Lady of Devices Page 3

  “Peony?” Lady Julia looked over her shoulder, interrupted, Claire was certain, in the very act of slipping a chummy hand into the crook of Lord James’s elbow as they entered the parlor together. “Peony Churchill is coming?”

  “She accepted my invitation,” Claire said. “I hope they are able to come.”

  “Really.” Julia glanced at Catherine and Gloria. “How endlessly entertaining.” The little group closed ranks around Lord James and moved into the other room, already whispering.

  Claire had an uncomfortable ten minutes while playing the hostess, offering her guests tea and lemonade as they made small talk before dinner. Would Peony and her mother come at all? If they did, would Julia and the rest behave, or find some way to embarrass Peony to the point where she would never speak to Claire again? When the doorbell finally rang, she wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or even more anxious.

  She took Peony’s camel coat with its arabesques of black soutache braid herself, and handed it to Penwith. “I’m so glad you could come.” Peony’s fingers were warm in her own, her dark hair piled high in a Romanesque coronet, her black-eyed gaze missing nothing. “And your mother?” She glanced behind her, but Penwith had already closed the door.

  “She sends her regrets. A matter came up in Parliament and she had to organize a protest at the drop of a hat.”

  Oh, my. Her admiration for Mrs. Churchill grew in direct proportion to her hope that Lady St. Ives had not heard. “Well, you are here and of that I’m very glad. What a stunning dress.” The brocade, a deep wine red most unsuitable for an unmarried girl, was cut so cleverly plain that it could only have come from one place. “Is it from the American Territories?”

  “What a good eye you have. Yes. Mama had it sent from New York on the transatlantic airship. She says I must have at least one new dress for this Season. It’s a good thing I know she’s not trying to marry me off.”

  “Lucky you,” Claire breathed before she could stop herself. “I mean—that is to say—won’t you come into the parlor?”

  She introduced Peony to her parents, careful to mention that Mrs. Churchill had been unavoidably detained without giving details. Her mother then took over the introductions, standing in Mrs. Churchill’s place as she made Peony known to the gentlemen. Out of the corner of her eye, Claire watched as her mother led Peony over to the trio of girls on the sofa.

  “Are you to make your bows in two weeks, then, along with the other girls?” A male voice made her jump, and she turned to see Lord James in front of her, turning a crystal glass of something amber in his fingers.

  Peony said something, and the girls tittered. “I—yes, I am.” Oh, dear. Did Peony need help? She cast around for a polite way to get rid of him. Small talk usually worked. “Are you but recently come to Town?”

  “I’ve been here since Easter. I’m involved in a matter of business that may take me to the American Territories in the autumn.”

  “Oh?” What was Lady Julia saying now, with such a smile?

  “Yes. My business partner and I have a scheme to—”

  “I do beg your pardon, Lord James. Miss Churchill has nothing to drink. She will think me a poor hostess.”

  With another smile, he bowed and turned to speak to the Marquess of Blatchley, who was all of nineteen and some kind of relation to him, though how her mother had ferreted that out was a mystery. Claire crossed the room to the punch bowl and ladled some into a cup.

  “Lemonade, Peony?”

  “Thank you.”

  Lady Julia smiled with the soulless precision of an automaton. “I was just saying to Peony how trim this cuirass cut makes her look. And dark colors, you know, fool the eye into believing one’s weight is less than it is.”

  “As opposed to overtrimming, which increases the silhouette by several inches at least,” Peony said with lazy good humor. Lady Catherine turned pale and looked down at her pink bodice.

  “Did you make your dress?” Gloria inquired. “Such skill. I compliment you.”

  “Your compliments are misplaced, I’m afraid. My mother ordered it from New York. I thought you might have recognized the designer, since you appear to be wearing one of his creations yourself.”

  “Ah,” Lady Julia said. “The American Territories.” The very tone of her voice suggested that Peony’s gown had been constructed by savage tribes, somewhere on a trackless plain. “Mrs. Churchill, I hear, has many connections there. Though not with families such as dear Gloria’s, I believe?”

