The Spiritglass Charade (2 page)

I bit my lip. “But perhaps not as hard as I should be. Instead of studying face powders and—”

“Don't feel bad.” He reached over to pat my arm. “If the greatest scientists of my time can't figure it out, I don't know how
you
could expect to in only a few weeks. But that's why this is really important to me, and why I need this thing charged.” He turned to Miss Stoker.

“I'll take good care of it. But I can't let you come with me. It's too dangerous—not only because it's in Whitechapel, but also because I have to protect my . . . um. . . .” Her cheeks turned a shade pinker.

“Your source?” Dylan supplied.

“Right. My
source
. I like that word.” Evaline smiled and held out her hand once more. “I'll protect it with my life. I promise.”

I had misgivings about Miss Stoker's ability to keep the device safe, for she's an impetuous young woman who doesn't often think before she acts. Not only that, but she had more than once given me the impression she would rather seek out danger than find a more thoughtful, logical,
safer
way to solve a problem. But I didn't see how our friend had any choice other than to entrust her with it. After all, the device would
no longer be useful to Dylan if he didn't get more electricity for it. And since the use or generation of that dangerous commodity had been criminalized by the Moseley-Haft Steam Promotion Act, such a source of energy was illicit and highly illegal.

Just as Dylan allowed the object to slide slowly into Miss Stoker's palm, the door opened once more. This time, it was the expected, elegantly garbed woman who entered.

Irene Adler is an attractive American woman of stage talent (mostly song). She is more famously known, at least to myself and my family, as the only woman to ever outsmart Uncle Sherlock. Thus, he calls her
the
woman.

To commemorate the occasion, he keeps a picture of her on his mantel—along with several other mementos of previous adventures. The photograph was the only compensation he accepted for the case, which had involved a scandal with the King of Bohemia.

Miss Adler subsequently married Godfrey Norton, at least according to what was published in the papers. However, during the time I knew her, she was always Miss Adler rather than Mrs. Norton, and she never referred to her husband. I suspected there might have been a divorce . . . or perhaps he never even existed. Regardless, for unknown reasons, the vivacious Miss Adler left the European stage (where she had quite a following) to take on the role of the Keeper of Antiquities for the Museum.

“My apologies for being late,” Miss Adler said as she swept briskly around to the seat behind the desk. Dylan had vacated the chair as soon as she appeared, and now he stood, leaning against the wall. “One of the cog-carts blew a gasket and stopped traffic in the Strand. And now we are behind schedule.”

“Do you have a new assignment for us?” Evaline asked before the poor woman had even settled into her seat. I glowered at my counterpart, but she didn't seem to notice.

“Perhaps,” Miss Adler replied, seeming not at all nonplussed by my companion's impatience. She turned her arm to check the wide-banded wrist-clock she always wore. “But we must leave immediately. It's later than I thought.” She hadn't taken a seat at the desk, but instead reached behind it to pull out a small reticule and an umbrella, then marched back around toward the door.

“Where are we going?”

“You might join us as well, Dylan.” Miss Adler slung the umbrella's curled handle over her pristinely gloved wrist and eyed him critically. “You're dressed well enough to be presented to Her Royal Highness, now that you've put on the new clothing I bought you.”

“Her Royal Highness?” A prickle of interest and excitement swept over me. “Are we going to Marlborough House?”

During our first meeting, Miss Adler confessed to Evaline and me that, although she was employed by the
Museum as prescribed, she was also using her contacts and expertise in Europe to work for Alexandra, the Princess of Wales and daughter-in-law of the Queen, on a variety of tasks related to royal and national security.

That was how Evaline and I came to be called into service for our country as well. Miss Stoker and I had been approached because of our family legacies, and because we were young women. In short, no one would ever suspect
us
of working as secret agents for the Crown. Young women, claimed Society's conventional wisdom, lacked the intelligence or the skills for anything other than marrying and raising children.

That school of thought was a delicious joke, in my opinion. After all, weren't England's two greatest monarchs—Queen Elizabeth and now Queen Victoria—women?

