Legacy of the Clockwork Key (28 page)

Up close, I could appreciate the hideous beauty of the metal beast. Except for the row of sharp silver teeth in its enormous jaw, it almost looked harmless with its eyes closed. Yet the weight of the head resting on the rail
caused the ship to list toward it. The splintered wood and ripped brass gears around me spoke to the machine’s violent nature.

I glanced back at Will before I edged down to the mouth. I had to lean my head inside the jaw to detach the plate and lift it out. Lake water dripped on the back of my neck from the creature’s teeth, and I had never felt anything more unnerving in all my life. Choking on the damp scent of lake water and thick grease, I grasped the plate, slipping as I stumbled backward on the slick deck. Will caught me and kept his arms around me as the jaw slowly closed.

The Leviathan seemed to smile as a low but resonant clunking sounded from within the beast’s throat. Like a strange purr, it reverberated through the metal creature. The monster’s head slipped from the rail, returning to its home beneath the lake.

I clutched the plate to my chest. Lucinda hugged me tight, and Oliver crossed his arms with pride. We were in a state, soaked to the bone and bleeding, every last one of us.

“Oliver, can you take us back?” I’d had enough of steering the ship. My arms ached, but my heart felt light.

He gave me a sharp salute. “Aye, aye, Captain.”

The tether clanked as the ship limped home after the
vicious battle. Oliver guided the ship the way a surgeon eases a wounded soldier back in his bed.

I sat on a broken crate, too exhausted to stand. Will stood by me, not saying a word, just offering his steady comfort.

The climb back up the ladder didn’t seem as daunting as the climb down, in spite of my aching muscles. It seemed a small thing in comparison to what we’d just faced.

Once we were safely back in the coach, it was Lucinda who voiced my primary concern as she pulled out the blankets from the trunk. “Where do we go now?”

“That’s up to the map.” I nodded to Oliver as he lifted the plates. I gathered the final two, holding them like precious tomes.

“Wherever we’re going, I hope it’s dry.” Will pinched the transparent shirt clinging to his chest and pulled the sopping fabric from his skin. I could see the definition of every muscle of his torso. I suddenly felt much warmer.

Oliver laid out the four plates we had, leaving the last two to me. I crouched in front of the trunk, feeling the press of the others as I lifted the first plate and peeled off the coating, revealing the swirling etchings beneath.

Judging by the lines, it had to be the lower left piece of the puzzle. I turned it once, twice, then laid it reverently next to its brothers. It detailed most of Lancashire.

I touched my key, barely looking at the etching because I already knew they wouldn’t match that plate. The back of the key had impressed itself upon my mind. The lines curved too much, reminding me of hills and twisting brooks.

The last plate had to be the one.

I removed the coating and didn’t have to turn it at all. It fell into place, and I had the overwhelming sense that everything was about to come together.

My gaze wandered over the twisting lines of North Yorkshire. Somewhere between a pair of streams, the lines felt familiar.

I lifted the key from around my neck, and couldn’t help feeling the pull of some ordained future as I placed it on a lonely flower symbol etched into the northeast section of the map.

I gave it a half turn.

All the lines came together seamlessly, matching the button on the back with the etched seal beneath.

“Those are the moors,” Lucinda whispered.

The high Yorkshire moors were barren hills of brush and heather. When they bloomed in summer, they were lovely, but in the winter and early spring, they were a treacherous maze covered in mist, with little shelter.

Oliver let out a slow breath. “We’ll have no place to hide. The land is wide open and filled with bogs and hills. I don’t know if we can even drive the coach into them.”

“We have to try,” I said. My gaze locked with Will’s. “We have to destroy this thing, or none of us will ever be free to live out our lives.”

Lucinda tucked the plates in the trunk then perched on the edge of it next to Oliver as he turned the crank. The silver horses strained against their ties as Oliver pushed the carriage forward.

There’d be no turning back now.

Will and I settled on the bench and wrapped ourselves in a blanket. I rested my head on his chest as he leaned back and stared out the window. With my hand over his heart, I felt the steady beat as the long road rumbled beneath us.