  “She has friends all over the globe,” Peony said. “It’s difficult to keep track.”

  “My mother beckons us,” Claire said desperately. “Shall we go in to dinner?”

  Lady St. Ives, much to Claire’s relief, had placed Julia between Catherine and Blatchley, and Gloria next to Lord James, who spent the entire meal talking with her about the American Territories. That left Claire between Peony and Lord Peter, with Emilie on his other side—a happy situation indeed. The only person in London who knew Emilie harbored a certain tendre for the young baron was Claire, and so it was no burden at all to leave him in conversation with her and turn her attention to making Peony more comfortable.

  Though she certainly did not show signs of discomfort. Rather, Peony seemed amused at the efforts of the other girls to patronize and belittle her. How did one come to be that strong within oneself? Was it all in having a role model like Mrs. Churchill? No, that could not be it. Lady St. Ives was just as strong in her own way, leader of society as she was. Why, she had taken tea with Her Majesty herself with no more than a slight paling of the skin, which only served to make her more lovely. No, it must be something else. And there was no way Claire could ask Peony something so personal, especially not here at the supper table with all these people within earshot.

  Besides, what if Peony laughed? Claire could bear any number of things, but not the laughter of someone she admired. The thought of it was enough to make her keep their conversation to very surface subjects, with the result that Peony probably thought her a mindless ninny.

  Breaking up into parties of four or six for cards brought no relief. It was not until Peony took the chair next to her that Claire realized what she had in mind.

  “Now, then,” Peony said, shuffling the cards as expertly as the riverboat captain that Claire and Emilie had sighed over in Heart of the Mississippi , a romantic flicker her mother would never have allowed her to watch had she known about it. “Who wants to learn how to play poker?”

  “What on earth is that?” Emilie looked puzzled. “Something to do with fireplace tools?”

  Lord James leaned in, his polite smile broadening to an honest grin. “It’s a card game the cowboys play in the Wild West,” he said. “Miss Churchill, you surprise me.”

  “I shock you, you mean.” Peony fanned the cards at him so that they made a rude noise. “Well? Are you going to join me, or will your high principles relegate you to observation only?”

  “My principles aren’t that high.” Lord James snagged the sleeve of his cousin. “Blatchley. Join us. Miss Churchill is going to teach us a card game.”

  “We need something to bet with,” Peony said, “since I don’t imagine you’re willing to part with the contents of your pocketbooks in front of her ladyship.”

  Claire cast around the room. “Will sugar cubes do? Or toothpicks?”

  Peony beamed at her. “Toothpicks would be perfect. And we need one more player.”

  “I’ll join you.” Gloria, who was clearly not letting Lord James out of her sight even for the space of a card game, seated herself gracefully in the remaining chair, her cream silk skirts pooling around her in a casually studied manner.

  Claire fetched a silver box full of toothpicks, and Peony explained the rules as she dealt the cards. Hm. It didn’t sound too hard. The point seemed to be less what was in one’s hand than in how one presented oneself to the rest of the players. Claire might not possess many skills, but putting a good face forward, no matter how she felt,
was one of them.

  Before long, the stack of toothpicks in front of her was nearly as substantial as the one in front of Peony. “Miss Trevelyan, you have cleaned me out.” Lord James laid down his cards. “I salute you and pass.”

  Since Gloria and Blatchley had declared themselves out within minutes of beginning, this left only Emilie with an active hand. And even that did not last much longer. Within five minutes, Peony had won, which surprised no one.

  “I, too, salute a worthy opponent,” she said to Claire with a smile. “Beginner’s luck?”

  “I think not,” Blatchley put in. “Not for so sustained a period. She almost had you.”

  “She did,” Peony nodded. “Shall we play again?”

  “Indeed not.” Julia materialized behind Lord James’s shoulder. “Gloria, Lord James, I claim you both for my table and a hand of Patience.”

  Lord James rose without complaint, but as he pushed in his chair, his rakish gaze met Claire’s. “I look forward to a rematch,” he said. “Perhaps it was a case of luck, not skill.”

