Echoes, p.10
Echoes, page 10
part #2 of Aether Chronicles Series
Lord Montgomery was tiptoeing away from his room. The direction he took would take him to her room.
Ah.
Carefully she closed and locked the door.
Chapter Nineteen
Maker sought the sanctuary of the workroom. Only the servants were awake at this early hour, so there was no one to interrupt. This was the room where he was least likely to be disturbed. No one even bothered closing the curtains at night here. Edwina spent her mornings with the female guests, a habit into which Maker recognized she had been bullied.
He twisted the crick out of his neck. Violet’s insistence that they share a room but not a bed was less about appearances than it was about torture.
Sitting in the shadows of the dark corner he wondered what was actually in the boxes Blanchard and Ashby had brought back from London. They had been bringing the last box in when he had come down. Both looked like they hadn’t slept, and he guessed that was more through choice than necessity. Now they had retired to bed, separately he’d ordered, and hoped he was obeyed. He was left alone now to contemplate his own foolishness again.
The door opened and Amethyst stepped in, her eyes went to the pile of crates and she quickly, quietly closed the door, her bottom lip smiling between her teeth. Then she moved swiftly to the boxes, giving a little squeal of delight, bouncing and clapping her hands. As she moved, she spotted him. Her eyes went wide, her cheeks flushed.
“Maker! I didn’t see ‒” Her forehead creased. “Ben? Is everything all right?”
Not when she said his name like that, it wasn’t.
“Ben?”
Suddenly she was kneeling by his feet, her hand on his over the arm rest. The touch was soft and smooth and gentle. Such softness was virtually unknown to him. It made his heart sore and he looked away.
The other hand gently cupped his face, drew him back to her. The expression of concern, of care, tore at him. He didn’t decide to move, but she was in his arms and by his action not hers. The stiffness of surprise eased as arms wrapped around him. He buried his head in the comfort of her neck, her loose hair. He breathed in the wonderful warmth of her acceptance. Closing his eyes, he nuzzled into her, his lips on her skin. The salty human taste of her. He’d eat her up given the chance.
“Ben?”
Pray God he could resist the temptation, not defile the innocence on offer.
It took every ounce of control, but he pulled away, sat back. His hand shook as he caressed the silk of her cheek. What he wanted and what he could have, were different things.
Her lips parted to say something, then she thought better of it and forced a smile.
“Come see what Ashby and Blanchard brought back.”
She stood and went over to the boxes, tossing her hair over her shoulder to look back at him with that inviting smile.
The invitation he wanted wasn’t forthcoming, and he couldn’t accept it if it was, so he quietly followed her.
All the crates were marked with the Sanderson Glass Company logo. One was large, probably two feet square, one foot tall, and on top was another, eighteen inches square by six. The other two were about 14 inches square and about 30 inches high. They were the right size for lamps; he’d had several shipped directly to him, including one that was Amethyst’s design. The shards of Violet’s temper had been swept up soon after. It served him right for thinking he could have something he cared about, and for not having the sense to have it shipped to him at number seven.
For a moment, Amethyst looked at the boxes, then she looked around, moved to a drawer, and pulled it open to reveal a range of tools. She picked what turned out to be a long reach screwdriver. Her grin was broad as she inserted the head of the screwdriver between the top and sides of the slim box. She worked the metal in a little, her lip between her teeth as she grinned broadly and worked the lid up with the tell-tale squeak of metal staples being pried from wood.
When the lid moved away, it revealed a thick layer of straw. With eager but careful movements, Amethyst scraped that away and allowed herself another squeal of delight.
With loving care, she reached in and brought out… he wasn’t sure what it was. About half an inch thick and six by eight inches square, it seemed to be a number of thin layers of glass stacked on top of each other, with multiple thin wires fixed at narrow intervals along each side, more than eight per inch.
“Oh yes, he’s done a marvelous job.”
“What is it?”
She smiled as she carefully moved to the desk and rested the thing on the surface. “If I did my job well and Sanderson has done his, this is a screen.”
Sanderson. Of course. “A collaboration?”
She nodded as she laid the screen flat and turned back to him. “Yes. Sanderson is an absolute genius with glass. It was discussions with him that allowed me to develop my idea and design this. He did a lot of tests while I was with him in Swansea and we worked out together the best way to produce this tablet of glass.”
His gut twisted. “A partnership?”
She nodded.
“The only one?”
For a second, she frowned, not understanding his meaning, then she laughed and moved closer. “No need to be jealous.”
He couldn’t bring himself to deny the reality of that emotion. Her sigh was quite heartfelt.
“If I’m honest, he did ask. And I was tempted, but as much as I like Sanderson, and enjoy working with him, I just don’t want that kind of partnership with him.”
The way she held his gaze just a little longer than she should have, sent his mind into circles of desire wanting her for his partner. Stop it, you can’t!
With a sad small smile, she broke the gaze.
A screen. The only thing he knew that used a screen was the CAMM, the Calculation And Memory Machine Professor Richards had built. The screen on that was a treated linen sheet that glowed when the right fragments of aetheric light were channeled through it. But CAMM was a big bulky thing. He struggled to lift it on his own, and it was much bigger than any of these boxes, even if all of them were put together.
