The Escapement of Blackledge: a novella (2 page)

Well… Papa Fred always said that if something went wrong on stage and you could not fix it, then you should feature it. She could not fix the fact that she was a thief in the Duke of Blackledge’s private laboratory but… maybe she could feature it. It was his coming-of-age party after all.

Swallowing, Helena reached up and pulled off the black kerchief that held her hair in place. Her golden ringlets were a benefit when she was at the circus but normally made her too visible for thieving. She untied the black cravat that held the neck of her shirt closed and slid the collar open to display her neck. After a moment of thought, she shoved both into the top of her short stays to make her “shelf” more prominent.

This was madness. Helena peeled off her remaining glove and unfolded herself, slowly and seductively. It was a wasted effort. The Duke stood with his back to her, scanning the wall nearest the door. She looked up at the skylight and weighed her options.

With his back to her, the Duke wouldn’t see her while she got on the large library table under the skylight. While she could reach it easily enough, launching herself from the table would make noise and he would see her dangling there. Helena chewed her lower lip. So… the skylight was a way out but, then they would lock it up and be on guard. If she had a chance of getting her hands on the mechanical arm tonight, she should take it.

Helena tiptoed around the chair and slowly sank into its plush embrace. She arranged herself gracefully there, making sure her bosom was well represented in the pose. Then she cleared her throat.

Spinning so quickly that the candles nearly guttered out, the Duke stared at her. His eyes were as wide as if he’d never seen a woman, as if he hadn’t been downstairs dancing with the cream of London society.

Helena smiled at him and lowered her voice. “Looking for me?”

“I… You… You aren’t supposed to be in here.” He took a step closer and then he stopped.

“Neither are you. But here we are.” She swung her legs off the chair and for a moment she thought he was going to step back again. “I believe it is your birthday.”

“How did you get in?”

“Shall we just say that you have friends who wish to make you happy.” Helena walked toward him, letting her hips sway. The trousers she wore were less revealing than her acrobatics costume and yet she felt infinitely more exposed simply by being alone in the room with a handsome man. And he was strikingly attractive. The candlelight caught in his auburn hair as if it lived there. Shadows caught under his chin and outlined the firm line of his jaw. More charming than any of that, though, was the bewilderment that in his vivid blue eyes.

“George?” His voice cracked.

“Mmm…” She would have to remember that name. Helena sauntered over to the work bench. “Now…what shall we do with all these tools?”

As though she had dropped a curtain over his expression, his manner changed in an instant. “Touch nothing!”

Helena stumbled back as he lunged forward to thrust an arm between her and the bench. His banyan robe fell open to reveal a black coat and well-fit trousers. The Duke set down the candelabra on the workbench and his hand trembled as he released it.

Holding up her hands, Helena gave a little smile. “I won’t. Honest. Not unless you ask me to.”

“What are you even doing in here?”

“It is your birthday, is it not?”

He stared at her with his mouth slightly agape. The light of the candelabra caressed his strong chin and brought out the highlights in his ruddy hair. The Duke shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am afraid, madam, that one of my friends is pranking me. I do not require your services.”

At his weary tone, Helena raised her brows. She had not expected him to turn down her apparent advances. Noblemen never did.

And he was here, rather than at his party, which meant that perhaps he was less interested in dancing than in his toys. She could work with that. She glanced over at the work bench. The mechanical grasping arm that she needed was in a cubby just behind the Duke. “Now, now, my lord. You are making certain assumptions about my…services.” Helena ran her finger along the workbench and took a step closer to him. “Do you truly think your friends know so little of you that they would send someone who did not know the difference between an escapement and a watch cock?”

He swallowed audibly and stepped back a little. “I— That is to say…”

“Please be assured that I know how to tighten a regulating nut.” She kept her gaze on his, though his blue eyes darted around the room as if he were the one trapped and not she. Helena took another step forward.

The Duke shifted his weight back, pulling at the folds of his cravat. He cleared his throat. “Um.”

“Shall I demonstrate that I know how to balance your pendulum rod?” Just a little farther and she would be able to snatch it and go. If he saw her steal it, it was of little matter. He rarely left the house and the chances of him attending the circus and seeing her there were laughably small. Even if he attended, he had yet to make eye contact with her for more than a few moments. Helena took another step forward. “Or would you rather that I handle your spanner?”

Coughing, he stumbled against his work stool. With his balance off, Helena leapt. Pushing the Duke with one hand, she snatched the mechanical arm with the other. She pirouetted to face the window and tucked the arm close to her body.

“No!” The Duke’s hand closed on her shoulder, checking her flight.

Helena tried to wriggle free, but he spun her back to face him and grabbed the wrist that held the mechanical arm. Her heart thundered in her chest. She tried to twist free as Mama Agnes had taught her but his grip was stronger than she would have expected from a nobleman. His callused fingers dug into her wrist. It hurt no more than a catch from a trapeze, but it startled her enough that she gave a soft cry. “Ah!”

“Sorry—” His grip loosened not at all. His other hand released Helena’s shoulder and took hold of the mechanical arm. “This is delicate.”

“So am I.”

“I rather doubt that.” For a moment he met her gaze, and almost smiled.

“Let me go.”

“No.”

She had only one card left to play and he
was
very handsome. Helena leaned forward, rising onto her toes, and kissed him. His lips were warm and soft. His mouth opened slightly, giving a honeyed hint of port.

And the grip on her wrist loosened.

