Legacy of the Clockwork Key (18 page)

It was so much better than a bath.

A pounding knock sounded at the door. “Meg, are you harmed?” Will shouted.

I jumped again, trying to cover myself with my hands, but it did no good.
Please don’t break down the door.

“I’m fine!” I shrieked, worried all over again that my utter panic at the thought of having him walk in on me might actually cause him to walk in on me. “I was just startled by something,” I called, trying for a calm I didn’t feel. I understood he wished to protect me, but this was beyond the pale.

I rushed through my rain bath, washing the worst of the mud down the drain as quickly as possible.

“Is it a rat?” Will called.

“No!”

Good enough. If I wasn’t clean, I’d have to make do. If he came through that door, I’d die on the spot. I pushed the pump handle until the water stopped, then leapt out of the tub and wrapped myself in the dressing gown. In my haste I accidentally kicked over a tin pail filled with little clamps. My damp hair soaked into the fabric on my back as I tried to right them.

“I heard something clatter.” The handle on the door rattled as Will tested it from the other side. I curled my toes.

“Just go away,” I demanded.

“Fine.” I heard him stomp down the hall, and I hung my head. Why did everything turn into such an embarrassing disaster whenever I was around him? I couldn’t help but think he was only doing all of this because I was so hopeless, he felt himself obligated to help.

I wanted to believe he cared for me.

But such thoughts were foolish. I wasn’t a great beauty like Lucinda. I wasn’t a girl a man would ever pine for. All I ever managed to do was end up in a state of disarray in front of an irritable tinker.

After properly donning the nightshirt, I wrapped the robe around me before combing out my hair and weaving it in my usual two braids. My exhaustion had caught up with me and all I wanted to do was sleep.

I found Lucinda staring into the small mirror on the washstand, absently rubbing her bottom lip with the tip of her finger. She looked flushed.

“Lucinda, is everything well?” I eased into the room and closed the door softly. She straightened as if startled then shook her head.

“Yes, yes I’m fine,” she said.

“Beware of the contraption in there,” I warned as she gathered her things for her bath. “The water rains on your head.”

She chuckled and smiled at me. “I’ll take great care then. Sleep well, Meg.”

Try as I might, I couldn’t settle to sleep. Even under the stairs, this house was clean and bright in a way Rathford’s had never been. The odd chugging coming from the laundry soothed me. I was warm, dry, comfortable, yet I couldn’t stop my mind. Lucinda returned and lay on her bed, and I felt as though we both lingered awake in the dark for what seemed like hours. Eventually she gave in to her fatigue. She even snored like a lady.

I couldn’t find peace. I thought about my parents, and the secrets they’d kept from me. I thought about Lucinda and her reluctance to be near Oliver.

Mostly I thought about Will. How could I manage to bridge this gap between us? Could I? I didn’t know how to give him whatever he wanted of me. I didn’t even know what he wanted,
if
he wanted, or if perhaps this all was his own quest to find some sort of purpose beyond cleaning stables.

If only the Amusementists could invent a crystal ball to show the hearts of men.

Sleep must have claimed me at some point during the night, but I wasn’t aware of it. I only knew when I woke it was early morning and I couldn’t remain in bed any longer.
Six months of waking before the sun had worked its way into my bones. Figuring I could make myself useful, I headed to the kitchen to light the fires. I found my clothes neatly folded just outside our door. This was an amazing place, where a duke would see to the comfort of a maid.

Slipping them on, I was relieved that they were free of mud, but still troubled by my shortened skirt. At least it wouldn’t be a hindrance as I tried to find the pieces to the lock.

I buttoned my boots quickly and kept a hand to the wall as a guide in the dark until I found the kitchens. There was a glow at the end of the hall, and voices.

“I don’t know. Look at Lucinda.” It was Oliver.

What about Lucinda? I paused and pressed closer to the wall.

“There’s no accounting for the fickle nature of women.”

I knew it was Lucinda’s business, not mine, but I couldn’t help myself. I peered around the corner and saw Oliver reclined precariously in a chair near the long table by the hearth. He wore fine shirtsleeves and a trim copper waistcoat with his collar loose. Wire spectacles perched on his nose as he kicked his boots up on the bench tucked under the table, while he balanced on the back two legs of his chair. “Heaven have mercy. Believe me when I say there’s no rhyme nor reason to it.”

