Authors: Juliana Gray
Now she had nothing, or nearly nothing. No more salons, no more elegant house in town, no endless stream of friends who worshipped her every word. She had her title and her twenty-odd thousand useless Manchester Machine Works shares; she had a sister entirely dependent on her, for upkeep and for dowry; she had debts and shame and perhaps fifty more years of life ahead of her, with no idea how to live them.
She had to get her old life back. Because if she wasn’t Lady Morley, leader of London society, then who the devil was she?
And who would give Abigail the future she deserved?
Alexandra turned her head toward the window, to the bright patch of sky hanging above the valley and the lake in the trees below the terraced vineyard. She reached down for the envelopes on the table and sorted through them until her blurred and stinging eyes identified the name of Mr. Phineas Fitzwilliam Burke, R.S.
Horseless carriages. What did she know about damned horseless carriages?
Evidently, she would have to learn.
Taking up the letter in her hand, with the newspaper tucked beneath her arm, she slipped through the gap in the wall and headed down the hillside.
SIX
F
inn couldn’t make out the precise nature of Giacomo’s complaints, what with his own head stuck beneath the automobile’s rear axle, but he gathered it had something to do with the women. With Giacomo, it always did.
Cheese . . .
something something
. . . smell . . .
something
. . . stables . . .
something something
. . . devil-woman . . .
“I say, there,” Finn called out, “could you perhaps tilt the lamp in this direction? I’d be much obliged.”
A pause. “
Che cosa?
”
“Never mind,” sighed Finn. “Carry on.” He struggled out from beneath the machine and reached for the kerosene lamp on a nearby table. Hardly what he was used to, of course—his workshop in England was equipped with electricity and hot running water and central heat and a telephone—but he’d adjusted quickly. The Castel sant’Agata’s distressing lack of modern conveniences was the least of his misery.
Giacomo’s constant interruptions, for example, ranked considerably higher.
“Is impossible!” The man threw his hands in the air and looked heavenward, though his view to the Almighty was presently obstructed by a series of cobwebs and roof beams, and quite possibly a barn owl, though as the creature kept nocturnal habits Finn couldn’t quite be sure. He’d meant to take a sample of the droppings back to the castle with him and consult an ornithological book in the library, but it kept slipping his mind.
For some damned reason.
“
What
is impossible?” Finn inquired, because it seemed the polite thing to do.
“The cheeses! In the stables!”
“What cheeses?”
“You no listening! Not a word!
Nome di Dio!
” Aloft went the arms again, and the imploring gaze followed them upward to the deity in question. “I begin again.”
Finn gave the lampshade a last adjustment, frowned at it critically, and then set the device on the floor. “I’d rather you didn’t, frankly.”
“Is the women. All the day, they make the cheese, the
pecorino
, in the . . . what is the word?”
“The kitchen?” Finn hazarded.
“Yes! The kitchen! And in all the great big castle, they say they find no room, no room for the cheese to . . . what is the word? To put the cheese to become old.”
“Ripen, I believe.” Finn settled himself back on the floor and began to wriggle gratefully out of range.
“Wait, signore! You must listen! The duke, he does not care, and his brother . . .” Giacomo rolled his eyes and circled his finger about his ear.
“Mad as a hatter, at the moment. I quite agree. But you see, my good man . . .”
“Is that
woman
!” Giacomo spat earnestly. “The devil-woman, who keeps the house . . .”
“I haven’t the least idea who you mean. The housekeeper? I can’t tell them apart.” Finn tried to shrug from his position on the floor, half submerged beneath the axle.
“Tell the ladies, the English! Tell them about the cheese! She will stop, if the English say to her, stop!”
“Look here, old chap. You really must endeavor to make yourself clearer.”
“
Che cosa?
”
“I don’t understand you. See?
No comprendo.
”
Giacomo’s body slumped into a sigh. “The
cheeses
, signore. The so-great wheels of the cheese, the
pecorino
.” His hands shaped the air before him into a circle of impressive dimensions. “They put them—to ripe—in the
stables
!” He drew a large breath and hissed out the word again. “The
stables
, signore!”
Finn gave his lower lip a thoughtful chew. “And the horses object?”
“Not the
horses
, signore!
I
object! I, Giacomo!” Giacomo beat his chest with a gnarled rebellious fist against the tyranny of cheese-wielding housekeepers. “La Morini, she has all the attics of the
castel
for her
pecorino
, and she sends the cheeses to the stables! Is an insult! To me!”
“And the smell, of course,” Finn said, not without sympathy.
“And the smell!
Si!