“CAMM?”
“At home.” She turned to the largest of the boxes. “I did some redesign work. Can you give me a hand with this?”
This time, she knelt and again eased the screwdriver between the top and the side panels of the crate. As the metal and wood protested, he knelt to reach the other corner and took the screwdriver when offered, to pry that corner open. As the panels separated, Amethyst lifted the top away, revealing yet more straw packing. Moving that aside, she uncovered a thick leather cover roughly twenty inches square. She ran her hands over it, pushing back some stray strands before pulling a rolled tool bag from beside the larger object. One hand went back to the leather. She patted it.
“Would you take this to the desk for me?”
Reaching inside the box, he found the object to be thicker than he had expected, a good four inches thick. As he lifted, he appreciated the weight of the thing, but he also suspected Amethyst didn’t actually need his help. This was weighty, yes, but she would have easily been able to lift it. She was just trying to make him feel useful. Perhaps she didn’t realize that he never did. Though suddenly he wanted to.
Beneath the leather he felt a hardness that could only come from a metal plate. Amethyst cleared the center of the desk as she moved behind it. At a desk seemed to be her natural habitat.
Her grin was broad and her eyes alight with the joy of mechanical mastery. Whatever this was, she was happy with it. He placed it in front of her. She opened up the leather revealing a sandwich of steel plating with a filling of brass cogs and rods. The top was hinged and when she pushed it up, it rose to about a foot tall, and even though there was a plate between him and it, he was tall enough to see a layer of slim rods stacked with cogs and gears and he realized that this was a miniaturized version of CAMM, though it also looked like the double layer gave it more working space.
Once she had stabilized the back, Amethyst pulled out additional wings to the left and right, each of them only three inches wide, but about an inch thick of boxed brass. Between where these two would have lain when closed was an empty frame, and under that a keyboard. Amethyst tipped up the frame. Two small rod arms no more than a finger’s width wide rested in small grooves in the brass on the wings. When set, this frame sat at a slight inclination to the two box wings, then the keyboard pulled forward to lay flatter than any typewriter keyboard he had ever seen.
“Quick work.”
She frowned up at him. “Setting it up?”
“Making.”
A small shake of the head sent waves of chestnut cascading through her hair. “I’ve been working on it for over a year. Professor Richards helped with the design and the calibration techniques to ensure that it all worked properly. The only thing I’ve done recently is modify some of the display functionality to work with this, rather than a treated linen sheet.” She caressed the glass tablet.
Pulling the bow that held the tool wallet closed she spread it on the desk and selected a fine screwdriver, which she put into the workings and rotated.
“This, by the way, is DMAC, my Desktop Memory and Computational device.”
“What happened to the end ‘d’?”
Her eyes sparkled as she glanced up at him. “Too awkward to say.”
The moment felt so intimate and yet she easily looked away to concentrate again on her work.
“If you want to help me, could you get one of the aether lamps from those boxes and put on the desk. It’s rather dark in here for this kind of work.”
He spoke as he moved. “No direct sunlight.”
“Well that’s always best for working with unprotected aether.”
He frowned and looked back at her even as he pried a lid off. “Why?”
“Well, raw aether can be quite volatile, especially in sunlight.”
Which didn’t make sense since they harvested aether from the skies. “But-”
“Before you point out that aether is harvested from the skies and there’s plenty of sun up there, that’s not raw aether, that’s aether ore gas. Which is why the airships have engines to refine it, which is done in the belly of the refining mechanism, in the dark.”
He was frowning even as he placed and switched on the lamp. “Conservatory?”
The lab in 7 Belgravia Square was technically a well-ventilated glass conservatory. Amethyst smiled back, clearly not caught out.
“That was for letting light in, but don’t forget it’s basically surrounded by the walls of numbers five and nine, so it lets in lots of sunlight, but not much of it is direct. Besides, most of the Professor’s experiments were with refined and power-packed aether, and I think he used that hidden room for any raw aether experiments too.” She shrugged. “There are always ways and means.”
In a few heartbeats she had the frame out of the mechanism, which was itself hinged so the front of the four sides simply flicked up. With great care, she placed the glass tablet inside the frame and then started working on the hundreds of tiny white metal screws to open each and trap one of the wires inside.
“This is going to take me ages,” she said without looking up. “You’re welcome to stay and watch, but I’m sure you’ll find it really rather boring.”
Could he get bored watching her? “Never.”
She stopped, looked up and smiled. Her eyes were an invitation. He swallowed, only the desk between them stopped him stepping towards her.
“Maker. Go.”
Chapter Twenty
Jenson came down quietly. It seemed unlikely anyone would be up at this hour, so he intended to skip breakfast, head straight out, and avoid all confrontations. Instead, he was surprised to see Maker leaving the workroom and in one glance catch him out.
“Jenson.”