“That still doesn’t help me.” Will stood across from him, also in his sleeves and unbuttoned waistcoat. His voice held an edge I hadn’t heard before. His clothing looked tattered next to Oliver’s, poor, but dashing nonetheless. He had his hair slicked back as if he, too, had had a go at the rain machine. I liked it that way.

I shouldn’t have even acknowledged such thoughts. My parents would have been livid if they ever knew I thought such things about a stable boy. They had raised me for better.

“What are you going to do?” Oliver asked.

“I don’t know. That’s the bloody problem!” Will nearly shouted. I recoiled, shocked at his outburst. He ran his hands through his hair and winced. “I’m an orphaned tinker with nothing.” He yanked at his cuff and the motion knocked a tin cup off the table.

He kicked it and continued. “No matter what I do, I’ve never been given my due. I’ve only ever been given obligations.” The cup rolled under a stool. He took a deep breath. “It’s fine to say position doesn’t matter if your position is the highest. You can choose to give up your title if you wish, but I can’t do the opposite.”

He sighed and picked up the cup. “I’ll never escape my circumstances. It’s too late to be apprenticed. All I know is
horses. I’m doomed to the stables until I die. What sort of life is that?”

Oliver placed his boots on the ground and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Listen to me. The time is coming when only a man’s wit, determination, and perseverance will matter. Mark my words. We shall no longer have barons of birth, but barons of industry. And wealth will come not from what a man can receive, but what he can achieve. There are places where a man can be free of his name. Stop thinking of yourself as a victim of your circumstance. That is where you start.”

Will crossed his arms, but he didn’t have an answer. I wasn’t sure if there was an answer. Oliver made it sound so simple, but a man couldn’t just become something other than what he was born for. It didn’t work that way in England.

“Who knows?” Oliver continued. “One day the name MacDonald could be known the world over, while no one has ever heard of the house of Chadwick.”

Will huffed, but then the corner of his mouth twisted up in a wry smile. “That seems unlikely.”

“You have a gifted mind, Will.” Oliver stood and clapped Will on the shoulder. “Have faith in that. You’d make a fine Amusementist.” Oliver pulled something from his hand, and handed it to Will.

Will stared at it a long time before he slid it over his finger. He stood straighter, but it worried me. Oliver was right. Will could make something of himself, but it wouldn’t happen here in England, where he’d never be anything more than a penniless groom and a tinker.

Suddenly the thought of him leaving to find his fortune disturbed me greatly.

“Thank you.” I could see Will’s heavy thoughts written on his face. “I’ve work to do.” He headed up the steps and out the door. The door swung shut with a soft
thump
, leaving the kitchen quiet once more.

Oliver pulled down a canister and inspected the contents. “Meg, dear, lingering in doorways is rude.”

I suppose I should have felt admonished. Before the fire, I never would have noticed Will. I would have looked the other way should I have seen him driving Rathford’s cart down the street. Now the world felt turned on its ear. I couldn’t think of anything past the dread that Will might leave to seek his fortune elsewhere.

“What were you talking about?” I tried to sound casual, like his answer didn’t have the potential to break my heart.

“How much did you hear?” He tilted his head, considering me carefully.

“I didn’t hear anything.” I didn’t hear nearly enough at any rate.

“Then what are you concerned over?” Oliver lifted his cup of tea in a halfhearted toast. “For what it’s worth, he’s a good lad.” The duke brushed past me, strolling down the hall.

• • •

Will avoided me as we prepared to leave before dawn. He wouldn’t even look at me when we sat down at the table to discuss the details of our journey.

Worry ate at me. I just wished I knew what he was thinking.

Oliver smiled at Lucinda as he sat, and she dropped her gaze to her hands. At least Oliver’s intentions were easy to discern.

“Thomas would have hidden the plates in an Amusement at Tavingshall. He had several placed throughout his extensive gardens, but the centerpiece of the whole estate was his hedge maze. I’d look there first. It seems the natural choice for hiding something. He took great pride in that thing.” Oliver rolled out a sketch of the mechanism for the lock to Rathford’s machine.

