Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy) (8 page)

“
Have you heard my father is planning his third adventure to Subterranea? I dare say he’ll not see snow like this for a good while. Quite toasty down there, by all accounts. Not that I envy him that, mind you—I’ve always thought it’s easier to ward off the cold than to keep cool in bloody heat. It’s all a matter of layers. You can always put more on, but there are only so many you can take off.”

He tilted his head in pensive amusement. “
I believe you have a point there, McEwan. Now if only we had unlimited layers at our disposal
here
. ”

Af
ter prolonging a freezing breath, she blinked at him. “It’s getting colder, sir.” He hadn’t noticed. “Shouldn’t you carry her back if she isn’t for coming ‘round on her own?”

“
Not yet. I’d as soon not risk it.”

“
Sir.”

Five m
inutes passed, ten, without sign of Eustace. Gusts raked the top snow up into concentrated, busy dances, while jabbing through Derek as he crouched, nursing his unconscious patient. McEwan wrapped her arms around her knees and rocked back and forth beside him as she gazed out into the endless white. Soon the gusts were a constant, icy wind, the flakes indistinguishable from the hurtful cold stream battering him from the side. His ribcage fluttered, felt weightless, and even making fists with his toes became harder and harder. He shielded his eyes to gaze through the blizzard—Eustace was not there—then glanced across to McEwan. Her nose was purple, her stray pale locks frozen stiff against her brow.

They
’d waited long enough. It was time to move.

He nudged t
he redoubtable girl, did his best to hold an easy smile. “Come on, we’re heading back.” His voice barely registered through the whistling wind.

She uncrumpled to her feet, then helped him lift Mrs. Prescott
—not necessary, but he esteemed her all the more for it. “W-what if Mr. Challender comes b-back after all and we m-miss him?”

“
Can’t be helped.” Hauling the Deputy Head onto his shoulder took far more effort than he’d guessed, and his steps through the snow did not feel secure at all. With him having to concentrate so hard on his own passage, he couldn’t afford to let his young student out of his sight. It would be dark soon, and were she to lose her way in this blizzard, in these temperatures, he might never see her alive again. “McEwan, grab my coat and don’t let go. Whatever happens.”

She stuck her gloved hand in
to his jacket pocket and gripped the lining with her fist. A tiny, comfortable fist. Hunched beside him, she resembled an Arctic refugee trudging to a new home: no whining, no despair, all seasoned practicality. He thought of the many young women his mother had introduced him to these past several years, and how interchangeable most of them had been, how insubstantial. And of those that
had
appealed to him—the spirited, independent thinkers who wore their good looks with light regard—none had been much interested in him. They thought him passably handsome, yes, intelligent, and moneyed enough to grant him an audience, but he was also as reserved as they came, taciturn even, or as he’d overheard one lady say—a wayward marchioness he’d been deeply attracted to at the time—“about as marryable as a wet cod.” The words stung anew.

But how easily he could talk to Sonja McEwan, and she to h
im. Other girls in his class had crushes on him, that much was obvious, yet none had yet dared speak to him as an equal. This young woman had pluck. She didn’t fit in; her father’s reputation had seen to that. But more than that, she was smart as a whip, easily the equal of any student, boy or girl, in the school. And looks-wise, she was blossoming into a lovely example of English womanhood.

A rare combination. If only she wer
e a couple of years older and bore a more reputable family name. If only...

Using his compass, for the
party’s tracks were completely covered, he led them directly to the coaches in a little over fifteen minutes. Eustace was not there. He had evidently lost his bearings trying to find them in the blizzard, so Wilhelmina sent up a flare rocket from the emergency supply chest. He can’t have been far away, as he returned several minutes later sporting a limp of his own, face red as beetroot. In the meantime, no one seemed to notice Sonja McEwan’s ankle had fully healed.

Nor that Mrs. Prescott, restin
g on the front seat of the first carriage, had passed away.

Her heart had given out.