  Claire looked him in the eye. How dared he cast aspersions on her ability in her own parlor? “A lady of resources makes her own luck. Do you not agree, Lord James?”

  He laughed and tapped the back of the chair with his palm, as if it were the invisible shoulder of a companion. “She does indeed, Miss Trevelyan. She does indeed.”

  Chapter 5

  “I met a girl this evening.”

  Andrew Malvern, B.S., R.S.E., looked up as his best friend, still in black tie, walked into the laboratory that filled the entire loft of their warehouse. “You are always meeting girls. Come over here and tell me what you think of this.”

  Selwyn joined him and leveled his appraising gaze at the tempered glass chamber with its brass fittings and tubing. “Andrew. It looks exactly the same as it did yesterday when you showed it to me. And she wasn’t just any girl. She was St. Ives’s daughter.”

  “It isn’t the same.” Andrew flipped up a lever and ten pounds of coal rattled down a flume and into the chamber. “Look, from here I can control exactly how much current passes through the coal, and how much gas. I’ve been waiting all evening to show you.”

  “I was delayed by a game of poker.”

  Poker? Andrew focused on James’s twinkling eyes. “I thought you said you were going to Carrick House for supper and cards.”

  “I did. And a little baggage called Peony Churchill taught a few of us how to play. She says she learned in the American Territories but I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Peony? Not Isabel Churchill’s daughter?”

  “The very one. In Viscount St. Ives’s sacrosanct parlor, no less. Isabel, regrettably, was not there, or you could have read about the resulting fracas in the Times tomorrow.”

  “We may yet. I’ve already had a tube from Cadbury at the Royal Society of Engineers about the demonstration this evening at Whitehall. Apparently there is unrest among the good English folk who have invested their life savings in the Persia-Albion Petroleum Company. The Peers could barely get past the door to vote.”

  James snorted. “Fools. Their feeble combustion engines are too unstable, and no one can seem to make them otherwise, no matter how many exhibitions they put on at the Crystal Palace. Steam is the technology that will continue to power the world.”

  “Which is why I draw your attention to this chamber.” He handed James a pair of goggles with lenses shaded to a deep brown. “Put these on and watch.”

  Andrew put on his own goggles, then pressed two levers. The chamber began to hum. When he pulled on a third, a thin stream of green gas entered the chamber from the top, which condensed to a solid immediately on contact with the coal. The hum intensified and suddenly a brilliant flash exploded within, as though lightning had been generated from the walls of the chamber itself.

  In point of fact, it was pure electrick current. “You see? The powerful charge forces the gas into the coal, enhancing its combustion power.” Andrew allowed the chamber to power down, and reached in with a gloved hand to retrieve a piece of the supercharged coal. “Put this in a boiler, and you’ll only—”

  The piece of coal crumbled to bits.

  James peered at it, then removed the goggles to look even more closely. “Is it supposed to do that?”

  Andrew’s hand closed in a fist of frustration. Through the leather, he could feel particles of coal grinding together in his palm. “Of course it’s not supposed to do that. All my calculations indicated the gas would harden the coal, enhancing its propensity to burn longer, thus allowing the steam trains to travel further before taking on more.”

  “I’d have another go at those calculations.”

  Andrew struggled to conceal the disappointment and—yes—humiliation warring inside his belly at this ignominious conclusion to an experiment he’d been working on for weeks. “Are you laughing at me?”

  “Indeed not.” He put an arm around Andrew’s shoulders. “I haven’t your talent for figures and physics. I’m just the idea man and the financier of this enterprise. We’ll find the correct combination of elements, never fear.”

  “I know we will.” Andrew’s shoulders slumped while he regarded the recalcitrant chamber. “But time is of the essence. The world is moving quickly.”

  “I have complete faith in our ability to match its pace, Andrew. This invention will make our fortune. Every steam company and builder of trains will be on our doorstep, clamoring for a license for this process. Every railyard will have a man educated in how to operate the equipment. Why, these chambers will become so vital to the railroad industry that entire companies will be formed just to manufacture them.”

