Her Own Devices (24 page)

“An unusual view for one so young.”

“Youth does not preclude knowledge of people.”

“In that you are correct. My dear wife could attest to it as well. I see that Percy is signaling us from the sidelines, so I am afraid that our partnership is at an end.”

He whirled her back to the dais, where the Duchess of Devonshire raised her lorgnette to see who on earth had upstaged her.

“Thank you, Sir,” Claire said. “For your kindness. And your powers of observation.”

“I was an engineer before I was the consort of a queen.” He bowed, and she curtseyed, once to him, and once to the Duchess, who lifted her chin and passed her with a nod stiff with frost.

Claire repaired to the punch bowl, her heart beating fast, both with relief that she had not tripped and embarrassed him, and exhilaration that at least two people outside the walls of the laboratory knew the truth. She had no doubt that enlightening Ross Stephenson would cause trouble of some kind, but the knowledge that the Prince Consort both knew and approved would bear her up during times of trial.

For she had spoken the truth to him—it was not the public approbation she wanted. James could have his champagne and his crowds. She wanted a career, and it would begin with that patent.

James found her at the dessert table, savoring a fluffy little bite composed of candied fruit and sheer fancy.

“Have you had your supper, dear?”

She had not much experience at galas of this kind, but even she knew a gentleman would have seen that she had all she needed long ago if he had not been wooing his cronies in the crowd.

“Yes, thank you. Try one of these, James. They are wonderful.”

He accepted it and popped it in his mouth. “May I have the next?” She picked up another comfit but he shook his head. “I meant the next dance. It is a polka.”

She ate the comfit herself. “Certainly.”

He drifted off into the crowd again and she decided to join Andrew and Tigg at the chamber. Tigg saw her coming and pulled her off to the side.

“’Is nibs is in a fine fury,” he said, stretching up so she could hear him. “If I was you, Lady, I’d stand ’im by the brandy and keep it coming.”

He had not looked in a fury a moment ago. “Has something happened, Tigg? Did something go wrong with the chamber after the demonstration?”

Tigg ducked his head without answering and vanished around the control console as James approached and offered her his arm. “Shall we?”

Whatever he was angry about, he concealed it as they merged into the circle and the contagious beat that was all the rage in every capital of Europe took their feet under its spell. But halfway around the third circuit, James changed course and danced her out the end of the gallery into a courtyard garden arranged between the wings. “It is time for a little privacy with my intended,” he said.

She could not see his face in the dark, so strolled in a short circle, pretending to admire their surroundings, until he was facing the brilliant lights of the exhibit hall. Still, his eyes were dark wells, and some emotion she could not identify sparked there.

“I hope you enjoyed your waltz with the prince.”

“I did indeed, thank you. He is a very skilled dancer. And an interesting man of conversation.”

“It is conversation that interests me, dear, now that you mention it. What the devil are you playing at, to announce your involvement in this project so clumsily to Ross Stephenson?”

He sounded almost casual. If it had not been for his language and the crispness of his consonants, she would not know he was angry. “It was time he knew the truth.”

“And you are the one who decides the timing?”

“When it concerns me, yes.”

“It concerns more than merely yourself. I was prepared to live with your self-centeredness, Claire, but bullheaded foolishness is quite another matter. It must stop.”

Self-centered! Bullheaded! These were fine names to call someone who was merely trying to stand up for herself. “I am sorry my behavior distresses you. But I cannot unsay words that have been said.”

“You may not, but I already have. I told him that you overstepped your bounds and were merely a secretary. That you had twisted filing the designs in your head with actually developing them.”

“You what?” Claire whispered, so shocked that she was barely able to speak. “You told him I lied?”

“You put me in this position. Thank heaven I had already blacked out your name on the patent application, or he would have been more confused than he already is.”

She stared. This second shock rendered her completely mute.

“Yes. I removed your name from the application.” Gently, he held her bare upper arms in his warm hands. “It’s only a temporary measure, so that Ross isn’t offended. He put down a thousand pounds as earnest money this evening, when we were having drinks in Hanover Square and I showed him the application. It was a necessary measure. But don’t be alarmed—the patent process takes a few months and we can add a name back in at any time. In fact,” he said, drawing her closer, “it would be the perfect wedding gift. I could not think of anything more fitting for my bride.”

