When She Said I Do (35 page)

“This is your evening, Callie. You worked so hard. I simply don’t wish you to be disappointed.”

The worry in his voice made her want to melt into him.
Please fix it for me. Make it better.

She loved that he would truly try, if she asked him to. Unfortunately, management of the Worthingtons was not for beginners.

So she patted him briskly on the shoulder and smiled up at him. “Everything will be fine!”

He looked as doubtful as she felt, but he nodded. She slipped from his hold with a squeeze of his gloved hand and went to meet the twins as they wheeled the creaking cart across the ballroom to the large inlaid star in the center of the marble floor.

There was no point in playing nice with the twins. She crossed her arms and tapped her toe. “What is that?”

“That, dear sister—”

“is what was formerly known—”

“as the Blasted Contraption!”

The twins had been working on one version or another of the Blasted Contraption since they were fourteen. Attie was sometimes drawn into—and drew on—the creation, as did Iris. All the Worthingtons had contributed over the years. The thing was very nearly a member of the family.

However, it had long been a policy of Callie’s to distrust any and all statements from the combined mouths of Cas and Poll. She gazed at the canvas-covered lump with suspicion. “If that’s the Blasted Contraption, then where are the articulated tentacles? And what of the spire made of silver hair combs that was supposed to vibrate to the music of the spheres? If you’ve finally dismantled that bit, I’ll be wanting mine back.”

“Oh!” Elektra’s hand went up. “Mine, as well!”

The twins beamed paternally at them. “All in good time—”

“All in good time!”

Elektra crossed her arms. “You’ve sold them, haven’t you?”

Callie, though she also dearly wished to know the answer to that, waved her sister silent. “You still haven’t told me what it is doing here.” She glanced around at her guests, now milling in a loose circle, heads bent together as they doubtless discussed the very strangeness of all things Worthington. Callie sighed inwardly. All her hard work to be accepted, now to be at the mercy of her collected oddity of a family.

Someone snickered in the crowd. Callie whirled to see, scowling. She might whinge away in her own head about her strange relations, but no one in Amberdell would get away with a single snide comment about her loved ones!

However, most of the guests seemed intrigued and happily anticipatory. That was nice … or, it would be if Cas and Poll had ever invented anything that actually worked—well, other than their marvelous talent for explosives.

Then Orion stepped up. “The articulated tentacles did not support the new theme. The receptor made of combs was simply ludicrous. I made them take it down when I revamped their design.”

Callie blinked. If Orion had lent a hand to the twins, then the object “formerly known as the Blasted Contraption” might truly have a chance of operating!

She blinked at her scholarly brother. “But…” She tried but she simply couldn’t keep the helpless note out of her voice. “What
is
it?”

Mama wafted past on Archie’s arm. “A celebration, of course! We’re all been slaving over it for days. It is a Grand and Eloquent Expression!” She drifted on, tilting vaguely in the direction of Mr. Button’s array of nibblements.

Callie gazed at her blissful mother with fond vexation. Honestly, sometimes Mama made her spine weaken! She rubbed at her temples. “Orion, are you planning to explode my ball?”

Orion blinked seriously at her through his spectacles. “No. Any impending destruction will be entirely unplanned.”

There was some comfort to be had in the fact that Orion never lied. He would never bother to shade the truth to make one feel better. He simply didn’t see the point in feelings.

Callie turned to find the single voice of reason. “Dade?”

Her eldest brother stepped forward. “I’m sorry, Callie. When I received the invitation, I meant to come alone, but—” He waved a hand helplessly. “The family is getting out of hand without you home to calm matters.”

Invitation? Callie swept the room with her eyes, but saw no sign of the traitorous Mr. Button. Well, he’d probably meant well. Honestly, how could he have known?

Henry approached, Betrice on his arm. They greeted her father cordially. Ah, yes. They’d met at the wedding—and still claimed the acquaintance. Callie’s estimation of Henry went up another notch.

“We have brought a very special exhibition for this auspicious occasion,” Archie said to a rapt Henry. “Such as never before seen by your village! It is be timed for the stroke of midnight, concurrent with the moment of revelation!”

Ren, who stood nearby sourly toeing a grimy mark on his marble floor from the cart wheel, felt his gut go cold.

The moment of revelation. The unmasking of everyone in the ballroom.

The unmasking of him.

*   *   *

Betrice left Henry’s side and wandered curiously toward the canvas-covered cart. The two identical young men were tinkering secretively with something under the tarpaulin.

“There. Tighten that—”

“Bolt, yes, got it. Now for the—”

“spring. Winding now—”

“And don’t forget the—”

A hand emerged, fumbling for something in a wooden toolbox balanced on the edge of the cart. Curious, Betrice sidled closer.

“Linchpin.” The searching hand pulled a gleaming brass bolt about five inches long from the clutter within the box.

“There. Wouldn’t want to—”

“do without that!”

“Disaster!” The last was said happily, with some relish.

“Check! Now for champagne!”

“And girls! Country girls and stealing kisses.”

“So impressed, we won’t have to steal ’em!”

Callie’s brothers strode away from the strange thing. They never noticed Betrice peeking inquisitively beneath the canvas drape.

*   *   *

“It isn’t as though I’ve been gone for months, Zander,” Callie said, trying to maintain a reasonable tone. While she spoke, she absently removed a glass of champagne from the grasp of Attie, replacing it with her own lemonade. “Surely you older boys can maintain order for more than a few days at a time!”