  Andrew allowed himself a moment to take in the grand vista of James’s vision. This was what he needed in a partner—a man who could see beyond the confines of a compression chamber to the horizon of a future limited only by their abilities and dreams.

  “You are right.” He removed his gloves and laid them aside, and slipped the lead-lined leather apron off. His body felt strangely light without its familiar protective weight. “Come. I will pour us each a drink and you can tell me about this girl.”

  The thick planks of the loft floor sounded hollow under their feet as they walked to Andrew’s spacious office with its single skylight, its ocular aperture filled now with a frosting of stars. He lit both lamps on the desk and rolled up a set of drawings for the compression chamber to make room for the bottle and two glasses from the sideboard.

  James poured slightly more than two fingers of Glenlivet and handed it to Andrew. “You look as though you need it, after such a disappointment.”

  The fiery liquor burned its way down with the fierceness of regret. “I will recover, and, as you say, have another go. But enough of that. I am happy your supper party was a success. Particularly since I had to talk you into it.”

  “The company of simpering schoolgirls is not usually to my taste,” James admitted. “But they are to graduate next week, and be presented the week after. I look upon it rather as a preview showing, without the tedious competition of all the other young bucks. Blatchley is family, of course, and Bryce is civil enough. Between the two of them they make one active human brain.”

  Andrew snorted with laughter and the whiskey went down sideways, causing him to cough. “Bloods, are they?” he inquired when he recovered.

  “Tiresomely so. My esteemed cousin is not even aware there is an expedition returning from the Amazon, much less who leads it. And to Bryce, an airship has less meaning passing overhead than a cloud. He views it not as the crowning achievement of human engineering, but simply as something that gets in the way.”

  “Until he wants to go to Paris.” Andrew admired the lamplight through the peat-colored lens of the whiskey. “Then he might view it differently.”

  “Not he. A coach and a ferry, I’m afraid.”

  Andrew made a face. “Poor man. Imagine living inside his skull.”

  “I cannot. Let us retu
rn to a happier topic—the ladies. Miss Peony Churchill is a pistol.”

  “I thought it was the Honorable you were interested in.”

  “Andrew, you benighted sod, there are girls you look at with an eye to marriage, and girls you look at simply with an eye. For the sheer pleasure of it.”

  Andrew frowned. “I would not say that in Mrs. Stanley Churchill’s hearing. You’ll find yourself cleft in two by one of the foreign blades they say she collects.”

  “I kept my thoughts to myself, never fear. But the baggage is a toothsome eyeful, and that’s a fact.”

  “James, your mother must be rolling in her grave. Do not say such things about a young lady of such a brilliant family.”

  “She is going to be just like her fearsome mother, I tell you. And if a lady does not want to be talked of or looked at, she should not lead such a public life.”

  Since when did a life led in the pursuit of knowledge entitle one to be sniggered at like a Whitechapel doxy? “I will not have you speak of Peony or of Mrs. Churchill that way. You know as well as I the latter is a champion of scientific inquiry, and she has the ear of the Prime Minister as well. We would be lucky to attract her notice, James. Why, a word from her could open doors throughout the ranks of better placed—and better funded—men than we.”

  James had the grace to look abashed. “You are right. I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat and poured himself another finger. “But the fact is that Miss Churchill is a most unusual girl. The Wellesley girl and that horse-faced Montrose chit paled in comparison. Looking at the two of them I was reminded of nothing more than a row of meringues, baked in pastel colors and put on display in a confectioner’s case.”

  “But the St. Ives girl? She is not a meringue? I confess I’ve not heard of her or seen her out in company.” Andrew welcomed the turn of the conversation back into more normal channels. He and James disagreed often in matters of physics or chemistry or philosophy, but not in matters of the heart.

  Come to think of it, he could not remember ever having discussed matters of the heart with him before. A strange and sensitive topic, to be sure, and one not amenable to the tromping feet of careless and inexperienced men. Surely such territory belonged to women better equipped to explore it.