“I wasn’t asking.”
Lena tugged at her hand, but his iron fingers curled around her wrist, a hint of shadow darkening his pale eyes.
“Don’t tempt me, my dear. I’m trying to be courteous, but I’m afraid your beauty quite drives me…out of my mind.” A smile, then he brushed the back of one hand against her cheek.
Laughter surged through the crowd, making her jump. They were so close and yet they might as well be in the Orient for all the good they would do her.
“Have you thought any more on my offer?” he asked.
“I’m afraid I’ve been terribly occupied—”
“It’s been a month.”
Not long enough. She would never be his thrall. Lena tipped her chin up and stared him directly in the eye. “It’s been a busy month, Your Grace.”
“Colchester. I told you to call me Colchester. After all,” a smirk, “we are rather well-acquainted, are we not?”
She wanted to smash the glass bulb from her champagne flute and stab him in the eye with the stem. The thought of Colchester with his mouth on her body made her stomach twist.
Never again.
“Must I wait another month for an answer?”
“Let me go, Your Grace. This is unseemly.”
“Answer the question.”
“Lena!” Adele’s cry came out of nowhere. “There you are!”
A burst of perfume washed over them, then Adele was there, the feathers in her hair tickling Colchester’s nose. He flinched away, his face tightening with fury. Adele clapped a hand to her mouth and giggled, seemingly overcome by champagne. “Oh, Your Grace! I didn’t see you there. My apologies.”
The crowd pressed upon them. He had no choice but to let her go.
Lena tugged her hand close to her body, as if he’d done her some injury. Fingers brushed against hers and then Adele squeezed her other hand.
Colchester gave her a curt nod. “Until next time. I will demand an answer.” Then he turned and strode through the crowd.
All of a sudden Lena couldn’t breathe. Adele took one look at her face and hustled her away, into the edges of the garden.
“Here,” Adele said, snatching a glass of champagne off a service drone’s platter. “Drink this.”
“I…I can’t…” The only thing holding her upright was Adele’s hand.
A small folly appeared, shadowed from the rest of the garden party. Adele spun her around, forcing her to put her hands on the railing and lean forward. Tearing apart Lena’s buttons, she loosened the strings on her corset.
Lena collapsed forward, sucking in a lungful of air. Her body was trembling from top to toe. She didn’t know what had happened. Only that she hadn’t been able to draw breath. Still couldn’t, really.
Warmth splashed down her cheeks and she dashed at them with her gloved hands. Adele rubbed small circles on her back.
“Thank you.” She’d never have expected Adele, of all people, to come to her rescue.
Adele’s hand paused. “I just wish there’d been someone there…for me.”
Lena looked up and met her gaze, her breath shuddering through her. “I thought you went willingly with Lord Fenwick?”
“That was the rumor he put about. They all know, of course.” Adele’s lips thinned. “It’s become sport amongst the younger circles. They think taking a woman as thrall is old-fashioned. Why support her for life when you can take what you want from her then cast her aside?”
“But…that’s appalling!”
“One step removed from a blood slave.” Adele shrugged a slim shoulder. “The reason I was chasing Lord Macy is because he’s a traditionalist. He believes in protecting his thralls. If I were you, Lena, I would look to someone older. And don’t settle for anything less than a thrall contract. It’s the only protection you or I have these days.”
“Why doesn’t anybody say something?”
“Who would dare?” Adele laughed, but there was no humor in it. Her expression hardened. “And why should any of the Echelon stir a finger to help us? We’re food, Lena. The only interest they have in keeping us alive or taking us as thralls is because it’s easier for them. We’re like penned livestock.”
Anger flared. “They’re not all like that. My guardian, Leo—”
“Knows what’s going on as surely as we do. And has he said a single word about it?”
Lena opened her mouth. And said nothing. Everything she saw on Adele’s face was but an echo of how she herself felt. Trapped. Prey.
No. Not prey. She took a deep shuddering breath. Prey didn’t fight back; they didn’t find a way in which they could make a difference, and that’s what she was doing.
“Take my advice,” Adele continued. “I saw the look on Colchester’s face. You need protection. Your guardian isn’t enough—he’s not even here, is he? If I were you, I would find some old decrepit lord with enough power to stand up to Colchester and beguile him into taking you as his thrall.”
“That shouldn’t be the only option I have.”
“Unfortunately, for girls like you and me, there isn’t any choice. The sooner you open your eyes to the world you truly live in, the better. Otherwise you’re nothing but a fool—and fools don’t survive very long here.”
“What’s wrong with you this morning?”
Lena opened her eyes, her head resting against the carriage’s window. Her companion, Mrs. Wade, peered at her over the top of her crochet. There was no sign of the attack of the megrims that had plagued her last night, keeping her from Lord Macy’s ball.
Rubbing at her aching eyes, Lena sat up. “Nothing. I didn’t sleep very well last night, is all.”
“Perhaps we should return to Waverly Place.” Concern rounded Mrs. Wade’s eyes. “You could do with some more rest.”
Lena’s eyes narrowed. “Your motivations are utterly transparent.” Leaning forward, she peered through the velvet curtains of the steam carriage’s window, her fingers tapping on the box in her hand. She hadn’t dared let it out of her sight.
Mrs. Wade had the good grace to blush. She had her own feelings on what constituted as appropriate recreational pursuits for ladies. Designing clockwork toys was not one of them. “I’m simply concerned about your reputation. If anyone saw us at that shop…”
“Who would see us here? And if they did, I’m only purchasing a new clock.”