We found shelter late that night in an abandoned millhouse on the outskirts of a sleepy little village. Fortunately, there was enough of a roof to protect us from the storm. We were able to build a hot fire in what remained of the crumbling ovens, to dry our clothes.

All the next day we pushed on. Will and Oliver took turns winding the coach so we wouldn’t have to slow our pace. On the rare occasions we did stop to rest, I continued
to feel the relentless jostling of the coach even while standing still. Will didn’t say much, and I felt the prickling of warning that something wasn’t right. But I was exhausted, and overwrought. I didn’t wish to imagine ghosts that didn’t exist.

We continued endlessly over as many small farm roads as we could manage. Will took his turn at the controls, but said nothing.

After the entire length of the day had passed, flames of orange and pink painted the western sky as the desolate moors rose before us. Tufts of dried grass clung to the hostile soil in the winter-ravished tangles of dormant plant life that had yet to awaken to spring.

Shaggy gray sheep, heavy with their winter coats, dotted the landscape, blending into the subtle palette of the barren hills. It was lovely in a bleak and lonely way.

“We should stop for the night.” Oliver rubbed the back of his neck and winced. “There’s no way to safely navigate the moors in the dark. According to the map, we don’t have far to go. We may be able to walk if our luck holds out.”

“There’s a cottage.” I pointed out the window.

Will lifted his hand to his eyes as he peered to the west. “It looks abandoned.”

The cottage was little more than a pile of stones with a
worn thatched roof and a long stone fence meandering to the north.

“Sounds heavenly,” Lucinda sighed. She looked nearly as weary as I felt. Oliver pulled the coach around to the back of the house, though the hut did little to conceal it. The coach stood out like a gleaming gem in a bed of dusty pebbles.

The vast emptiness of the moor held our only hope of remaining unseen. We stretched our sore muscles as we investigated the cottage, but there was little to inspect other than the stone walls and a hearth. Not even spiders had decided to make a home here. At least the hard dirt floor was smooth, but I had a feeling we’d find little comfort. There wasn’t even a chair.

“I’ll look for something for a fire,” Will offered, adjusting his cap.

“I’ll go with you,” I said. After all that time, cramped together with Oliver and Lucinda, I longed for a moment alone with him. I needed to know if something was wrong between us, or if it was only my insecurities plaguing me.

He shifted, as if he were about to protest, but Oliver cut in. “Good idea. Be careful out there.”

Will clenched his jaw and strode out of the cottage. I hurried to follow him, nearly having to run to keep up with his long gait.

“Will, wait,” I called, but he kept up his pace without looking back at me.

We walked deep into the moors, far away from the cabin and any chance that someone would overhear us. I tried to take his hand, but he pulled it away from me.

I grabbed him by the sleeve of his coat. “What is the matter with you?”

He slowed his pace, but still didn’t look at me. I didn’t let his reluctance hinder me from staring him down. I would have whatever thoughts were tumbling through his mind.

“We’re supposed to be looking for wood.” He bent and picked up a dried hollow stalk of some dead reed, then threw it back to the ground.

“Will?” I stopped and waited. How many times had I gone to him? I needed him to come to me just this once. “Is this because I said I love you?”

His face betrayed his guilt.

My heart sank. “Don’t you love me?” My voice didn’t sound my own. It was too soft, too uncertain.

He surged forward and took my face in his hands. He kissed me with a passion that burned brighter than the sun that painted the enormous sky overhead. I succumbed to the
kiss, opening to him, wishing to let him in. His kiss filled me with sensation until I could do nothing but hold on.

My heart sang like a choir of angels beneath the blazing heavens, but the falling darkness of my doubt pulled me back.

Touching his forehead to mine, he didn’t let go. “I love you, Meg. I have always loved you. I will always love you.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the swell of hot tears. I couldn’t let them fall.

“Then why?” I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him close. “Why are you pushing me away?”

His eyes shone, deep and tormented as he ran his hands up the backs of my arms. I felt the touch through the captain’s coat, and it lingered in my arms as he gently brought my hands down from around his neck.