You see, you understand!” Giacomo’s mouth bent out a smile. “Is good. You speak to the ladies. I am happy. I say to you, good day and good luck.” He turned to go.
“Now look here! I
can’t
speak to the women!”
Giacomo looked back over his shoulder. “What is this?”
“Can’t speak to them.” Finn picked up his discarded wrench and pointed it at the man’s chest for emphasis. “It’s an oath.”
Giacomo’s eyes rounded in respect. “An oath! Signore! An oath . . . against the ladies?”
“Of a sort.” Finn cleared his throat. “Well, not precisely. But we’ve sworn to have nothing to do with them, a brother-to-brother sort of understanding, if you will. Except at meals, which necessitate . . . a sort of what the French call
détente . . .”
He swallowed. “Well, it’s bloody awkward, that’s all.”
Giacomo’s hands swept upward before him, palms out. “Is understand. Is understand perfectly. The ladies, no speak. Wise, very wise, signore. Is only trouble, you speak to the ladies.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Finn said, smiling with relief. “So you see, it’s quite impossible . . .”
“A note,” interrupted Giacomo, “a note, she is enough.” He ducked his head in a little bow. “I go now.”
“Look here!” protested Finn, but Giacomo had already crossed the floor with miraculous speed, had flung open the door and disappeared into the explosion of sunlight.
Finn blinked after him. “Bloody hell,” he said aloud, fingering the cool metal of his wrench. Light now tumbled through the doorway, the full throb of the midmorning sun, shining directly on the rear half of his machine. He set down the wrench and reached out one long hand to the now-redundant lamp and put it out.
What on earth was wrong with these people? Couldn’t Giacomo simply talk to the damned housekeeper himself? Finn picked up his wrench again and swung himself under the axle. Protocol, probably. Or separation of the sexes, or some other obscure custom, hardly to be unexpected among a people living in the same remote mountainous valley as their great-grandfathers before them. He’d traveled extensively. He knew what sort of taboos might grow up around isolated communities. He knew how necessary and how indestructible they could be.
Which left Finn the task of informing the ladies of the Great Cheese Insurrection.
He didn’t have to speak to Lady Morley, he reminded himself. A word in the ear of Lady Somerton would do just as well, or else the sister, what the devil was her name, nice enough girl. He hadn’t addressed a word to Lady Morley since that first evening—an impressive feat, considering they’d sat down to dinner opposite each other every night for the past three weeks—because every time the most perfunctory of mealtime greetings began to form in his brain, the image of Lady Morley’s right breast appeared next to it, large and round and succulent, nearly bursting from its corsetry like an overripe fig might burst from . . .
He was doing it again.
Focus. Focus on the task at hand. He needed his wits just now, clear and sharp and undistorted by lust. He had forsworn the company of women for that very reason. He was already behind in his rigorous schedule, with several unforeseen problems in the development of his electric engine and that damned nuisance Delmonico down in Rome announcing success after success, rot him. Lady Morley’s breasts, however enticing, had nothing to do with engines. Except, perhaps, in a metaphorical sense, which . . .
Focus.
He slid with resolution back underneath the gleaming metal of his prototype and concentrated his thought on the axle before his eyes. The crankshaft still hadn’t been connected properly, and there was no point returning to the engine until . . .
“Mr. Burke? Is that you?”
Ignore it. Focus.
The voice broke in again, so very much like Lady Morley’s it seemed almost as though it were real, rather than a hallucination: “Mr. Burke? Am I intruding?”
It’s all in your head, Burke old man. Axle rods. Crankshaft.
Something touched his hair. “Mr. Burke? Are you quite all right?”
Bloody hell.
Finn jerked in shock, slamming his forehead against the axle with a metallic clang. “Damn it all!” he groaned.
“Mr. Burke! Are you hurt?”
Finn placed one hand on his brow and rubbed ferociously. “Not at all, Lady Morley. Not at all.” He paused a moment, collecting his wits, and then edged out from beneath his machine, inch by resigned inch.
There she stood, framed by the sun, her features shadowed and the light casting an electric glow about the outline of her hair and the hourglass curve of her waist. “I’m so terribly sorry,” she said. “That was a dreadful clang. Was it your head?”
He sat up. The downward flow of blood made his brow throb with a distinct and excruciating pain. “No. That was the axle. My head rather absorbed the sound, I believe, than originated it.”
Her mouth, what he could see of it, made a little round O. “I’m so terribly sorry.”
“A trifle, Lady Morley. Think nothing of it.” Finn rose to his feet and brushed at his trousers. “I presume Giacomo sent you to me?”