“Maker.” Most people Jenson knew were colleagues, family, suspects, or victims. Of course, there were a few friends in the mix, very few, but he wasn’t at all sure where Maker sat in that spectrum. Maker had never been a suspect, well, he had been a suspect in Professor Richards’ murder because he’d been one of two to find the body, but not long. He wasn’t a victim, at least not in a way Jenson could do anything about. They didn’t work together, and certainly weren’t enemies, but weren’t close enough to be friends. He was sure he had the man’s respect and Maker had his. Did that constitute friendship, or at least the start of one?
“Breakfast?”
The invitation was the exact opposite to Jenson’s had planned, yet he found himself agreeing and walking beside Maker to the breakfast room. Places had been set, but the hot plates had yet to be put out. Barrows the butler was overseeing everything, and he stiffly apologized for not being ready.
“Early.” Maker waved the subject away. “Coffee and toast for us both. Thank you.”
It always surprised Jenson how generous and easy Maker was with servants. Not that it was a surprising approach from this particular man, Jenson was just used to seeing the higher born treat servants as worthy of little more than contempt. There again, he tended to get to view their lives at the worst possible moments, so his view was unlikely to be the most rounded.
Maker took the head of the table, and Jenson sat to his right. Coffee was poured and cream provided, but Jenson preferred his first cup of the day black. The rich aromatic liquid was strong and warm and welcome. It had an undisguised bitterness that helped start any day.
“What was in Russell’s workroom?” Jenson asked.
“Amethyst.”
Every time he said that name, Maker gave himself away to those who cared to see it. Jenson wondered if Violet saw it. “Have Ashby and Blanchard returned with her things?”
Maker nodded.
“She’ll be happy then.”
That was very nearly a smile. “Squealed.”
Jenson didn’t hold back his grin, he could imagine her doing so. Sometimes Amethyst’s youthful exuberance was bound to show through. “She’ll probably bury herself in the work of interpreting those notebooks now.”
“Probably.”
It was what she did. Jenson admired the dedication, but sometimes wondered where it came from.
“Investigations?”
Jogged out of his thoughts, Jenson took a second to answer. “Good.” He nodded. “The locals clearly had a great deal of respect for Stephen Russell. I only found one grumbler, but I also discovered that he had been released from service here on the estate, and lost his tied home because he was, and I quote, ‘a feckless waster who wouldn’t know what a hard day’s work was.’ A lot of them would like to know what really happened to Stephen. There are some wild theories doing the rounds and some of them are not so very pleasant. The local constable did his best to investigate at the time and he’s allowed me to see all the notes and statements he took.”
“So, you have been well received?”
“Generally, yes.”
Maker’s lips twitched as he took a sip of his coffee. “Except?”
“It would be impolitic of me to answer that.”
Maker’s eyes shifted to the young man who brought toast and conserves to the table. He thanked the footman and waited until he’d moved away to speak more quietly. “Montgomery?”
Jenson shrugged. “For a man who agreed to my coming and investigating, he’s not exactly forthcoming. He has a habit of trying to tell me what I can and can’t investigate.”
“Counterproductive?”
Jenson smiled. “Usually. I don’t let him divert me. Wild goose chases aren’t my thing.”
Moving only his eyes, Maker checked the room before he spoke. “Montgomery is keeping secrets.”
Everyone kept secrets, and lots of them lied, especially to police officers. Maker kept secrets, though Jenson understood some of them. But he wasn’t here to investigate Maker’s choices. “Such as?”
“Still investigating.”
Jenson controlled his own smile. He could imagine Maker would make a very good inspector if he were able to give himself the chance. “Let me know if you discover anything.”
Even with the lack of an actual smile, Jenson could interpret Maker’s look as happy. Or at least content. Perhaps they were friends after all.
“The Inspector’s taking a very long time to come to the inevitable conclusion.”
Amethyst took a deep breath and tried not to be annoyed by Violet’s statement.
“He’s clearly not very good.”
“This is only his third day here.” Fine bone china couldn’t take too much pressure, so Amethyst put her cup and saucer on a nearby occasional table. That had the advantage of being one less projectile she was tempted to throw.
“More than enough time to know that dear Monty is correct.” She waved any objection away as if there could be none.
“Dear Monty?” Amethyst asked.
Tipping her chin slightly, Violet tried to look down her nose, but since it wasn’t a big nose, it didn’t have a great impact on Amethyst. “It’s called loyalty.”
Amethyst hid her hands beneath her skirt to hide the way her fingers were curling as they itched to scratch out the woman’s eyes. She forced her voice to maintain as neutral a tone as she could. “Maker is open to a full and thorough investigation. You’re showing more loyalty to a friend than you are your husband. Seems odd to me.”
The cold superior air around Violet hardened into a sharp sneer. “Seems odd to me that someone who can’t even get a husband would think they have a right to comment.”
“Just because you trapped a man into marrying you ‒” She had to ignore the stab on her foot from Great-Aunt Flora’s cane. “‒ doesn’t mean you’re worthy of him.”
“Dressing a man in finery doesn’t make him a gentleman.”
Her hands clenched to fists beneath her skirts. “Marrying a gentleman hasn’t made you a lady.”