A faint smile curved Miss Adler's lips, but I observed weariness and shadow in her normally bright eyes. “Indeed. The Princess of Wales wishes to meet you and Miss Stoker, and I suspect she may have something else about which she wishes to speak to you. And as we have an eleven o'clock appointment, we are in danger of being late, so we must be off. One cannot keep a princess of the realm waiting.”

“No, of course not.” I rose, aware of a sense of relief and anticipation that Princess Alexandra wanted to see us.

My first (and only) assignment with Miss Stoker had been thrilling and dangerous—and it had been completed more than a month ago. When neither Evaline nor I were contacted by Miss Adler in the weeks that followed, I couldn't help but wonder whether the near-disaster that occurred during the
Affair of the Clockwork Scarab (as I'd begun to call it) had soured our royal sponsor on the concept of pressing extraordinary young women like us into service. I'd tried to ignore the crushing disappointment—the fear that I'd bungled my first assignment and would be relegated to working alone in my laboratory and poring over books day after day in my father's silent study.

Miss Stoker elbowed me as we followed Miss Adler out of the office. “All that worrying for nothing,” she muttered. “We're going to meet the princess so she can thank us herself.”

When we left the Museum, we were obliged to employ umbrellas—a not uncommon occurrence in our dreary London. However, today the dampness in the air was hardly more than a drizzle, and I could almost feel my thick chestnut-brown hair begin to tighten and kink beneath my hat like the bric-a-brac that trimmed my gloves. I patted the tight coil at the nape of my neck, hoping it wouldn't appear too disastrous by the time we arrived at Marlborough House.

I sat next to Dylan, in the carriage, and he seemed to take up quite a bit more room on the seat than I expected, for he was very close to me, and our arms brushed companionably. If it weren't for the layers of petticoat beneath my narrow skirt, surely I would have been able to feel heat from the side of his leg pressing against mine. I confess, I didn't mind his proximity in the least—although when I noticed Miss Stoker watching me with knowing eyes, that dratted flush warmed my cheeks again.

“London can be so dark and gloomy, even in the middle of the day,” Dylan observed. Despite the drizzle, he'd unlatched the carriage window and nearly had his head poking out the opening as he watched the sights. “It's like dusk all the time, with the buildings so tall and close together and it being rainy and foggy almost every day. What's that tall black one over there, with the spikes on top?”

I knew which structure had prompted his comment. “The Oligary Building. Mr. Oligary's factories are the premier manufacturers of steam-cogs and gears. He manages his business from the offices in that building. Incidentally, Miss Adler—did you hear the news about Mr. Babbage's Analytic Engine? There's to be a small exhibition in the lobby of the Oligary, displaying all of Mr. Babbage's notes and prototypes.”

“I would find that quite fascinating,” replied my mentor. “When is it to open?”

“The article in the
Times
said it opened today. Perhaps we can make a detour and stop there on our return.”

Miss Adler nodded, but once again I noted her tight, drawn expression. She appeared pale beneath her expertly applied rouge and was more subdued than usual. I wondered if she was ill or merely tired.

“That's a creepy-looking building, if you ask me,” Dylan commented. “It looks like something out of Mordor. Tall, black, and shiny.”

I was used to Dylan's references to unfamiliar places and people, as well as his odd vernacular. “I find the structure
rather interesting in appearance. It's very different from the rest of London, with our flat-faced, rectangular brick buildings lined up in a row like uneven teeth, gears and chimneys protruding from their roofs.”

Dylan turned from the window and grinned at me—an event that, I'm ashamed to admit, made my insides go soft. “And you didn't even ask me what Mordor was,” he said in a low, teasing voice. “Surely you haven't lost your sense of curiosity, Miss Holmes?”

My insides squished more. I hastily turned my attention back to the cityscape, studiously avoiding Miss Stoker's gaze.

“Of course not,” I managed to say calmly. “For if I asked what you meant every time you made a reference I didn't understand, we'd never finish a conversation. And look—there's one of the new vendor-balloons. They make it easier for the merchants to travel without clogging up the streetwalks.”