I waited, though the slow burn of anger sparked in my heart. I couldn’t think of anything he could say that would justify kissing me on one cheek, then slapping the other.

“I can’t torment us this way.” He pressed his lips together in a resolute line. “No matter how I feel, this isn’t right.”

“
ISN’T RIGHT
?”
MY WORDS MANAGED TO ESCAPE MY
throat even though I felt as if a noose were constricting my neck. How could he say such a thing? I’d never felt anything more right. I looked at him, I touched him, and I felt something greater than myself. As if my life were bonded to his so completely, I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it.

I swallowed the tightness in my throat. “You sound as if you’re waiting for Mrs. Pratt to scold us. We’re not children.” Children didn’t have to face the things we had faced together. Children only heard about such things in daring stories before they fell to sleep, safe and warm in their beds.

Neither of us had been safe or warm in ages. We were
stronger for it. I wouldn’t let him back away from us now. I swept my hand out over the empty moors. “There’s no one here to judge us. Rathford is not standing between us. It is only you and only I.”

He pulled his cap off and shoved it deep in his coat pocket. “And what are we supposed to do when this grand adventure is over?”

“We shall find our way.” Isn’t that what we had been doing? We had survived. We had made our way across all of England on our own. Surely we could find a way to be together.

“With what?” He held his hands out at his sides. “We have nothing. I have nothing. I haven’t had any schooling. I have no family, no home, no money, no employment, no name. What could I possibly give you but my love?”

I felt the first tear slide down my cheek and brushed it away. “I don’t care. It’s enough for me.”

“Love won’t feed us.” He turned away, walking toward the remains of a broken cart that was now nothing more than a lump of rotting wood and weeds.

No. All of that was of little consequence. The future wasn’t written. My life had changed so completely in the course of a year. At this time last year I had loving parents and
a home. I had a fine education and lessons in music and art. I was respected and admired within my class. Now I had nothing as well. I didn’t know where the future would lead, but I knew I had to trust that I could make good things happen.

“After all we’ve done, you have so little faith in yourself? In us?” I strode to him, reaching for his arm and the tenuous connection we had shared. My hand was knocked away as he ripped a chunk of a board off the broken cart.

“Have you ever starved?” He slapped the board into the crook of his arm and pulled another. “Because I have. Can you imagine looking at your child after two days with no food and telling him there is no bread? Nothing! I’ve had nothing. I’m used to nothing. I have been poor my whole life, and that, my dear Meg, is never going to change. My father died in a ditch, beaten to death by men who laughed as they did it. His dead body was picked apart by dogs and buzzards, because he had nothing, and so he didn’t matter enough for anyone to bury him.”

Will let out a shaking breath. “Anyone but me, and I didn’t have the strength. If Rathford hadn’t taken me in that day, I would have died that night. No one would have ever known I existed.”

My tears flowed freely. Will’s eyes shined with the tears
he refused to let go. I wanted to hold him, soothe him, but there was nothing I could do to save him from this hurt.

He smacked another bit of wood into the bunch in the crook of his elbow. “I loved my father, and he loved me.” His steady gaze bored through me. “Trust me, it wasn’t enough.”

“But Oliver and Lucinda . . .”

Will yanked at another board, cracking it in half. “Oliver and Lucinda aren’t going to pay our way through life, nor should they. I won’t live off their charity.” His shoulders sagged as if his burden pressed on him. Then he walked back toward the cottage. “I have to stand on my own.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t be together.” I felt a deep stabbing, a pounding that threatened to crush me. I loved him. My heart belonged with him. Even if what he said was sensible, in this moment, I knew it wasn’t right.

He was all I wanted. We could find a path so long as we were together. A horse neighed from somewhere on the moors. Will lifted his head.

As the sound died on the bitter wind, he brought his gaze back down to me. Dropping the pieces of the cart by the door of the cottage, he focused on my face with such intent, my heart cried for him.

He trailed his fingertips over my cheek, brushing the
stinging tears. His lips parted, just slightly, as if he wanted to kiss me. I could see the strain in his eyes. “You tempt me,” he whispered as I drew closer to him.