The steam carriage rattled to a halt outside Mandeville’s Clockwork Emporium. Her eye skipped over the dirty ragamuffins playing tumbler in the alleys and the coal lasses slipping through the crowd with their pails balanced on their shoulders. She’d seen all too much of it during her sojourn in the rookeries of Whitechapel, after her father’s death. Indeed, that had once been her, before Mr. Mandeville took her on as his apprentice.
Sympathy choked her. No matter the dangers of her own life at court, they were nothing to what the coal lasses risked, walking the streets unprotected. At least in society she would never be left to die bleeding in the gutters, her life worthless to the blue bloods. Her position saw to that. She was potential prey—but she was also protected prey.
The door opened and a footman appeared. “Miss.”
“Thank you, Henry.” Lena accepted his hand and stepped down onto the cobbles. Mr. Mandeville saw her coming and opened the door for her. With the curled ends of his waxed moustache, the pair of magnifying glassicals perched upon his windswept gray hair, and a distinct patchwork quality to his waistcoat, he would never be received within the great houses. Yet he was one of the finest clockmakers she’d ever seen.
And so much more.
He’d also been her savior, dragging her out of the gutters—when she’d been that bleeding, discarded coal lass—and tending her in his shop. Offering her respectable work. Then later, giving her some sense of hope when she had first begun to realize that her life at court wasn’t the safe world she’d been searching for.
She could remember only too well the day she’d returned for her cloak and overheard him discussing secrets that could get a man hanged. The shock had nearly floored her. Mr. Mandeville, a humanist? She’d kept the secret to herself for days, tossing and turning at night as questions started to gnaw at her. Excitement. Finally she’d confronted him and demanded to join the cause.
“Miss Todd,” Mr. Mandeville greeted, though he’d once called her “Lena” and threatened to rap her knuckles if she knocked over any of his clocks.
“Mr. Mandeville,” she replied, proffering the box. “You’re looking well. The summer air must be agreeing with you.”
“Is this it?” His eyes lit up as he saw the box.
A warm spark of something sinfully proud reared itself in her chest. There were very few things she’d ever been good at. “It is,” she breathed. “Oh, you should see it. It works exactly as I’d planned.”
“May I?”
At her nod, he ushered her toward the counter. The walls seemed to encroach the farther one went into the shop due to dozens of hanging, ticking clocks that loomed off the plaster. As his apprentice, Lena had grown used to the sight of them. Mrs. Wade, however, hovered near the windows, glaring at the swinging pendulums from the safe depths of her bonnet.
Mr. Mandeville placed the box on the counter and slid a glance toward Mrs. Wade. “Old Dragon-Breath is still in the dark?”
“She thinks I’ve come to see if you’ve any orders for me.” The work was steady enough to keep her occupied, though she had to do so under her brother’s name. A Charlie Todd original clockwork toy went for a rather generous price. They weren’t always for children either, though Lena took the most pleasure from those commissions.
“Hmm.” Mandeville opened the box and slid his long fingers under the foot-high clockwork. He lifted it reverently and set it on the counter. “Oh, my. Oh, Lena, this is your finest work. He’s utterly magnificent. Wherever did you come by the inspiration for such a thing? I assume it walks?”
Steel overlapping plates drew the eye, burnished to a polished gleam. The clockwork sculpture was a man, a burly figure carved from iron sheeting and seething with an interior of springs and coils. It stood on a metal plate, with a windup key at the back. Heat crept into her cheeks. The last thing she could admit was her inspiration. She’d never before dared take this image from the sheets of paper she sketched upon to work in iron sheeting. “It does more than that. Here, let me show you.”
The key grew tighter and tighter to turn. The figure trembled, his rough-hewn face jerking almost with violence. How apt, she thought, then let the key go.
For a moment nothing happened. The virile iron man quivered, and then slowly the gears started turning. The plates slid back upon each other, revealing a swift glimpse of the cogs within. Then a creature began to form, just as wild and fierce as the iron man had been.
Mandeville sucked in a breath. Lena watched his face as he tugged his magnifying glassicals up and peered closer. “My goodness, Lena! It’s incredible. Look at it transform! One moment a man, the next a wolf.”
She put her hand on his. “Wait.”
Breathlessly they both watched as the wolf slid back into the man, the clockwork gears grinding slower and slower, until finally it stopped, caught in transition, the man’s face scowling out over a hint of the wolf’s jaws.
“Well? What do you think?”
Mandeville let out his breath and cleaned his glassicals. “You truly have a gift, my dear. This is beyond compare. Beyond!” Her heart swelled, until she saw him shake his head. “However, you’ll never sell it. What on earth possessed you to create such a thing? The Echelon will have you thrown in the dungeons of the Ivory Tower!”
“Maybe a year ago,” she replied, glancing over her shoulder at Mrs. Wade. Her voice dropped. “Times are changing, Mr. Mandeville. There’s talk of the Scandinavian Empire sending an embassy to London.”
Mr. Mandeville stilled. “Where did you hear that?”
“There’s a loose grate…in the ceiling of my guardian’s study,” she admitted. “I often do some of my work in the solar above.”
A conspiratorial smile. As though her ingenuity had surprised him.
“Leo was entertaining the dukes of Malloryn and Goethe yesterday morning. It’s not common knowledge yet, but the Council is concerned.”
Mandeville leaned closer, peering at the clockwork transformational through his glassicals. His attention, however, was all upon her. “I still don’t see how this changes matters. The Echelon exterminated the Scottish verwulfen clans at Culloden. This…this piece stirs dangerous sentiments toward an ancient enemy.”