First it had been only until they signed the contract. Now it was only until they signed the wedding license. What would be next? Only until they signed the parish register upon the birth of his heir?

Every woman has a threshold beyond which she will not go. And at this moment, Claire realized she had reached hers.

“No,” she said.

“No?”

“No wedding gift. You will put my name back on that application, James, or there will be no wedding.”

“Come now, dear. You can’t tell me that a piece of paper is of more value than our union.”

“I will tell you what is of value. My integrity. My self-respect. And my happiness. All of which you have battered down, leaving no walls in which to shelter a union.”

“I think your emotion and offended pride have caused you to exaggerate.”

“If anything, I am being remarkably civil, since at this moment my actual desire is for a vial of gaseous capsaicin.”

“How very improbable. Not to mention unladylike.”

“How fortunate that I have released you from our engagement, then.”

“I’m afraid you cannot. If you recollect, you are under your mother’s control until October. She and I have agreed on a wedding date, in fact. October fifteenth. The day before your birthday.”

“Agree on as many days as you like. You will have to find me first.”

With that, she snatched up her train and left him, her dancing slippers flying. Weaving through the crush, dodging around tables of food, she spotted Tigg next to the chamber gazing longingly at someone’s plate.

“Billy Bolt!” she whispered as she hurried past.

Without an instant’s hesitation, he fell in behind her. Andrew looked up from his conversation, mystified. “Claire? Tigg? Where are you going?”

But even for him, she did not stop. If she did, James would find some way to catch up, to stall her, and she would never escape. With the instincts of rabbits bounding over tussock and bramble for their bolt-hole, they headed not for the main doors, but back toward the open French doors the waiters had been using. Tigg lifted food from tables and plates as he went, stuffing them in his mouth as if he knew he would not get another opportunity.

The muted roar of conversation and the strains of the next waltz faded behind them as they gained the lawn. “What’s ’appened, Lady?” Tigg panted.

Ah, there it was. James’s coach stood ready, his coachman lounging in his seat with a glass of ale. “You there!” she called. “Lord James would like you to take me back to Hanover Square. We are to have drinks shortly with some of the Society men and their wives.”

“At once, milady.”

She had never stolen a coach before.

It was much easier than she thought.

Claire directed the coachman to leave her, not on the square where anyone could see, but in the mews behind the house. “I must make quick arrangements with Mrs. Morven,” she told him, and he did not question her. He merely handed her to the pavement, waited for Tigg to jump out, and rattled off down the street, heading back to the exhibition to collect his employer.

Mrs. Morven had heard the coach, and despite the late hour, met them in the kitchen, tugging her wrap closed at the waist. “Why, Lady Claire! I thought you were at the Crystal Palace with his lordship. Not that I’m not glad to see you, but what ...?”

James had stolen her reputation and her future from her. A thousand pounds would not be reparation enough. Nevertheless, there were still good uses for it.

“Mrs. Morven, I know that you are loyal to your employer, but I must beg your help.”

“Of course, dear. And as for loyalty, I wouldn’t worry your head about that. I was loyal to you and your lady mother for long years before this.”

Something in her expression made Claire pause. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that at least a woman could earn her keep in the Trevelyan household. His lordship has not given the staff their wages since I came to work for him.”

Claire stopped edging toward the stairs and gave the woman her full attention. “Why should he do that? He will have a mutiny on his hands.”

“He’s about to get one. He keeps telling us that once he closes this railroad deal, there will be ample money. Once he marries you, miss, we will have a new home at Wilton Crescent. Once the future arrives, in other words, everything will come up roses, but in the meantime, I’ve got to whip up fancy dinners out of nothing but brisket and potatoes and whatever I can scour at the end of a market day.”