“
I could’ve sworn I packed the over-ice—sworn blind. It makes no sense. I had two spare gas torches in this hamper with the soup flasks, two torches full and ready just in case, and plenty of hot strips for the copper pan.” Mrs. Challender rifled through the blankets and food baskets and under the seats in the final carriage one last time, on the verge of tears, before casting her husband and Mr. Auric a pitiful gaze. She turned her face away when she saw Sonja had seen.

Hmm, that
’s right, best not cause a panic with the others.
But even Sonja swallowed hard at the sight of one her teachers falling to pieces.

Mr. Challende
r buried his head in the bulky sleeve of his parka, resting against the brass door frame. His wife’s alarming news had the unflappable Mr. Auric worried too; he rubbed his stubbly chin several times with his glove, no doubt thinking of a way out of this. Several locomotive components in the steam engines were frozen solid, and without gas lamps to warm hot strips in the copper pan, and those hot strips to melt the ice, they had no way of freeing up the engines. In other words, they were stuck here until the engines thawed, or they had to walk out.

“
Roughly how far, if you had to guess—”

Mr. Auric
shook his head, silencing his shorter, fatter colleague. “Don’t even think it. When night falls, you’d freeze to death before you made the nearest village.”

“
May well be, may well be. But I don’t fancy leaving these girls out here all night either. See,” Mr. Challender swiped a handful of snow off the roof, “these carriages are only covered by a waterproof canopy. Hardly any insulation.”

“
Better that than foot-slogging it,” Sonja rudely cut in, not meaning to—she immediately clasped a gloved hand over her mouth and cringed at Mr. Auric’s headshake on her behalf. Damn, she
really
had to stop blurting things out like that.

“
Right, McEwan, you’ve had this coming.” Mrs. Challender slid from the carriage, marched over the snow and proceeded to whip Sonja with a tea towel. Hateful, erratic blows that either glanced off her kagool or slapped the side of her hood, making her ears sting. “Impudent little—I’ll bloody teach you not to give lip to your elders.”
Thwack!
“Giving cheek at a time like this—you just wait till I have you in my office, you rotten little terror.”
Thwack! Thwack!
“You’ll never speak out of turn again, so help me.”

After the
initial shock had sunk in, Sonja felt a little sorry for her arts and crafts teacher. The blows weren’t having their intended effect, and the poor woman’s sobs between outbursts made it clear this attack was her frustration speaking, and a pitiable frustration at that. She obviously blamed herself for the dangerous night to come.

At last she desisted, and her husband led her back in
to the supply carriage. Dorcas Henshall, Aloysius’s twin sister, who probably hated Sonja even more than her obnoxious brother did, thumbed her nose from a carriage window and then, mouth wide like a grouper’s, scrunched her sly face into a hideous sideways laugh for her friends inside.

Incensed, Sonja hurled a juicy snowball. It found the open window and hit the litt
le hellhound square in her fizzog. Sonja dove into the nearest carriage just as Dorcas spilled out of her own, wailing into the blizzard, eager to heap more trouble on her long-time enemy.

But
Mr. Auric wasn’t so gullible. “Whatever’s to do, Henshall?” He quirked an eyebrow at Sonja while he held the drama queen crying into his jacket. “If you want my advice, throw one right back—that’s the way to get even.”

“
But Mister Aur-ric—she’s
always
picking on me.” More tears from Dorcas, even less sympathy from perhaps the only teacher in the entire school who saw through her vindictive theatrics. More than that, he was the one teacher who didn’t speak down to Sonja, didn’t talk
at
her, lecture her the whole time.

He listened.

Father was never there to listen; Aunt Lily was disinterested in anything but gossip and the latest fashions; and Merry didn’t care much for science; which left Derek Auric, five years her senior and soon to be a Leviacrum fellow, as her “huggable mentor”, as she’d written in her diary last term. A corny phrase perhaps, but it was true—they got on like a house on fire in matters of science, politics, history, favourite places they’d visited, even adventure literature, though he was a devout reader of Verne, while she preferred Rider Haggard. And the more time they’d spent together after class, or in his office during lunch hour, swapping books, chatting away at everything and nothing, the greedier she’d become for his company.