From the look of the design, there were six plates like the ones we’d found in Gearhenge. One had to fit them together in a certain order or the mechanism wouldn’t function. We
only had two. We needed four more. Since two were in Gearhenge, Oliver seemed convinced the Amusementists had split them up evenly.

“Keep your eyes open for the medallion,” Oliver continued. “I wish I could give you more, but I have no idea what Tom could have left for you to find, especially in the maze. He changed it depending on the season. It could be anything. Be careful. Some of the Amusements at Tavingshall were dangerous.”

That didn’t bode well. I was still shaken from Gearhenge.

“Take these,” Oliver said, handing me his goggles. “They belonged to Charles. I haven’t had much chance to study them, but the current setting will allow you to see in the dark, should it come to that.” Then he handed the gun to Will with a nod. “I’ll sneak out and check the woods. I can make sure no one is watching the road as you leave.”

The thought of the murderer lurking outside sobered me.

Lucinda packed fine leather gloves with wide cuffs for both me and Will along with some nuts and dried meat from the pantry. “Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. Her gaze slid to Will before returning to me.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, though the idea of being alone with Will unsettled me. By all respects, I was already ruined in the
eyes of proper society. It was too late to project an outward show of respectability now. Still, I’d be alone with Will. “What of you?” I whispered as I leaned near her. As women, we were placing each other in a treacherous position. Neither of us had any sort of proper chaperone. We only had each other.

“Don’t worry about me.” She gave me a half smile, then a swift hug. I returned the embrace, feeling a true bond of sisterhood. “Remember the first rule of Amusements,” she warned.

Expect the unexpected.

I took it to heart.

Oliver held out a mechanical bird, not as sophisticated as the raven, but similar. It looked like a stout silver dove.

“It’s a homing pigeon,” he explained. “Just wind the feet and release it if you get in trouble. It will fly back here. Lucinda and I will come for you as soon as we are able.” He tucked it into a small sack along with some tools. The sack latched shut by two interlocking gears. He slid it onto a thick belt and handed it to me. I cinched it around my waist.

In the corner of my eye, I caught a reflection of myself in the dark glass of the window.

The girl who looked back at me appeared bold and daring.

I felt I didn’t know her at all.

“
WE NEED TO TALK
,”
I TOLD WILL AS HE SETTLED ONTO
the stool and turned the crank to wind the coach. His hands stilled. He gave me an exasperated look.

Then he turned the crank again. “When a woman says those words, no good can ever come of it.”

“You haven’t said a word to me all morning.” I handed him the tumbler marked Tavingshall on one end and Chadwick on the other.

I noticed the ring on his finger, marked with the seal of the Amusementists. “That’s a lovely ring.” I didn’t know why Oliver had given it to him. It couldn’t make Will an Amusementist. Simon’s journal described a long apprenticeship process
that lasted years. Maybe Oliver had just made Will an apprentice. Jealousy needled me.

“I’m not sure it fits.” He twisted the ring on his finger in an absentminded way.

I tempered my envy. It could do me no good. I was only a girl. I couldn’t join the Order if I wanted to. I’d always be on the periphery like Lucinda. But this could mean a new life for Will. I wanted that for him. I wanted to see him rise above his station. “I think it suits you.”

He seemed to consider my words. I wanted to tell him that he suited me. I could try to cling to my former status, but it was of no use. If he thought he didn’t have any prospects, well, I didn’t either. In that way we were a strangely well-matched pair. We could make our way together. But he’d have to choose me. I didn’t know what he felt, or even if he felt for me at all.

“I need to concentrate.” He kept his back to me as he pushed the lever and started us forward down the long and twisting road to Tavingshall.

Concentrate? On what, exactly, pushing a lever?

Irritated, I crossed my arms and stared at the slowly breaking dawn. Will’s silence at least gave me time to think. I’d had so few moments since leaving Rathford’s house.

Rathford’s house . . .

I felt cold and rubbed my arms to soothe them, but it did nothing to ease the ill feeling that came over me.

I could picture very clearly Rathford’s workshop, and suddenly the globe and statue from Oliver’s library came to mind. They had been coated in dust.