Moonlight & Mechanicals (5 page)

“I can’t imagine how impossible it must have been for a young girl, all alone in the worst part of London.” Frankly he was amazed she’d survived as all—doubly so that she hadn’t ended up as an unwilling prostitute. Even as a little girl, she’d have been beautiful.

“Well, we did quite nicely picking pockets—you know that, though I shouldn’t say it out loud to an inspector. But if Mrs. Miller hadn’t traded me a room in the attic for building her things, and Tom one for cleaning up her shop and running errands, I don’t know what we would have done.” She said it simply, as a fact, with no trace of melodrama or self-pity. Liam respected that. They both knew that most girls in her shoes would have ended up making a living on their backs.

“I see why she’s so important to you,” he said. “As I said, I’ll do all I can to help her, if only to find a body, if it comes to that. You have my word.”

“Thank you. The poor of London need someone to stand for them. Mrs. Miller does well enough, but so many others can’t afford food or air masks or filters for their rooms, if they’re lucky enough to have one. The farms close to the city are gone, so there’s not enough food, but the wealthy still gorge themselves. People are starving and choking to death in the streets of London and yet those blithering idiots at the Royal Society can’t see past their own noses. Worse, those who do see, simply don’t care that their conveniences are killing off the same people who work to support their grandiose standard of living.” She leaned her head back against the leather squabs of the coach and sighed. “I’m sorry for the tirade, Liam. I tend to get fed up with the hypocrisy of so-called ‘good’ society.”

“As well you should.” He gazed out the window at blackened buildings and scrub weeds where there used to be grass. “Why do you think I choose to work at Scotland Yard, much to the horror of my ‘noble’ sire?” He snorted at the word
noble.
“That they have a son, even the younger one, who deigns to work for a living, gives my stepmother the vapors. I’ve no more use for society than you do. I only mingle in it because my superiors ask me to. Having an ‘honorable’ on the roster gives the Yard access to information that we wouldn’t have otherwise. So I hide my disgust and go to parties, dance and waste time on occasion. I’m no social lion. I’m a bloody Trojan horse.”

“Quite a pair, aren’t we?” She gave a soft chuckle that lit a flame, low in his gut. “To mix in yet another animal metaphor, we’re both fish out of water. Perhaps we should join forces.” For just a moment, her eyes reflected a hint of something ageless—and very feminine.

Liam forced himself to remember she was the daughter of a friend. “Not the same species of fish, I’m afraid. You’re a lady now, like it or not, and to be anything else would be a rejection of all Merrick and Caroline have done for you. I know you too well to think you’d consider that for a moment.”

“Don’t be silly. Mum and Papa are my family now, as much as Nell or Tom, or even my natural parents. We’re an odd lot, it’s true, but I love them as dearly as if they’d raised me from the cradle. I’d never do anything to hurt them.”

“And you want some of that life for yourself, if only you’d admit it. I’ve seen you with your little brother and sisters. You want a man of your own and a family, as long as it’s a man who allows you to be yourself.”

“Perhaps—some day, anyway. Does that really make us different species?” She licked her lips, an utterly unconscious move he was sure, but it made him catch his breath.

“It does.” He managed to keep his voice steady and firm. “Marriage isn’t in the cards for me, now or ever. With your parents, both sets, it seems, you’ve seen the good of it. My youth was spent among only the bad. My parents despised one another. Alpha male werewolves do not make good husbands, and I wouldn’t inflict that on any woman. My mother was a werewolf herself, and she couldn’t cope with it. Furthermore, wolf cubs couldn’t be raised in the city, and here is where I need to be—where I can make a difference for the good. So my destiny is to be an old, crusty bachelor, bringing sweets and telling tall tales to your grandchildren some day.”

Her smile flitted sadly across her slim, sharp-featured face. “I’m sorry for you, Liam. It’s a waste, you know. Some woman would have been very lucky to have you.”

He nodded in acknowledgement of the compliment, and silence filled the coach for an awkward moment. Then he blurted, “You could do a lot worse than Connor MacKay. He knows your background and thinks the world of you anyway.”

“Connor’s a good man,” she agreed. “But he deserves someone who can love him with all her heart. I’m afraid I think of him more as another brother than as a suitor.”

