Courting Trouble (6 page)

Chapter Seven

“Lizards’ guts!” It was the worst curse Esme allowed herself, and it didn’t seem nearly enough to express her disgust. Deciphered, the notes were the outpourings of a mean, vindictive spirit with an overinflated ego and sense of entitlement. “Jed, these read like a toddler’s tantrum. All ‘Waaaah, look at me,’ and not caring whom they hurt when they kick and bite and throw things.”

He looked up from his own work, rolling his shoulders. “True, but toddlers don’t have a device capable of killing people. Have you come to the part where they want to present Kali’s Scream to the Prince of Wales?”

“Yes.” She frowned and rubbed her chin with the heel of her hand, then leaned on it, elbow on desk. “The problem is, they skirt around outright discussion of an assassination attempt. Nazim’s claim to use the device for the deaf and dedicate it to the prince could be argued from the notes. They’re vague enough.”

“The vitriol isn’t vague.”

She sighed and smiled wryly. “I’ve heard it before. You’d have heard it, too, if you’d attended the socialist meeting with me at the Rootail Pub. I have any number of such radical tracts from various revolutionaries. A lot of people want to change the world. Some, like the anarchists, don’t care what or whom they destroy in doing so.”

“Pernicious claptrap.”

“No, it’s not. Not all of it. Reverend Sherbrooke suggested I join the Fabian Society. He’s a member. I’ve been reading the essays of George Bernard Shaw, among others, and they do seem to care about the same issues I consider important, things like social welfare for everyone and improvements in education. Plus the common sense of their approach appeals to me. They’re not hotheads shouting for revolution. They’re not promising a Utopia. They’re simply looking for steady progress. You wouldn’t think that would be so much to ask.”

Jed cleared his throat. “Getting back to the notes…”

“I agree we shouldn’t trust Nazim, as Lajli calls him. We definitely shouldn’t return the blueprints for Kali’s Scream to him. But there’s not enough in the notes to take them to the authorities. You were right. We need to know if Kali’s Scream works.” She peered across the desk at his jottings and sketches. “Does it?”

“I need to build a prototype—”

“Different question.” She held up one finger. She’d been an inventor’s daughter long enough to know what to ask. “Do the principles underpinning the sonic amplifier make it feasible?”

“Initially, I thought not, but looking into it, I realize I haven’t kept up with the latest research. I believe that, in principle, the device might work.”

“Darn. I’ve heard tales of opera singers shattering glass with their voices, but I thought they were just that. Tales.”

Jed leaned back in his chair. “Sound is powerful. We’re only just beginning to understand its possibilities and those of electricity. Think of the telegraph and how it connects the world.”

She got up to pace. “Do you know the first message sent on the telegraph? ‘What hath God wrought?’ But this device, Kali’s Scream…it’s more like the devil’s work.”

“Don’t blame the devil. Understanding the science of sound is neutral, it’s how we use that knowledge. First we had the telegraph, then the telephone, now Marconi and others are talking about sending electricity waves through the air, not just along a line. Their research and inventions are bringing us all closer. Imagine the miracle of talking to your father in his mining camp without any telegraph or telephone wires.”

“I’d like that, but…”

He caught her hand as she walked past and drew her to a stop. “With Kali’s Scream, there is one ray of hope that I’d like to explore. I think the notes exaggerate the effect of the device.”

“Really?” She looked down at him. It was an unusual angle. Courtesy dictated the man remain standing till a lady sat down. She felt an urge to muss Jed’s dark brown hair, and then, with her hand in his hair, to tilt his head back. She’d lean over him, take his mouth, initiate the kiss they’d been denied.

She blushed at her thoughts. For all her radical ideas of female suffrage, she’d always been intensely proper in her dealings with men—but now she felt wanton. Even her breasts, so decorously covered in sensible undergarments, tingled at the thought of leaning over Jed.

His thumb caressed her wrist, a discreet intimacy unseen by anyone passing by the open door. He watched her eyes, her mouth.

She wondered if he could feel her pulse thudding. It was as if they were having two conversations, one for public consumption and the other…the other promising everything.

“Inventor’s optimism,” he said. “In his enthusiasm, he overestimated the power of the device. I’ve looked up the latest research on sound waves. Audonics is still a science in its infancy, but nothing I’ve come across in the transmission or amplification of sound waves, or in the use of crystals, suggests the sort of destructive power the notes talk about, unless the emerald needed to power it is the size of a man’s fist—and that would be hard to come by.”

