The Golden Spider (The Elemental Web Chronicles Book 1) (20 page)

Today, she’d outdone herself.

Though a brown velvet jacket covered her from neck to wrist, it cut away in front just below her shoulders. This allowed the cream ruffles of her shirtwaist to emphasize the fullness of her bosom above a striped, wasp-waisted cincher that itself served only to outline and uplift two particularly large and round feminine assets.

A few snickered. At him.

His teeth ground away a millimeter of enamel as he realized he’d just been reduced to the level of his students. He cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on her face, but that was no better. Her eyes sparkled with amusement and knowledge. She’d caught him staring at her chest and not even discreetly. From the faint curve of her full lips, he wondered if perhaps that had been her very goal.

She was going to be his undoing.

His face carefully impassive, he launched into his performance, concentrating instead upon searching the faces of his students for sudden insight and understanding of his cryptic comments‌—‌any face but hers. “And that is why Johannes Webber speculates that the constant factor of stimulus places a significant limitation on the magnitude…‌”

All his students were scratching notes, looking thoroughly confounded. Among them, only Lady Amanda sat immobile and serene. She wrote not a single word. She alone saw through him. It was unnerving.

Nevertheless, he had an hour to fill.

As he droned on, in the back of his mind, he evaluated the irrational emotions that coursed through him. It seemed women were fickle, even the bright ones. At the ball, Amanda had hidden from Sommersby. Today, she encouraged him. Yet it was Thornton she’d kissed. His laboratory that took precedence over a dinner party.

Insight struck like lightning.

He turned his gaze in Amanda’s direction, careful to prattle on. Her lips twitched. He was right. She’d purposefully encouraged Sommersby here, in his presence, her intent clearly to annoy. She dressed not for Sommersby. She dressed for him, her anatomy professor. She was toying with him.

Yet it was a husband she needed, not an illicit affair with her mentor.

Unless she intended to have first one, then the other.

That thought made him bristle. The rules clearly stated that there were to be no romantic liaisons between male professors and female students. They were not permitted to openly court. But the statute was vague about marriage.

Marriage
.

Thornton tripped over his words, losing his train of thought for a moment and stringing together unrelated words to resemble a sentence until he recalled the point he’d been about to make. Of course, he would one day be forced to wed in order to produce an heir, but his responsibilities to the Crown, the school, his laboratory were all-consuming. He had no actual desire to take a wife.

Did he?

He turned back to the board and began to sketch. “So, with regard to the tactile experience, the phenomenology of impulse resists quantification.” He spun back to the audience, jabbing a finger in the air as if he made a key point. “What if it could be linked to a specific application of pressure and electrical current?”

Amanda lifted a hand, the back of her gloveless fingers pressing against her mouth as if holding back a laugh‌—‌and he knew
she
knew he was making this all up. Did she realize she was the reason behind the words that popped to mind?

Tactile. Impulse. Pressure. Current.

For he felt all those in her presence. Even in the laboratory when he watched her nimble fingers make fine adjustments to the clockwork spider, wondering how those same fingers would feel moving over the fine hairs and nerve endings of human skin.

His skin.

He turned away. Now was not the time for such imaginings. He shoved the annoying thoughts and feelings into a corner of his mind for future examination and walled them off through sheer force of will and finished his lecture.

“A word, Lady Amanda,” he said, as the other students shuffled from the room, concern over solving the assigned electrochemistry problem clear on their faces and in their subdued voices.

She took her time gathering her things, stepping down to stand before the podium. From the intent look on her face, he thought it wise to keep the piece of furniture between them. “Yes, Lord Thornton?” She leaned forward. Ruffles shifted. He kept his gaze carefully on her face.

“Do you think it wise to abstain from laboratory work on Sundays?”

Her back stiffened. “Jealousy does not become you, Lord Thornton. You made your lack of intent clear.”

“Jealousy has nothing to do with it,” he lied. “You. Are. Needed. In the laboratory.”

She climbed up one step, then turned around, bringing her eyes level with his own. “But not desired?”

He glared at her, exasperated. There was no way to reply to such a question.

“I have very specific social requirements laid out before me by none other than my father, the Duke of Avesbury. Since it seems you report to him, perhaps you’d like to address this issue directly? You might manage to chase away Simon, but then my social obligations will only increase as someone will have to replace him.” A coy tip of the head. “So unless you know of any volunteers?”

He stayed silent. Increase? Was her father forcing her to husband hunt? That might explain the duke’s strange comment at the ball. Thornton was socially eligible for her hand. Nevertheless, he had no plans to take a wife.

“I thought not,” she said, and began to turn away.

He didn’t want her to leave. “The chemists, they say the formula is useless. That there’s no such thing as
amatiflora
.”

Like sunlight through a magnifying lens, all her attention focused on him with burning intensity. “Perhaps it is the gypsy name for the flower.”

It was his turn to shrug. “Perhaps it is a weed.”

Her lips parted on a gasp. Then closed, pursing at the perceived insult.

“Lady Emily has been asked, of course, but is able to shed no further light on the plant.”

“Then it seems we must wait until spring.”

His hands gripped the side of the podium. “We don’t have the luxury of time.”

“It’s not as if we were going to hand over the formula and the ingredients to the eye doctor.” Her voice softened, wordlessly acknowledging his personal situation. “There must be other avenues to pursue. Do your chemists have any suggestions on how to recreate the effects?”

“None,” he answered.

“Well, then. It would seem we have reached an impasse,” she said. “On many fronts.”

He crossed his arms. “So it does.”

Chapter Twenty

T
AKING TEA IN
the parlor with Mother and Olivia on Sunday afternoons was always a trial. It was especially painful today.

“I don’t want to live in Cumbria,” Olivia whined to Mother. “It’s too far from London.”