“Perhaps you should give him the chance to change your mind.” Saying it made Liam’s chest ache. It was the right thing to do, though. Wink deserved to be happy and MacKay would take care of her in grand style. Furthermore, he’d never try to keep her from her beloved machines as so many other men would. Most importantly, he’d never lose his temper and lift a hand to her or their children.

She patted George on the head. The metal beast had waited in the carriage while she’d been in Scotland Yard, but now sat attentively at their feet, keeping one glass eye on Liam. Another sad smile flitted across her face. “Perhaps I should.”

Chapter Three

When one was troubled, Wink reflected, there was nothing like a good coze with your sister to help sort things out. That evening she sat curled up in a rose-patterned armchair in Eleanor Jenkins Hadrian’s pink-and-gilt bedroom while Nell sat cross-legged on the bed and brushed out her straight, silky black hair. Her big dark eyes, solemn and wise, gleamed in the gaslight.

They talked about Mrs. Miller and Liam’s investigation, and the previous night’s ball. Wink bit her lip. Keeping secrets from Nell made her feel like a rat. “Connor wants to take me riding in the park tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong with that? You love riding.” Nell set down the brush and rested her hands on her lap, her white muslin nightgown tucked around her knees. Her smile was as calm and soothing as always.

Sometimes Wink envied Nell her inner peace. “I do love riding, but I don’t love Connor. Not like that, anyway.” It all came pouring out then: his proposal, Wink promising to give him a week to change her mind, and her reluctance to hurt him by either refusing or accepting. “Even Liam told me I should marry Connor. Everyone seems to think so—except me.”

“Oh, darling, you know better than that. I’d never urge you to marry anyone you didn’t love with your whole heart. Neither would Papa or Mum. Or Aunt Dorothy, for that matter.”

Wink smiled. Since Dorothy Hadrian, still a handsome woman in her fifties, had been in love with Miss Margaret Julian since they were both schoolgirls, she had more experience than most in avoiding a marriage that wouldn’t have suited. “I know. I didn’t mean the family—though Tom will be firmly in Connor’s corner of course.”

“Of course he will, but not if it doesn’t make you happy. Connor is Tom’s friend from school and university, another Knight, almost the same age. But you’re his sister. It’s how you feel that counts. You can’t marry just to please your brother.”

“I know that too.” Wink twisted her long ginger braid of hair in her fingers. “But what if I never do get an offer from a man I feel passionate about? Would it be better to marry one I love, even if it’s not the kind of love I might have hoped for? I don’t want to live with Mum and Papa for the rest of my life.” Yes, her family was wealthy enough to support any number of maiden aunts, but that wasn’t the life she wanted for herself. She wanted to experience passion, have a home of her own. She was a young, healthy woman, after all.

“You mean Liam.” Nell scooted over to wrap her arm around Wink’s waist and lay her head on Wink’s shoulder. “You’ve loved him since you were fifteen. Is there no hope, then? He’s always looked at you in such a fierce, proprietary way. For years I’ve assumed he was merely waiting for you to grow up.”

“I’d hoped so.” Wink’s voice broke. “When I turned eighteen, I waited for him to speak, then again when I turned twenty-one and every year since. The fact that he never married gave me hope, but I was wrong. He told me today that he never plans to marry. Alpha werewolves, according to him, make horrible husbands, and since he never wants to leave the city to raise children, he’s chosen to be a confirmed bachelor.”

“I’m sorry, ducks.” Nell was silent for a long time, just holding Wink and sharing her sadness. “Perhaps, then, you do
need to at least consider the possibility that there’s another love for you out there. Connor is a dear man. Maybe you should give him a chance. Give him a fair trial without comparing him to Liam at every turn.”

Wink chuckled. “He
is
dear. Do you know what he sent me this morning?”

“Roses? He sent me a nosegay of yellow ones.” Nell backed away so they could see each other’s faces. “No, wait—orchids since they’re more dashing, like you.”

Wink shook her head. “No. That’s just what I’d have expected, but he managed to surprise me. He sent me Lord Babbage’s newest book on refinements to his analytical engines, complete with plans for making the modifications. It’s so new that it isn’t even in the stores yet. I’ve been waiting months for a copy, and yet somehow, he managed to get one before it was released. It’s even signed by Lord Babbage himself.” Wink had met the man who’d changed the world with his computing machines, a time or two in society, but she didn’t know him nearly well enough to get an advance copy of his book. She wondered how Connor had managed it.