“Would a different sort of crystal work?”

He guided her hand to his shoulder, released it and glanced down at the blueprints and open journals. “Not according to the inventor of Kali’s Scream, nor is there anything elsewhere to suggest the possibility. But it’s one of the things I must test with the prototype.”

She curved her hand around the top of his shoulder, aware of his power, the strength of muscle and bone. Equally powerful was the intensity of his conviction. Kali’s Scream had to be understood if they were to limit its destructive potential. “Time is short.” Three months, when it came to building and testing an invention, was the blink of an eye. Plus, they had to allow time to inform the authorities—and convince them—if the threat of the sonic destroyer proved credible.

“I can do it,” Jed said.

She squeezed his shoulder in a gesture of belief. “But not in that shed you call a workshop. I know it’s convenient, but it’s not secure. You don’t need to open a door to get into it. You could just jimmy off one of the sheets of tin that form the walls.”

“I’ll rent something more secure.”

“No need. Father built a workroom into this house. It couldn’t be safer. It’s an extension of the cellar. I’ll show you.” When he didn’t move from the chair, she tugged at his collar, then smoothed it. “Using it won’t put me in danger. Look at it another way. With Lajli staying here, this way you’d be here to protect us both. Father has a speaking tube connected to the workroom.”

“What on earth for?”

She grinned. “To alert the staff to strange noises and smells. There was an incident with a clockwork ditch-digger malfunctioning. One of the maids quit, wailing about ghosts. Father also uses the speaking tube to request a snack from the kitchen.”

He swiveled his chair so she stood between his knees.

The intimacy tightened her stomach muscles and sent heat through her veins. Through her bloomers, she felt the bump of his knees. If she were to advance half a step, she’d stand between his powerful thighs. “If you’re worried about the proprieties, Uncle Henry will be home any day now, and until then, you can quietly sneak into the cellar.”

“Sneak?” His eyes were level with her breasts, chastely hidden though they were beneath her tweed cycling jacket.

He couldn’t possibly know how they’d swelled, how they ached. It was improper, but she wanted to touch them to ease away the tension.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered, and raised his hand to brush with agonizing lightness over her jacket.

Her eyes shut on a shuddering breath of pleasure. Francis’s voice, raised in the hall, cut through the moment of glory. She took a step back.

Jed sighed and clenched his hand. “I can’t accept your hospitality. There’s something I need to tell you. To confess, really. There isn’t really any excuse for the story I told you this morning. I can only say that you turn my world upside down. I’m not complaining about it. I lo—like you.”

“Is that your confession?” She smiled, still breathless.

“No.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “The truth is, when I read Lajli’s stolen blueprints and notes, I didn’t believe any of it. Not one single bit.”

“Well, that’s understandable,” she said briskly. “It’s not every day one encounters an assassination plot. Even now we don’t know if it’s credible. You at least suspected enough that you sought out Lajli and Gupta for the full story.” She stumbled to a halt at his outflung hand.

“I didn’t go to Bombaytown to hunt up Lajli and Gupta because I was worried about the blueprints. It wasn’t the blueprints that caused me a sleepless night.” He drew a resolute breath. “Last night I thought the notes and blueprints were nothing more than hysterical garbage. I planned to use them to lure you into talking to me again. You said I didn’t trust you and respect your independence. I thought that involving you in countering a fake assassination plot would show you that I did have the courage to let you take stupid risks.”

She plopped down in the nearest chair. “Incredible.”

“It was late at night. My thinking was less than efficient. I was emotional.”

“Emotional. You were crazy.”

He winced.

“And insulting.” She jumped up from the chair and began to pace. “Ooh. I don’t what infuriates me more. You lied to me. You recognized my need to be trusted as an equal, but faked up a plot to entertain me. Then—let me get this clear—as soon as you suspected that the plot might actually have some substance to it, you tried to shuffle me off.”

Her anger faded into hurt and something very like despair as she realized the extent of Jed’s betrayal. First he’d thought to amuse her as if she were a child, and then, when danger threatened, to keep her safely ignorant…as if she couldn’t protect herself.

