Wilful Impropriety (20 page)

“I could undo it, if you like.”

He grinned. “And allow you to get grease on your dainty gloves?”

“Well, I would take the gloves off.”

“Even worse. Grease under your delicate fingernails. Where is . . .” He grunted and closed his eyes as he fiddled with something deep in the machine. “There.” A slight metallic scraping emitted from within, and the orrery sped.

Hannah looked at the watch hanging from the chain about her neck. “Shall I time it for you?”

“Please.”

As Mercury swept past, Hannah noted the time. The second hand ticked as the planets and stars swirled by. When Mercury completed its revolution, she said, “Two minutes, thirty-six seconds.”

“A little too fast . . .” He frowned and eased the wrench around. Then he cursed. Something metal clattered inside the machine, as though he had dropped the wrench. Scowling, he stretched his arm deeper.

He jerked back, yelping. The machine stuttered. Gideon did not pull his arm out, though she could see the muscles of his shoulder bunching under his waistcoat. He pushed at the machine with his other hand, straining.

Hannah spun, skirts swirling around her, and threw the switch on the giant mechanism, halting the machine.

Gideon rested his head against the side of the base. “Thank you.”

She knelt by him. “Are you hurt?”

“Only my pride.” He jerked his arm again and scowled. “My shirtsleeve is caught in a gear.”

Hannah peered into the machine, heart still racing though she tried not to show it. She had thought his arm itself had been caught by the machine. The sleeve had been caught in the gears. It looked as though it were in the process of trying to eat his arm. “What can I do?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Try walking it backward. Slowly. Grab . . . grab Mercury as your handle.”

“All right.” Hannah stood. It was her fault, for adjusting the orrery’s timing in order to throw it off. They got to see each other so rarely since he had finished the installation. “I am sorry.”

“Do not be.” He pulled on his sleeve again. “I know better than to stick my arm in a running machine.”

Hannah put her hands on the enameled sphere of Mercury and walked it backward. “Look. Mercury is retrograde. I feel rash . . .” She felt some resistance from the machine.

“Stop!” He ducked his head and peered inside. “The fabric is wound around the gear. Flesh and fire! This is what I get for showing off.”

“Shall I cut your shirt free?”

He scowled. “I like this shirt.”

“Do you really think it is going to be salvageable after the gear is done with it?”

He sighed and compressed his lips. “You have a point, though I do not have to like it.”

Hannah patted him on the back. “There, there.” She skipped to the table where her work basket sat. At night, the large windows gave her father a better view of the stars, but during the day, this room had the best light in the house for needlepoint. She pulled out her shears and came back to crouch next to Gideon. Holding the scissors up, she paused and leaned against him. “Since I have you captive, my dear . . . when are you going to speak to my father?”

He winced and looked down, picking a ball of fuzz off his trousers. “After all of the work is finished. I do not want to come to him as a suitor while I am still in his employ.”

“He adores you.”

Gideon rubbed the back of his neck. “He admires my work—when it isn’t being sabotaged by his daughter. It is the other that I worry about . . .” He held up his free hand to display the dark skin there as if it were not obvious that he was talking about his Anglo-Indian heritage. Dropping his hand, he nodded at the scissors. “Are you going to free me?”

“Yes. But I will not be patient forever.” The opening in the mechanism’s base required Hannah to kneel behind Gideon. She pressed her torso against him, feeling the ribs of her corset give a little against his firm back. She slid her arm along his into the machine. With both of their arms inside, she could not see the fabric she needed to cut. Hannah tried to work the scissors by feel, but Gideon flinched. “Did I cut you?”

“Only a nick.”

She tried again with the scissors, but he stiffened. The gear had his shirt pulled so tight around his arm that she could not cut while their arms were blocking the view. Hannah pulled her arm back out. “I have a better idea.”

“Do tell, because I do not want your father to catch me stuck like this.”

“Oh, but it is so delightful to have you here.” Hannah held her breath and leaned forward to kiss his cheek, startled at her own daring. Perhaps even a clockwork Mercury could inspire rash behavior when retrograde.

Gideon blushed, his deep complexion darkening further. A smile rounded his high cheekbones. “I will admit that I now see the benefit of this, albeit temporarily.” He glanced toward the door, which was hidden by the base, then stole a kiss from her cheek.

The room seemed to warm as Hannah blushed with pleasure. “Well . . . it seems to me that what you need to do is to remove your arm from the shirt, and then it will be that much easier to remove the shirt from the mechanism.” If she had thought that the room seemed warm before, she felt a wave of heat from her toes to the tips of her ears as she suggested this.

Charmingly, Gideon blushed even deeper at the suggestion and ducked his head. He seemed to find it necessary to adjust his tie even though the silk was perfectly tied in a four-in-hand. He cleared his throat. “There must be another way.”

“Certainly.” Hannah stood up, dusting off her dress. “We can pull the gear all the way out as well. It shouldn’t take you long to repair . . .”

Gideon screwed his face up and peered into the base of the machine. “It was just a timing adjustment.”

Remembering that his predicament was entirely her fault, Hannah twisted her hands together in front of her. “I am so sorry about that.”

“It is not your fault. I only thought . . . I thought that if I repaired it fast enough, we might have some time alone.”

“We do now.” She sighed, wishing that he felt comfortable coming to the house without an errand. People would talk if he called on her, and there was enough gossip about him already. “Are you sure that you don’t want to try removing your shirt? I am certain it will be easier to get the sleeve free.”

Gideon chewed his lower lip. “All right. But go on the other side of the machine.”

“Gideon . . . are you modest?”

“One of us needs to be.” He flashed his disarming grin again. “Besides, if your father returns while I am disrobed, I would prefer not to be assaulting your virtue with a view of my manly chest.”