“That sounds like the perfect gift,” Nell agreed. “Not so expensive it’s an insult, but something special, that shows he knows and appreciates you for who you are.”

“Perfect.” Wink sighed. “I wonder what happened to change his tone? Before it’s always been the usual—flowers and candy. Even when he proposed last night, all he could talk about was my beauty, grace and so on. Bother. Why can’t men see more in a woman than a pretty face?”

“You’d rather be plain?” Humor tinged Nell’s tone. “I don’t believe you. You’re an unusual beauty, with your red hair, true, but you know you like turning a man’s eye just as much as the next girl.”

“The next girl being you, oh exotic one?” This was old, familiar bickering, as comfortable as Wink’s favorite coveralls. “How many budding musicians send you flowers on a daily basis, praising your so-called other-worldly charms? You’d think they could at least read a map and know India is part of the same planet, but that’s musicians for you. You’ve the only brain amongst them as far as I can tell.”

“I get flowers on occasion, yes. I even have one or two young men I step out with now and then—always with Aunt Dorothy or other students, of course. And I do like flirting, and being thought lovely, if only to spit in the eye of the old harpies who call me foreign and other, less complimentary words.”

Wink leaned her chin on her hands. “In some ways, life was so much simpler back in Wapping. At least then we knew what to expect, and who the enemies were.”

“Ah, but then we wouldn’t have Papa, or Mum, or the little ones.” Nell’s eyes misted as she spoke of their young siblings. She’d always been the most maternal, mothering Piers and Jamie back in Wapping, and even her dolls when they first moved to Mayfair. “I know what you mean, though. Since this is my last term, I have no idea what to do next.”

“You’re considering not pursuing music as a profession, aren’t you?” Even more so than a lady engineer, the life of a professional singer was looked down upon by society. Nell loved singing—her gift bordered on the supernatural—but Wink wasn’t surprised to find her sister didn’t want to make the waves required to take to the stage.

Nell shook her head. “We’re not all as bold as you, ducks. Your work means so much to you, but I’ve no yearning for a profession. I’d be thrilled if someone asked me to marry him. A family of my own is really all I’ve ever wanted. Singing is my joy, and the chance to study it was a gift beyond my wildest dreams, but I don’t need an audience to be happy. I’ve only finished these last two years at the academy to please Papa and Mum.”

“And yet there’s no one?” Wink found it hard to believe that Nell had no likely suitors. Even given her exotic origins, she was lovely, kind and had a healthy dowry.

“No.” Nell cast Wink a wistful smile and shook her head. “Now, no more glumness. I’ll be fine. Besides, we’re not talking about me—we’re discussing your romantic prospects, which are far more interesting.”

“You truly think I should go riding with Connor tomorrow?” Her work with the Order was flexible—she didn’t need to be in the office at any specific hour, so long as she finished the project in a timely fashion.

“It’s just a ride. You’re not accepting his proposal. Just—think about it. Would you be happy, married to Connor? A strong man, a warrior, who adores you? Who wouldn’t mind you working with the Order? Whose family is close friends with ours? He does have a lot to recommend him.”

“He does. He’s a paragon on almost every count and his only flaw is that he isn’t Liam.” Forced to look inside herself, Wink wasn’t sure she liked what she saw. Had she grown so vain that she thought herself above such a man? She, who’d slept in the streets and picked pockets to buy food? Or was it time for her to give up her schoolgirl fantasy of Liam and look for someone who wanted her in his life? The idea of a grand passion sounded wonderful, but it didn’t always work out properly in the real world. Wink thought about her childhood and frowned. “You know, now that we’re talking about it, maybe you’re right. My parents—my natural parents—they sacrificed everything for passion and look how that ended. It’s possible I’ve been looking at this the wrong way. Maybe affection and friendship are a better foundation for marriage.”

Nell hugged her again. “Only you can make that decision, darling. But there are so many different kinds of love. Make sure you choose the one that’s right for you.”

“Thank you.” Wink squeezed her sister’s shoulders. “All right. Riding it is.”

“Good.” Nell beamed. “Wear your bronze habit with my new black riding bonnet—it has a filter concealed so carefully you’d never know it wasn’t just a veil.”

“I know. I designed that filter, remember?”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t know a fashionable hat if one bit you on the bum.” With that, they giggled like little girls and the serious discussion was over.