“Esme, it wasn’t one of my finer moments, but I was desperate. You want to be acknowledged as any man’s equal, but you’re equating reckless independence with equality. I can respect you as my equal without standing aside and letting you get hurt.”

“It doesn’t feel like respect when you lie to me. I thought my Indian friends, good people like Ayesha, were in danger. No!” She retreated one step, two, from his outstretched hand. Pain flashed across his face, but her own hurt was too raw. She fumbled for the handle of the library door and stepped through it. “I can’t talk to you now. I can’t think. You lied to me.”

She closed the door behind her, closed it on the ashes of hopes and dreams.

Chapter Eight

Esme walked quickly upstairs, keeping her face averted from the maids dusting in the hall. Who knew what they would read on it else?

She was in ignominious retreat.

Her heart pounded heavily, though not from the swift ascent. She pressed a hand to her chest and breathed deeply. Jed had lied to her, had planned to deceive her. How could she have so misread his character? The beautiful scene in the library, her admission to herself that she needed him, the near-kiss, it was all ruined.

Shameful tears threatened and she pressed her lips firmly together, fighting them back. Bad enough she’d run. She would not indulge in the feminine trick of tears in her bedchamber.

She sniffed and stared around the first floor, seeking a diversion. She couldn’t think of Jed, not yet. Her emotions were too unsteady.

Think, woman, think. Having made a fool of yourself running away upstairs, there must be an excuse you can use to cover it. Even a thin excuse will do.

Lajli! Not such a thin excuse. Esme checked her watch. She’d left Lajli to her own devices for three hours. The girl couldn’t have spent that long in the bath. She’d have turned into a prune.

Esme sniffed a final time, restored her handkerchief to a pocket of her bloomers and knocked at the guest-room door. “Lajli?” There was no answer, but the door was slightly ajar. “Lajli? I hope you haven’t been too bored.” She pushed the door wide and stepped in.

The bathroom door stood open, showing an empty room. A discarded towel and a strong scent of lemon-blossom soap showed Lajli had indulged in its luxurious fittings. But where was the girl now?

Perhaps wandering through the house. Esme racked her brains for the thieves’ cant she’d read in popular novels. Lajli might be “casing the joint.”

So what if she is?
Esme leaned a shoulder against the wall and contemplated the toes of her boots. What did a few missing knickknacks matter, compared to Jed lying to her? She shivered and hugged her arms.

Hoo-whooo.

She glanced up at the howl of the wind. The lace curtains at the French windows billowed wildly. They provided an everyday reason for feeling cold. She needn’t dramatize her emotions, imagining a chill at her heart. Maud had been saying there would be a storm. She swore her arthritic big toe told her such things.

Esme crossed to the windows, closed and latched them, looking away from the trees bending in the wind. Usually she enjoyed the wild storms that blew in off the Indian Ocean. Their untamed energy called to her adventurous spirit.

Jed had similarly prepared his scheme to appeal to her spirit of adventure. He’d known she wouldn’t be able to resist joining him in foiling an assassination attempt. How ironic that his make-believe might yet be true.

She frowned and straightened the chair set askew at the narrow writing desk in the corner. It looked as if someone had jumped up at an interruption.

Miss Esme Smith.
The note sat in the middle of the desk, folded in half and secured by a heavy glass paperweight.

A sense of dread welled up in her, pushing back her hurt at Jed’s betrayal. Lajli didn’t seem the sort of girl to leave notes—or to leave a house of luxury. But she was the girl who had stolen and knew the current whereabouts of Prasad-Nazim’s dubious papers.

Could he be the sort of villain who would terrorize a young woman? Lajli had exhibited very real fear on encountering Nazim in Bombaytown, shrinking back until Jed’s presence reassured her.

Jed. What would he say when he learned she’d lost Lajli?

Keeping Lajli safe was her self-chosen duty. She’d notified the servants not to admit strangers and sent for Owens’s large crossbreed dog. But really she had naively trusted in the sanctuary of her home. There was no excuse for that. She’d been raised on mining claims. She knew about guarding property against desperate, conscienceless ruffians. If Lajli hadn’t left the house voluntarily, if she’d been kidnapped—

Esme sank onto the chair and unfolded the note.
Dear Miss Smith,
the letter began very properly. The handwriting was anonymous in its schoolroom copperplate perfection. It could have been the writing of someone who seldom put pen to paper and so hadn’t developed their own unique style, but it could also hide identity.

