie supposed. The next moment the steam coach ahead of them lurched forward, and all was noise and motion once again. The puzzled, fresh-faced gentleman was lost in the crowd, left alone with his map to speculate on road surfaces and how to find his way through London. Freddie forgot him the moment he was out of view.

Wallingford House loomed ahead of them for a moment, before Dan diverted the pony down another side street to the mews. They would enter as two rough tinker-makesmiths, then Dan would reemerge in his livery and return with the trap to Rutherford Murcheson's stately Belgravia residence several streets away.

Miss Frédérique Murcheson would return home again only after attending a ball under the watchful eye of her friend and frequent chaperone, the Lady Sophronia Wallingford. With her mother now settled resolutely in France, and her father in London only occasionally for business, Freddie was able to get away with quite a lot—but sometimes even she couldn't weasel her way out of an important social occasion.

After all, when the Queen called . . .

 • • • 

B
ARNABAS STARED AT
the map, then at the street in front of him, wishing for the dozenth time that he'd opted to unpack his dirigible and fly to his employer's home, instead of taking the Metropolitan railway from the air ferry stop in Hillingdon, then walking to his final destination. It had seemed like a foolish waste of time to launch himself instead of taking advantage of the local transportation, but now he eyed the individual airships above with envy. He could have at least taken a taxicab, but he had the ridiculous notion that he knew the town well, and he'd judged the cab not worth the expense for such a short distance.

London was not as thickly populated as New York, but it sprawled for what seemed like endless miles. Ancient, meandering streets were overlaid by the new. What had seemed straightforward on the map was rendered meaningless by the scale, the bustle and the overwhelming noise of steam cars and horse-drawn conveyances vying for space on old, cobbled roads or wood-block paving. The few times he'd come to the city with friends during his Oxford days, it hadn't seemed so daunting. Or so cacophonous.

“Haven't they ever heard of asphalt?”

“They've started it north of the river,” a voice commented from the nearest vehicle, a converted steam-drawn pony trap of a type that was all too familiar from the streets of New York. This one looked slightly down-at-heels, and its driver's and passenger's coats were frayed at the cuffs and collars. Tinkers, by the oil stains on their clothing and the assembly of tools in the back of the trap. No expertise with fine clockwork, but they could likely repair an engine or a pump for anyone who couldn't afford a proper makesmith. Barnabas didn't begrudge them their living but wondered how the local guilds viewed these independent competitors.

“Not to mention the smell when they lay it down. Nah, here it'll be cobbles and setts until they die, I'd wager,” the driver finished.

The trap disappeared like magic as the traffic suddenly picked up its pace, and Barnabas stared dumbly for far too long at the space the little cart had occupied. There was something odd about the trap's passenger that had diverted his attention from the driver almost instantly. He tried to pin it down but was unable. Something, though. About the eyes and jawline, the fit of the clothing . . .

A prodding hand jolted Barnabas from his bemused stupor, and he lashed out just in time to catch the wrist of his attempted pickpocket.

“Hey! Stop that!”

The boy dropped Barnabas's coin purse back into his pocket and escaped with a sharp twist of his hand against his intended victim's thumb. Obviously not the first time the youth had been in that situation. A cluster of other boys lurked near the next corner, looking too nonchalant.

More alert, Barnabas transferred all his valuables to safer inside pockets, then returned his mind to the task at hand. He knew from his map he was close to Belgravia, and the rough tinker's remark about nobs was confirmation. Rutherford Murcheson's house couldn't be too far off now. He should be able to find it in time to change and dress before the evening's festivities. Whether he would actually find it festive, trying to keep a watchful eye on Murcheson's wayward daughter, remained to be seen. At least it would be a relatively honest evening's work.

Rutherford Murcheson hadn't especially wanted Barnabas for the job of looking after his daughter. Barnabas had suspected as much from their correspondence, and his impression was confirmed by the man's edgy, dismissive demeanor when Barnabas finally arrived at his tasteful home.

“You resemble your brother,” the older man said flatly after they'd shaken hands. “Are you going to disappoint me, as he did?”

Barnabas's younger brother Phineas had seemed destined to greatness in his military career before he allegedly succumbed to the lure of opium and fell off the map. But that shouldn't mean anything to Murcheson. “Who was he to you, sir, that you had any expectations of him?”

Murcheson was an industrialist, a manufacturer of clockwork devices and steam engines. Few knew of his other work, as a spymaster for the Crown. Barnabas himself had only learned this recently, and there was no reason young Lieutenant Phineas Smith-Grenville should have known it at all. But Barnabas had reason to believe there was much more to Phineas's disappearance than his family had been led to believe. Finding out the truth about his brother and restoring honor to his name was still his primary objective, regardless of what assignment Murcheson might make. His last attempt to locate Phineas had resulted only in more shame for the family, as it involved Barnabas performing very badly in the American Dominions Sky and Steam Rally. He'd made it no farther than the first rest stop before succumbing to influenza. His friend Eliza Hardison—now Eliza Pence—claimed to have spotted Phineas in San Francisco during the finishing line ceremony. But a more recent sighting by a former shipmate of Phineas's placed him in London, so here Barnabas was.