Suddenly Claire realized why James had insisted on marrying her, when any other man would have abandoned her penniless family and dim prospects long ago. Ross Stephenson was a man susceptible to the lure of a title. He had married a widow to get an entree into society for his children. He had formed a relationship with James, who came of an ancient family, and with her, whose parents had moved in the best circles, so that he could move in those circles, too. The earnest money he had so eagerly laid down before the contracts were signed proved it.

“Lord James has no money, either,” she said, almost to herself. “He has been putting your wages into development of the chamber. If he doesn’t sign the deal with Ross Stephenson, he will be ruined.”

“I am afraid he is not the catch either of us imagined, miss.”

“No. That is why I have broken my engagement.”

“Have you, miss?” Mrs. Morven smiled. “I knew you had some sense, though your lady mother will disagree.”

“Sense perhaps, but very little time. Would you mind if I ran upstairs to his lordship’s study? Since we are no longer engaged, I cannot in good conscience wear these diamonds. I wish to return them to his desk, where they will be safe.”

“Of course, miss. Young man, would you like a glass of milk while you wait?”

She devoutly hoped that James did not have a safe in his study. Perhaps in the bonhomie of having drinks with Stephenson, he would have put the money somewhere as a temporary measure until he got home. It was the work of a moment to rifle through his desk and find a cigar box, and sure enough, there were ten hundred-pound notes in it.

She had no intention of stealing his money for herself. But Andrew would lose everything once James’s perfidy was discovered, as it surely would be now that he had misplaced his fiancee. She fetched a mailing tube and found a piece of the baronial crested stationery.

A—

For you.

J.

Hopefully Andrew would not realize the nearly illegible scrawl was not that of his partner until it was too late. She rolled nine of the bank notes into the tube, inserted the note, and the hydraulic system sucked it away into the night.

Then she unclasped the diamond necklace and laid it in the cigar box, replacing it exactly where she’d found it and erasing all signs of her presence.

Mrs. Morven nearly fainted when Claire presented her with the hundred-pound note. “You should divide this among the staff. Mrs. Morven, I am going away for several weeks. Thank you for everything you have done for me. I consider you a true friend.”

With a quick hug and a kiss on that lady’s hair, Claire hitched up her train once more, called to Tigg at the kitchen table, and the two of them vanished into the night.

*

TO: PEONY CHURCHILL, C/O CANADIAN PACIFIC HOTEL, EDMONTON

FROM: CLAIRE TREVELYAN, LONDON

AM COMING TO JOIN YOU STOP TAKING PACKET TO PARIS THEN PERSEPHONE STOP EXPECT ME SECOND WEEK SEPTEMBER STOP JILTED JAMES STOP NEED HUG END

*

When Claire returned from the telegraph office, she was so focused on her list of items to be accomplished that it took her a moment to realize there was a gorgeous Bentley steam landau parked overlooking the river in the spot usually reserved for hers. She brought the Henley to a stop and initiated its cooling sequence, her hands moving automatically.

Who on earth ...?

The watchman on the river platform had her answer. “We gots company, Lady,” he called down. “A lord and ladyship—Willie’s mum and dad.”

“The Dunsmuirs are here?” she exclaimed in amazement. “How on earth did they find us?”

This was catastrophic. She had counted on being invisible for the few days it would take her to wind up her affairs and board the
Princess Louise
for Paris. Of course she could have flown in
Persephone
from Southampton, but an initial gambit to throw James off her trail should he make inquiries was worth the day or two delay to her real journey.

She had not informed the children yet.

And was not looking forward to having to do so.

The watchman laughed. “Willie, o’ course, Lady. ’E knows ’is way home as well as any of us.”

Of course. Relief swept through her. She would just have to swear Lord and Lady Dunsmuir to secrecy on the subject, that was all.

She found the couple in the garden, watching Willie’s delight in seeing the chickens again. “Hello, Lady Claire.” Lord Dunsmuir shook hands, but Lady Dunsmuir clasped her in a hug that told Claire she was gaining her strength back in leaps and bounds now that she had her beloved son home again. “We’ve just been admiring your walking coop,” his lordship went on. “Miss Lizzie says that Doctor Rosemary Craig assisted them in its construction. Most singular.”