No, tarrying
with him in the blizzard had definitely not been over-dramatic; she would have gladly sprained her ankle for real for that privilege.

But would he...
could he
ever consent to taking their friendship further? Beyond South Hampshire Grammar? Next semester, when he left for his new situation in the tower, they would be unbound from any teacher-pupil taboo but, when all was said and done, she would be seventeen and he twenty-one. Not an impossible age gap by any means, but how would his moneyed family react—not to mention Father and Aunt Lily, still refinding their footing in society—to such an unlikely pairing? And she was hardly Merry, a swan the boys flocked to whenever she spread her wings. No, Sonja was not feminine in that way. Not yet. Grace eluded her, as did obedience to fashions and social mores. But perhaps next season...with Lady Catarina’s instruction...

“
Now you run on back to your carriage. I’ll deal with McEwan. Here, these will help keep you and your friends warm until Mrs. Challender can see to you.” Mr. Auric handed Dorcas a couple of spare blankets, then joined Sonja in the empty carriage.

Like the segments of a br
ass caterpillar, each steamcoach pulled a train of three spherical carriages. They each had large iron wheels with spring suspension for uneven terrain, and were coupled together by rigid iron knuckles. With both coaches stranded, the girls would have to share four carriages, with two left for the supplies and the two engine cabins for the staff. But the girls had packed themselves into three carriages instead of four, probably to console each other and keep warm, leaving one free. Sonja’s heart squirreled when Mr. Auric climbed in to share the empty carriage with her.

“
What
will
the others say?” She adopted her plummiest tone.

“
About what, pray?” Not obtuse, more evasive; he planted himself on the seat opposite her and avoided eye contact while he rubbed his gloved hands together and peered through a clear streak he’d made on the misting window. “I really did underestimate the chill. You are tolerably warm, McEwan?”

“
As toast, sir. But I’ve resolved to visit the warmest place on earth for my next holiday—the northern hemisphere rather seems to have it in for me.”

He chuckled behind his vigorous glove-rubbing. “
Where did you have in mind?” Sonja shrugged. “Oh, come now, give it your best shot,” he egged her on. “Remember my lecture on mind over matter, the physiological evidence?”

Of course she did, or rather she recalled his delivery of it: loose and playful, for the first time really sta
rting to engage the class, much to the chagrin of Dr. Gavin, their senior biology teacher who also happened to be a bald, creepy mesmerist every pupil in the school was scared stiff of. It was also the day she’d tripped into Mr. Auric, purposefully of course, and gasped as he’d caught her, hands on waist, lips almost touching, and spoken her first name: “Sonja...I mean McEwan, easy does it now.”

“
How could I forget?” She smiled and coyly looked away when their glances met. “Oh very well, here’s my psychosomatic remedy for our little igloo ignominy: first...” His deep laugh only sweetened her exuberance, “... a week’s frolicking on a Bermudan beach, parasols and modesty optional, followed by the clearest, bluest, most fish-full snorkel swim in the Caribbean, probably off St. Lucia or Barbados.” Heavens, if her remedy was working on him as potently as it was her—and given the way his gaze discreetly poured over her body, perhaps conjuring her supple roundnesses beneath the winter wear, it appeared to be—Derek Auric would indeed have a distinct carnal inclination for her person right now. “And finally, a jungle trek to a paradise lagoon and waterfall where people wear scandalously little for—”

He cleared his throat. “
Yes, well, that was most vivid, McEwan. I think that’s enough thawing for now.”

Sonja groaned
, but did he even realise how suggestive his quip was? He’d never made any kind of advance upon her, and rightly not, for he was a gentleman and would never abuse his authority over her, but could such obvious feelings...sparks...heat between two people
ever
be considered wrong? She knew nothing about such things. Did he even reciprocate her affection? He was fond of her, that much was obvious, but what else? Men were infuriating things—either too obvious when you’d rather not know or too inscrutable when a little insight might reassure. This fizzy alchemy between them, almost making her lose her head altogether at the mere thought of him close to her, where did it spring from? Both of them? Or from her alone?