“The manor has a lovely view of the lake,” Mother replied, placidly continuing to ply her needle, forming Prince Albert’s distinctive nose. Another needlepoint portrait pillow. It was all the rage. Queen Victoria, Mother’s most recent project bolstered Ned. Amanda found it disturbing that so many familiar faces looked back at her from every available sitting surface. On the other hand, it kept Mother occupied.

“But a pencil factory?” Olivia moaned.

“Yes,” Ned quipped with a roll of his eyes. “How lowering to have that in one’s dowry.”

Pencil.

One should be in her fingers now, working equations that would further refine the neurachnid’s movements. Amanda might not be able to work in the laboratory today, but that didn’t mean the gears in her mind weren’t turning, examining and reexamining the plans they’d made to connect the gold threads to the diffuse nuclei of the brain.

Where was the promised missive from Emily containing her research notes? It had been several days. Thornton wouldn’t admit it, but she’d seen it in his eyes. The inability of the chemists, of the botanists, to identify the
amatiflora,
had punctured his hopes, not only for her project, but for his leg.

If he was using Somnic, he’d run out of alternatives. It was an effective, but harsh drug, often leaving its users worse off than when they’d started. She wished she knew how long Thornton had been reliant on the drug, how long he had until its effectiveness wore off. He might have months, or weeks, or merely days.

She stared at Ned and frowned. Time was not on his side either. He was quiet and distracted, his infrequent comments more biting than humorous. He seemed smaller somehow, as if he’d started to sink into himself. Dark circles emphasized the pallor of his skin beneath vacant eyes that would not meet hers.

Georgina’s wedding contract negotiations must be going well.

Unlike Olivia’s. Which had been under discussion for the better part of the last hour. Carlton would not agree to exchanging a larger estate in Cumbria for a smaller one in Essex. It had something to do with the Scottish border and pencils, but Amanda had long since stopped listening.

Enough.

She slid a hand behind the throw pillow and under the seat cushion, pulling free the small notebook she kept hidden for emergencies. Given her state of mind, this qualified. Careful to keep the notebook buried in the folds and ruffles of her skirt, she flipped to a blank page and began to sketch out her predictions.

From the chair beside her, Ned snickered.

“Do not mock me.” In truth, she was relieved he’d even noticed. “Tea is a form of torture. The technicalities of Olivia’s marriage are tedious, and as there are no other conversational topics to distract me…‌” She gave him a significant look.

“Sorry. I’m…‌ preoccupied.” He sighed. “What do you wish to discuss?”

She closed the notebook and lifted her tea cup. “Have you had a chance to punch that new Babbage card I requested?”

“No.” He looked away.

“Olivia,” she said, raising her voice. Time to make a point. If Ned wouldn’t help her, she would find someone else who would. “Have you made any progress with that Babbage card I asked you about?”

Her sister’s face paled. “I’m…‌ working on it,” she answered, glancing at Mother. “The technicalities are something I’ve not considered before.”

Mother’s lips pursed. “Proper young ladies don’t punch Babbage cards. They don’t program steambots, no matter how badly they desire a new and intricate hairstyle to impress their friends.” Mother looked up from her pillow to throw Amanda a pointed stare. “Please don’t make such requests of your sister. Place an order with our modiste. The stylist will punch you a card.”

“Perhaps you can help me place that order later, Olivia?”

“Of course,” her sister replied, color returning to her face now that she was certain Amanda wouldn’t boldly inquire about the peroneal nerve over tea. “We’ll discuss the details tonight.”

Mother quickly turned the discussion to the number of tiers required to hold sufficient confections at the wedding breakfast.

Ned leaned forward, speaking under his breath. “You asked
her
?”

Amanda shrugged. “
You
won’t help.”

He huffed. “I’m still contemplating the adjustments and their relevance to my situation.” An eyebrow went up.

“The muscle attachment problem has been solved,” she said, her words clipped in irritation. “The new neurachnid will be able to weave a number of nerve patterns but not without the proper Babbage cards.” It was true. Though her ability to invest significant time on Ned’s specific issues were hampered for the moment. “Remember, it
is
a complete rebuild. The theft consumed three months of effort.”

Ned looked away, a shadow falling across his face. Perhaps thinking that in another three months, Georgina would be another’s wife.

She continued, “Despite current appearances, outside of studies and…‌ certain social obligations, I am devoting every available hour to perfecting the neurachnid.”

“I’m aware of the bargain you struck with Father.” Ned rolled his eyes. “Can you do no better than Sommersby?”

She drew back as if slapped.

“What about Bloxham? Didn’t he offer for you a good two months past? If you’d only accepted, by now you’d have no social obligations. Plenty of time to devote to the neurachnid.”

“You selfish twit.” Amanda leaned forward on her chair, narrowing her eyes and lowering her voice so only he could hear and spoke words she hoped would shock him. “Yes, he offered. Because of my advanced age, he offered to keep me tied to the bedposts and well ridden until I produced his heir.”

Ned’s face flamed.

“Having only
you
in mind, I declined. With the time constraints imposed by Father, I reasoned Mr. Sommersby, a man of medicine, would be more inclined to allow me to continue my research after a wedding.”

“I didn’t…‌”

Her brother’s apology, if there was to be one, was interrupted by the arrival of RT. His wheels clattered across the floor toward her. On the flat surface of his head rested a silver salver bearing a single calling card.

Simon. At last.

“I’m afraid I must go,” she said to the room at large, rising. “Duty calls. Mr. Sommersby awaits.” She met her brother’s eyes. “I will try not to inconvenience you with too long a courtship. Or,” she glanced at Olivia, “a protracted negotiation.” With a deep breath, Amanda forced a pleasant smile onto her face before stepping from the room. She did not dislike Simon. He was…‌ adequate.