Hannah giggled and shook her finger at him, but she moved to the other side of the orrery nonetheless. She also picked up a mirror that belonged to a partially disassembled telescope. Holding it so she could see over her shoulder, Hannah watched Gideon struggle one-handed with the buttons on his vest. “Do you need help?”

“I am fine.” He twisted the button around, coming no closer to slipping it through the buttonhole.

“I do not mind.”

“Your father . . .”

Hannah sighed. “We could have you over for dinner and you could talk to him then.”

“Is he in the habit of inviting craftsmen to dinner?”

“You are hardly just a craftsman. You are a scientist as well.”

“Very kind of you—blast.” His fingers had slipped again on the button.

Hannah put her mirror down and shook her head. “This is silly. It will be but a moment.” She swept around the orrery and knelt next to him, skirt puddling a little onto his lap.

Gideon slid back as far as he could, but Hannah stopped him with a hand on his vest. If anything, that made him blush deeper. Utterly charming.

“I promise not to hurt you.” Hannah ducked her head and undid the buttons on his vest with ease. As she moved to the buttons on his shirt, her hands shook a little. The room really was too warm for this time of year. “I . . . um . . . I need to take off your tie.”

He nodded and looked out the window, swallowing. His breathing seemed faster as she pulled the silk out of its knot and laid the fabric across her lap. Free from the confines of the collar, his neck was breathtaking. Hannah had to remind herself to inhale, and then it almost hurt to breathe. She undid the last button, revealing his undershirt and the hollow of his collar bones. Hannah slid the shirt off his shoulder. His skin seemed as though it could burn her hand. So smooth. So warm.

The only sound in the room was his breath and the rustle of silk as she leaned forward.

A vein pulsed in his neck, keeping time with her own heart. Gideon pulled his free arm out of the shirt. He twisted to slide the other arm free, and the muscles in his upper arm bunched and gathered. Fascinated, Hannah put her hand on his biceps.

The door opened. Crockery shattered on the floor.

Hannah jumped to her feet, tripping over her skirt. She stumbled back from Gideon—Mr. Whitaker—and turned to face the door. Her father stood in a puddle with the pieces of a tea set at his feet. His lower legs were soaked. She forced her gaze up to his face.

Normally genial, he was a vivid red. A vein pulsed out at his temple. “What is the meaning of this?”

Mr. Whitaker scrambled to his feet, tearing his shirt free from the machine. “I—My shirt was stuck. In the mechanism. Your daughter—”

“My daughter will go to her room and wait for me there.” Her father stood back from the door and pointed to the stairs.

“Papa—I was only trying to help.”

He pointed again.

With a glance back at Mr. Whitaker, Hannah hurried from the room. Her father said, “Thank you for your time, Mr. Whitaker, but your services will no longer be required.”

•   •   •

In her bedroom, Hannah paced from the window to her dressing table and back again. She had heard Mr. Whitaker clatter down the stairs in a hurry. When she had looked out the window, he was striding down the street, buttoning his greatcoat with his hat perched at a precarious angle on his head. She pressed her hand against the glass, and the handprint was still there. She stared at it each time her circuit brought her back to the window. She was half tempted to leave her room and go speak to Papa, but she was too frightened of the rage she had seen on his face. Never had she seen her father more than mildly perturbed.

A knock at her door. Hannah halted by the window. “Come in.”

Her father opened the door and stepped in, face stern. He carried a tray with hot cocoa and a slice of Robertson’s cake. “I thought you might be hungry.”

Hannah wrung her hands. “Papa, about Mr. Whitaker.”

He set the tray on her dressing table. “I am so sorry that you were exposed to that. I had been warned that his Indian blood would tell, but his work was so good.” He turned a cup on the tray, staring at the dark liquid inside. “My ambition has harmed you, and I can only offer my apologies for that.”

For a moment, Hannah could only stare at him. She swallowed and found her voice. “Papa, you have misunderstood completely. Mr. Whitaker was stuck in the mechanism, and the only way to free him was to remove his shirt—”

“And it needed to be you to do that? It needed to be done while you were alone?” He shook his head. “I can see how it would seem reasonable to such a pure heart as yours, but any civilized man would understand how very wrong such an action would be.”

“But—but it was my idea.”

He lifted his head at that and turned to stare at her, dismay mixed with revulsion.

Coming closer, Hannah tried again to make her father see that it was not Mr. Whitaker’s fault. “He thought it was not right but I . . .”

“Have I failed you so completely? Your virtue is your most prized possession, and you would toy with it so? With a mongrel clockmaker? With any man, really, but with someone who has only the veneer of civilization allowing him to mix with his betters.”

“His father was a British admiral.”

“Who should have shown better sense than to be taken in by a harlot. You have not seen the state of undress their women habitually parade in, but I assure you that no virtuous man would be tempted by such a display.” He shook his head. “His father’s morals were clearly weak, and any benefit the British blood might have conferred on the son is lost.”

“Mr. Whitaker is not like that. He is good and modest and blushes at the slightest impropriety and—”

“And how do you know that?” Her father jerked his head up.

Heart racing, Hannah took a step back. “I . . . we . . . that is—he was going to speak with you, but wanted to wait until the work was completed.”

Her father turned away from her, but she could still see him in the mirror. His jaw was clenched tight and his mouth puckered with distaste. “Am I to understand . . . do you have an attachment to Mr. Whitaker?”

This was not how she wanted to tell him. In all of her imaginings, this was not how she would approach her father, nor what his reaction should be. She had pictured coming to him in his study and speaking of Mr. Whitaker’s gentleness and intelligence. Her father would be surprised, of course, but only because they had been so careful not to let their mutual regard show. He would recover from the surprise, and be delighted to have such a son. Mr. Whitaker’s clockworks could only help with his astrology.