Helena jerked free. She pulled on the mechanical arm, but his grip there remained fast. She let go and vaulted away from him, jumping to the top of the table. Bending her knees, Helena fixed her sights on the skylight. She flung herself upward to catch the lip of the window. Swinging like a pendulum, she flipped up and over the edge onto the roof.

Below her, the Duke of Blackledge stared up, mouth still hanging open. His vivid blue eyes were wide with astonishment and his cheeks were flushed red. He looked rather like a boy who had received his first kiss, unlikely though that was.

Helena brought her fingers to her lips and blew the duke a kiss. He blinked and the flush burned brighter. Was it possible that he had never been kissed?

Not that it mattered. She pushed away from the skylight, and ran across the tiles to the rooftop path that would lead her across London towards the circus. She did not relish explaining to Mama Agnes why she didn’t have the tool she had come for.

CHAPTER THREE

Through the Skylight

Weatherby stared at the skylight where the young woman had disappeared. He should sound the alarm. He should really sound the alarm. Without remembering how he got there, Weatherby found himself sitting in one of the leather chairs, still staring at the skylight. He held the mechanical arm in one hand.

He had truly not expected his first kiss to occur under these circumstances.

As the son of a Duke, he had been instructed in his duties and obligations. His father, God rest his soul, had impressed upon him that the young women in service in their household could not decline his advances. In other young men, this might have led to a cocksure sensibility. Weatherby, on the other hand, became very cautious lest he trespass without intent.

Might he have accompanied George to one of the houses of ill-repute his friends frequented? Of course. Yet, if a maid in their household could not decline him, how could he trust to the affections of woman that he had paid.

But she—
she
had kissed him. His lips still tingled from her soft, insistent touch. Truly, he should sound the alarm.

And then her departure through the skylight, as if she were some creature made of air. Only he had touched her and knew her to be as solid as he was. His chest still felt the imprint of her hand and the surprising strength as she had pushed him back. What had she wanted with the arm? For there could be no mistaking the fact that she had come for that, and not by way of any of his friends.

Weatherby lowered his gaze from the skylight to the mechanical arm. It was a deceptively simple affair, with most of the inner workings hidden behind brass doors and cushioned with a layer of dark kid leather. He had built it for his father, after the first of his strokes, to allow him to pick things up with his weakened arm.

He slid the mechanical sleeve over his own arm, adjusting the leather straps that held it into place. Everything still seemed in good working order. The coiled springs and gears matched his movement and gave additional strength to his limb. Weatherby rotated his wrist to activate the extensor and the hand extended out, opening and closing in mimicry of his own movements. Another twist and it snapped back into place.

Why had the girl wanted it? It had been difficult for his father to bend over, so the mechanical sleeve's extensor solved that. Clearly, the girl had not needed any such aid.

Weatherby stood and walked to the library table that rested under the skylight. Were it not for the block of wood that still propped the window open he might have thought he dreamed the entire encounter. He clambered onto the table with nothing like the elegance the girl had displayed. Tilting his head back, he studied the skylight again.

Good lord. How had she reached it? Weatherby measured the distance and jumped. His fingers did not even brush the edge of the frame.

"How the devil...?" She was a good head shorter than he was. Gritting his teeth, Weatherby jumped again, this time twisting his wrist to extend the hand. It latched hold of the skylight frame and he was able to pull himself up to dangle from both arms.

The door to his laboratory opened.

"Pardon sir." Bartlett stood in the doorway, with Weatherby's mother just behind him. "Your mother was quite insistent."

By which he meant that either she threatened to have him sacked or she threatened to faint, or both. Weatherby sighed and dropped back to the library table. "Good evening, Mother."

"What is the meaning of this?" She did not come into his laboratory, and for that he was grateful to his father's memory. But she stood on the threshold and brandished her fan at him. "You are embarrassing me in front of Lady Jersey. What will people think? I ask you? What will people think when they find that the Duke of Blackledge is a madman, dangling from the ceiling in his pajamas!"

Weatherby hopped down from the table. "I should not think it a concern."

"Oh! Of course you would not. You never think the regard of our neighbors is ever a concern, and yet, I tell you it very much is." She gestured with her fan toward the door. "Right now. Right this very instant! Miss Penelope Penbroke is without a partner."

Weatherby walked to his workbench, loosening the straps of the mechanical sleeve. "I am certain that there are other eligible young men who--"

"But *you* promised to dance with her!"

He paused, with a buckle half-undone and turned to his mother with his brows raised. "I did?"

"Well... That is to say, I promised on your behalf because you are so provoking as to vanish. And really, Weatherby. Today of all days!"

He pulled the sleeve off and restored it to its cubbyhole. As he withdrew his hands, he paused. The mystery woman's black kid glove still lay on the workbench. He picked it up, running his fingers over the soft leather. He must be imagining that warmth lingered in it.

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Hm?" Weatherby tucked the glove into the breast pocket of his evening coat and turned to his mother. "Of course, Mother. I shall go downstairs posthaste and dance with all the young Misses you have promised me to. Only do be a dear and tell me which you have picked out for me to wed."

"Oh! Do not be vulgar."

He gave her a smile and shrugged the banyan coat off. "There, see? I am still in my evening clothes. I have missed one dance and--"

"And everyone noticed!"

"Yes. Well." He ran his hands over the lapels of his coat to settle them, and felt the slight pressure of the glove in his breast pocket. He would wager that not a single young woman his mother presented him to would know what an escapement was.