She shook her head. “No, no. I . . . I came on my own initiative. I hope”—she offered a smile—“I hope it doesn’t violate any oaths and wagers and so on. It’s a purely businesslike errand.”
Finn felt a twinge of something like disappointment. “Of course. May I . . .” He cleared his throat. “May I offer you a seat?”
“Oh, that’s not necessary.” She seemed to lose herself for an instant or two, staring curiously at his face, her fingers clutching at a small rectangular bundle she held next to her abdomen. She’d moved slightly, tilted her head, so that the sunlight struck her face at an angle, curving around the line of her cheekbone and illuminating her brown eyes into gold.
Finn crossed his arms. “Lady Morley, I should hate to be impolite, but I’m rather engaged at the moment. If you’ll come to the point?”
“I beg your pardon. I’ve not the slightest wish of intruding on your work. I only wished to deliver your post.” She thrust the bundle forward.
“My post?” he repeated, staring at her hands.
“Your post. A letter and the
Times
. Which properly belongs to Wallingford, I believe, but I thought I’d bring it along and let you have the first go.” She paused and smiled. “Aren’t you going to take it?”
“Yes, of course.” He took the papers from her, with care to avoid the brush of her fingers, and scanned them mechanically.
“There’s an item on the front page that might interest you,” she offered, after a second or two. “About a public automobile trial in Paris.”
He looked back at her, feeling rather stupid. “Really? I shall have to take a look. Thank you.”
She nodded at the paper. “A chap named De Dion. Have you heard of him?”
“Yes, yes. I daresay he’ll be in Rome in July, with the others.”
“His ideas seem most revolutionary. What do you think of them?”
He blinked in astonishment. “I beg your pardon?”
“With the boiler mounted on the front. I believe he was clocked at nearly sixty kilometers an hour. Does your vehicle have a steam engine?”
Finn felt his mouth drop open.
“I think steam power holds a great deal of promise, don’t you? Though I should think it more useful for speed trials than for general use. So unreliable, and the danger of explosion, of course.” Her voice went on, perfectly smooth and melodious, as if they were discussing the weather instead of the vanguard of automotive progress. She raised her hand to dismiss the danger of catastrophic boiler explosion with an elegant flick of her fingers.
“Yes, of course,” Finn found himself mumbling. “I prefer an electric motor, myself.”
“An electric motor!” A bright glow came to life in her eyes, which looked past him to rest longingly, almost lovingly, on his automobile. “How perfectly clever of you! I’m an advocate of electric engines, myself. Such a great deal cleaner and more quiet. The trouble’s the power, of course. How fast is yours able to manage?”
“I haven’t . . . quite . . . that is . . .” Finn took in a long steadying breath. “Lady Morley, this is all rather unexpected. I’d no idea you were a student of automotive engines.”
“I suppose you think women incapable of mechanical inclination?”
“No,” he said, having enough wits about him to know the proper answer to that question. “Not incapable at all. Only perhaps . . .”
“Perhaps?”
“Perhaps . . . less inclined to make a study of it.”
She smiled widely. “Oh, I’m fascinated by motor-cars. The wave of the future, I’m sure.” She took a bold step toward the machine and placed her hand upon the smooth metal of the carriage frame. “Tell me about yours.”
“Lady Morley, I really haven’t the time. I’m working on something rather particular, at the moment . . .”
She looked up, with a glance Finn might have called flirtatious. “Oh, be as brief as you like. As I said, I’m fascinated. Every little tidbit is of interest to me.” Her body, supple and feminine, leaned toward the machine. She was wearing a simple pale blue frock, the sort of thing a lady might put on for a summer picnic, fitted tightly at the bodice only to fall in luxurious swags about the ripe curve of her hip. Finn closed his eyes, allowing himself to imagine for just an instant that his hand rested upon that hip, the warm flesh beneath those layers of clothing fitting his palm exactly.
“An electric motor,” he said hoarsely, opening his eyes, “has a great many advantages over steam and internal combustion. I’m convinced I can overcome the problems of speed and reliability. I’ve rather a new take on the matter of the battery . . .”
“Really?” she pressed, when his voice trailed off. “What sort of take?”
“Look, I haven’t the time to explain at the moment. Perhaps we can discuss it at dinner.”
“Ah. But you never discuss anything at dinner, Mr. Burke. Your mouth remains resolutely closed.” She rested her eyes on the mouth in question.
“I’ve a great deal on my mind at dinner.” He made a concerted effort not to rest his eyes on the great deal in question; namely, Lady Morley’s right breast, which was presently and disappointingly clothed with a respectable abundance of blue linen.