Thus distracted, Dylan gazed out the window at the neat elliptical balloon with its small cart beneath. His thick blond hair ruffled in the breeze as drizzle splattered the windowsill, and I couldn't help but admire his handsome features.

Unlike with Evaline Stoker, young men never teased me. They rarely even spoke to me, and certainly not with such familiarity and ease. Nor did I feel comfortable enough around them to do more than converse in a stilted fashion—or, worse, launch into some babbling lecture.

Despite the fact I rather enjoyed feeling Dylan's solid arm jolting against me as we traveled through the clogged
streets, I was impatient to arrive at Marlborough House and be apprised of the princess's intentions.

We finally alighted from the carriage. Once ushered into the palatial home, we were directed to the princess's private parlor. This entailed taking three steps from the threshold of the grand foyer, then stepping onto a slow-moving circular platform. When we came around to the proper direction, we stepped off the dais and onto one of three moving walkways that led to different wings of the palace. A page stood at the junction of each walkway and the circular platform, offering the assistance of a gloved hand to make the transition easier for each visitor.

The boy who handed our group off onto the walkway was wearing yellow livery, down to his gloves and shoes. Through simple observation, I noticed the young man had a fondness for caramels, had recently had his hair cut, and was left-handed.

“Notice,” I murmured to Dylan as the walkway rumbled along beneath our feet, “the pages here are dressed in yellow because they attend Prince Bertie and Princess Alexandra. The personal servants of the Queen always wear red, white, and blue.”

“Queen Victoria.” Dylan's tones weren't quite as circumspect as mine had been, but such wonder blazed in his eyes I didn't have the heart to admonish him for it. “The
real
Queen Victoria. Do you think there's any chance we might actually see her?”

“Not here. She is currently in residence at Buckingham Palace, and I can think of few reasons for her to come here. She is a grand lady, and very imposing, as one would expect. But she hardly ever leaves the palace anymore.”

“And . . . uh . . . who exactly is Princess Alexandra?” Dylan asked, this time in a more subdued voice.

“She is the Princess of Wales and her father is the King of Denmark. She's married to the Queen's son, Prince Albert Edward, informally known as Prince Bertie. Everyone loves Bertie and Alix, as she's often called. They're much more popular than the Queen—the princess especially.”

The end of the moving walkway approached, and I took Dylan's arm (for he hardly ever remembered to offer it, claiming that simple courtesy was hardly ever done in 2016) as we stepped off. A yellow-gloved page was there to assist on this end of the journey as well.

A tall set of double doors confronted us. The page pulled an ornate copper lever and the entrance parted like a theater curtain, revealing a surprisingly small and cozy parlor. Because of the dampness and the princess's propensity for taking chill, a small fire burned at the hearth.

Surprisingly—or perhaps not, due to the nature of our visit—there was only one occupant in the chamber. Her Royal Highness was sitting on a dark red settee with thick velvet cushions. Its brass frame was fashioned like a tree trunk, with elegant branches arching into sidearms on either end. A mechanical bird perched on one gleaming branch, singing softly.

Princess Alexandra was forty-five years of age—making her at least a decade older than Miss Adler—and still a slender, extremely handsome woman. She had dark hair swept into a complicated mass of braids and coils, leaving a fringe of tight dark curls just above her brows. Her almond-shaped eyes were dark and lively, framed by thick lashes. She wore a bodice with a high, lacy neck meant, I knew, to hide a small scar from her childhood. Leaning against the settee within easy reach was a gold-knobbed walking stick encrusted with emeralds and topazes. I observed the princess had recently had her fingernails buffed and used a hair dye to keep her tresses ink-black.

“Irene.” She gestured for us to approach. Her voice was warm and melodious, and she seemed much less stilted than her mother-in-law, to whom I'd been presented several times due to my father's work. “Come in and introduce me to these most amazing young ladies. And this handsome young man.”

“I apologize for being tardy,” said Miss Adler with a curtsy. She spoke a trifle louder and slower than usual due to the princess's partial deafness. “But you know how London traffic is.”