* * *

By the time Connor arrived the next morning, Wink had schooled herself to greet him with enthusiasm. He was a handsome man just a year her senior, he adored her and he was
fun.
Furthermore, she loved to ride. While they waited in the foyer for a groom to bring her horse around to the front of the house, she even allowed Connor a friendly kiss on the cheek.

“I’m afraid my gift today is only chocolates,” he said with a twinkle in his blue eyes. “But the box is a little something I thought you’d enjoy.” He handed over the ribbon-wrapped trinket with a flourish.

Wink unwrapped the package and laughed at the wind-up monkey that dispensed chocolates at the press of a button. She popped one treat into her mouth and handed another to Connor, who shared her sweet tooth. “It’s adorable. Thank you.” Setting the gift on the hall table, she waved good-bye to Dorothy who’d come downstairs to see them off. Once outside, she allowed Connor to help her mount.

“You look lovely, by the way. That’s a clever mask. Your own design?” After setting Wink on her mare’s back, Connor mounted a large roan gelding and donned his own mask—a sturdier leather model that covered his nose completely, but only had a thin film of gauze over the mouth to allow for speech.

“The hat is Nell’s, but thank you, I did make the miniaturized filter.” The actual filter was in the crown of the hat, while soft rubber plugs—changed and cleaned of course with each wearing—attached to thin tubes went directly into her nose. The discreet design allowed the veiling of the bonnet to almost completely hide the necessary device.

“Melody will be envious. She’s working on dirigible engines up in Edinburgh, but sends her love. I telephoned her last night.” Connor’s sister had gone through Lovelace College alongside Wink, part of the first class of female students in Oxford’s prestigious halls.

“I agree about telephones being a great improvement over teletext—at least for those who can afford them. In fact, I spoke to Melody just last week,” Wink said. “And I’ve already put a mask like this together for her—with Nell’s help on the hat. We’re sending it up for her birthday next month.”

“I should have guessed you’d be one step ahead of me.” They rode at a steady walk toward Hyde Park, not too far from Hadrian House, which was just off St. James’s Square.

A short ride later, they turned into the park and Wink looked sadly at the black scrubby grass, the stunted trees and scraggly shrubs where once there had been so much green.

“What’s bothering you, Wink? Something more than which wires to use on the inter-office network. You don’t look like you slept, and you’re chewing a hole in your lower lip.”

“Doesn’t it depress you? Look around. Where are the flowers that were here just six or seven years ago?” In the short time she’d lived here, London had gotten so much worse, and nowhere was that more evident than here, the once-famous Rotten Row. “Five years ago we’d have passed dozens of other riders. Even two years ago we’d have passed ten or twelve. Now there are maybe five others in the entire park. The plants are dead or dying and the Serpentine is little more than a mucky drainage ditch.”

Connor nodded. “It
is
dreadful. And I know you’ll find a way to solve it—if not with electricity, then some other way. Now, come on, tell me what’s really wrong. Something more personal than London’s soot problem.”

“You know me too well.” But was that a bad thing? Really? She’d promised to give him a chance, and perhaps he could help. “All right. Did Tom ever tell you about Mrs. Miller? The lady who runs a tea shop in Wapping?”

“The one you lived above? Of course. Is she ill?” Connor’s genuine concern wrapped around Wink like a hug. Yes, there were worse things than to spend time with a man who knew all your secrets and liked you anyway. As they rode, she told him the whole story of the missing Eamon Miller, ending with, “Liam telephoned this morning. There are no unknown men in any of the hospitals, morgues or prisons who match Eamon’s photograph. So he’s likely been press-ganged or is at the bottom of the Thames.”

“That’s awful. I imagine Tom is already hard at work?” Connor sent her a kind smile that twitched the corners of his mask. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“Tom left this morning for Plymouth,” Wink said. “A new assignment. He’s excited to finally be given his own, without a more experienced Knight to mind him.”

Connor nodded. “I feel the same. It’s such a relief not to have someone frowning at you all the time.”

“So what about you? Off anywhere exciting soon?” She always worried when they were gone, but she also envied them the freedom and the chance to make a difference in the world.

“I’m on vampyre detail here in London, which means there’s no reason I can’t help you search by day.” He paused. “I’m not on duty until after midnight tonight, however, and I managed to borrow a friend’s box at the opera. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to come?”

He sounded so hopeful that Wink bit off her automatic refusal. She’d promised Nell. “You know I don’t much care for opera.”