Thank you for the invitation to stay in your home. It is a lovely home. But I am a thief, not a caged songbird. Do not worry. I shall be clever. Nazim will believe I am hiding with you—and I will be hiding, but it is better you do not know where. I trust you and Mr. Reeve to foil the plans of the evil man. You will see me again when it is safe.

Yours sincerely,

Lajli Joshi

“Albatross droppings!” The curse was her uncle’s, the vehemence all her own. Esme frowned fiercely and reread the letter.

The letter told her nothing. Had Lajli truly run away, fretting as Esme fretted against restrictions, or was this a bluff? Had someone kidnapped the girl?

Esme deeply regretted that Owens’s hound hadn’t yet arrived. The huge dog of mixed parentage wouldn’t have let any strangers slip in—which was more than she could say of the staff. People in Swan River just weren’t accustomed to locking their houses.

She tapped the note against the desk. Her thoughts circled in their same groove.

On one hand, it was likely that Lajli, a self-proclaimed thief, might chafe at even voluntary imprisonment, but she’d seemed truly frightened of Nazim. Would she risk capture by him?

On the other hand, what would anyone gain by hiding the fact they’d kidnapped Lajli?

Inside knowledge of what Jed planned and the element of surprise.

“Tarnation.” She refolded the note and hurried downstairs.

Gupta was just coming in the front door, a heavy trunk balanced on one narrow shoulder. “M-Miss Esme, I am s-sorry it has taken me so long—”

“Never mind that.” She looked at Francis, who was holding the door open in long-suffering fashion. “Have you seen Lajli?”

If the girl had simply slipped away…

“Not since she went up them stairs, wittering about taking a bath. A bath in the middle of the day.” He snorted.

“Francis, can you please ask Andrew to carry the trunk up to the guest room?” Esme drew a resolute breath as Francis shuffled off to command the gardener’s lad. “Gupta, we have a small problem. Will you come into the library, please?”

He placed the trunk down by the front door and followed obediently.

“Jed?” she called.

But Jed was gone. Only his empty coffee cup remained on the desk. He’d gathered up the blueprints and notes and left.

Her stomach hollowed out. It felt the way it did out at sea when the boat rode the high waves, rising up only to crash down. The ground seemed to rock a little beneath her feet. She was angry with him, but she’d expected him to be there.

“M-miss Esme?” Gupta reclaimed her attention. “My cousin.”

“Read this. Is it Lajli’s writing?”

His forehead wrinkled miserably as he scanned the note. “I d-do not know. I have never seen her writing. B-but the discourtesy, to slip away like a thief, that is like my cousin. I am s-so sorry, Miss Esme.”

“It’s not your fault.” She patted his shoulder absently. “In fact, I would be pleased to learn this is just some mad start of hers. Unfortunately, it’s equally possible Lajli has been kidnapped—and after my claim I would protect her. Of course, I will start looking for her immediately. I will question the servants.”

“B-but you can’t.”

“Why not? I must.”

“I think my cousin has run away. It is like her. She t-takes advantage of you. While Nazim believes she is s-safe here, she is free to move around without him chasing her. But if you start looking for her…”

“Then he knows she is roaming around unprotected, and he’ll start looking for her, too. You are right, Gupta. I’m not thinking clearly.”

“It is Lajli’s fault. She causes trouble everywhere.”

Esme accepted the note back from him. “If she has been kidnapped, it’s hardly her fault. But she is your cousin. You know her best. If she has run away, do you think she has a plan?”

“L-Lajli always has a plan.”

“Hmm. I’ll ask the servants not to discuss her presence—or absence.”
And hope that since I haven’t made a fuss about Lajli, they won’t be tempted to discuss her in tea gossip and pub talk.

“And we m-must tell Mr. Reeve.”

She frowned. “I don’t know where he is.”

“He will be in his workshop,” Gupta said confidently. “Looking at the blueprints.”

“You’re very probably right.”

The shrill trill of the telephone was nearly drowned out by the thunder of running feet. “Miss Esme, Miss Esme.” Voices, treble, baritone and female, called to her, panic threading through them.

“What’s going on?” She met her staff in the library doorway.

“It’s Mr. Reeve.” Andrew, the gardener’s lad, got the message out first. “His workshop just exploded.”