Lysander only shot her a dark look.

Callie crossed her arms. “There’s no need to get huffy about it. I was bound to get married sooner or later!”

Lysander shrugged sullenly.

Callie rolled her eyes. “No matter what you say, what’s done is done. I’m married now!”

Attie scowled at the lemonade and poured it into a potted palm. “You might have thought to marry someone in London,” she pointed out. “Someone not
him.
” She gestured across the ballroom toward Ren with her empty glass. Drops of remaining lemonade flew out to land on Callie’s lovely new gown. “We’ll never see you.”

Callie’s teeth gritted together as she dabbed her handkerchief on the stains. “Less than a fortnight. It’s been
less than a fortnight.
”

She needed a bit of water, before the lemon juice discolored the silk. She turned away from her brother and sister, tired of arguing with Lysander.

It wasn’t actually an argument, of course, since Lysander wasn’t one for using actual words. Callie was simply used to filling in the blanks herself.

Where was the blasted water?

It was nothing, really. Merely a snippet of conversation heard between two stout women from the village. One, costumed as Queen Mary with a frilled lacy mask, inclined her head toward a round Queen Elizabeth with a red wig and spoke in hooting tones that carried well.

“… my Sarah was visiting with her friend Penny, who is stepping out with the butcher’s boy, who told her that Sir Lawrence’s new cook is an absolute
giant
!”

Giant.

Callie stopped short, her belly gone cold. Mr. Button’s cook, a giant?

Then one of the servants began to beat out the stroke of twelve on a triangle. The chimes rang out over the ballroom. As one, the guests turned to fix their gazes on the mystery cart.

Callie turned with them and held her breath as Archie stepped forward to address them all.

*   *   *

Ren had frozen at the midnight chimes, then began to breathe again when Archie stepped forward, his arms flung wide.

“In days of old,” he intoned, “when Daedalus flew and Perseus slayeth the minotaur!”

Ren did not see what Dade had to do with any of it, but the guests were enthralled and even Callie was looking a bit impressed. Additionally, if it kept everyone from remembering the dreaded unmasking, Ren would dance a jig around the thing himself.

Except that Iris was already doing so. Rather, she was wafting and drifting to and fro, waving her arms along with the music. The dance reminded him vaguely of a snake charmer.

He noticed that the pretty sister, Elektra, was near the musicians, her stance cajoling. Sure enough, a new tune had begun. It was eerie and dreamy and entirely inappropriate for any normal sort of dancing.

Archie was just getting started. “There lived a great creature, a magical being, the symbol of birth, renewal, and—” With a great sweeping bow, Archie drew their attention to the covered cart.

At which moment the twins, working as one, whipped the cover from the large object just as the chimes struck twelve.

Gleaming metal, nearly ten feet high including the cart. It was an egg … of sorts. Or possibly a raindrop. Ren peered more closely at the richly embossed sides of the thing, all hammered out in brass and steel. Flames? Ah, it was a flame … raindrop … egg … thing.

The music swelled. Ren glanced over at the quartet and saw that Elektra had managed to inspire the tired musicians to new heights. Well, pretty girls did tend to have their way.

At a creaking sound, he turned back to the display before them all. The flame … egg … thing was spinning slowly. Ren could hear the resonant clunk-clunk of giant clockworks inside, beneath the music. It was as if the hunk of metal had a heartbeat of its own. That explained the music. Otherwise the thing would be making a severe racket.

Callie clapped her hands in delight. “It’s moving!”

Her brother Orion, the arrogant-looking fellow in the spectacles, merely nodded. “Of course.”

Ren relaxed. If Callie was happy then it didn’t much matter that he found the entire thing foolish and time-wasting. Except that it was rather marvelous, in its mad way. The rotating flame-egg began to part in great triangles, as if the centrifugal force were spreading its shell.

Ren found himself just as captivated as the villagers, holding his breath to see what lay inside.

It was a bird. It was sculpted of brass and iron, each feather cut and applied separately. From where he stood, Ren could see the shining raw edges of the metal feathers.

The beak and claws were crimson and the eyes glowed like green jewels. It was an engineering marvel.

Artistically it was hideous. The bird looked like a sort of eagle, except that it also looked a bit like a parrot had mated with an ostrich. The feet were extremely large, but Ren supposed they had to be to hold the entire metallic thing up. He smiled slightly at the pleasurable lunacy of it.

An egg hatching a bird. A lovely ten-foot egg hatching an ugly eight-foot bird.

“Oh, my. I always say, Why do, if you can overdo?”

Ren glanced down to see that Button had joined him. The little man had his hands clasped before him like a delighted child and his eyes were alight with mischief and glee.

Ren drew his brows together. “Was this some notion of yours?”

Button shook his head. “I invited milady’s family because she seemed rather lonely for them. I did not ask them to provide entertainment, although perhaps I should have realized. They are quite notorious, you know.”

Ren frowned. “Really? Notorious for what?”

“For being entirely mad, of course.”

Of course. But then, Ren had already known that.

Button’s smile widened as the bird began to shudder. “Oh, it’s doing something!”

The great brass-feathered wings were lifting. Ren’s brows rose with them, impressed in spite of himself. It really was a sight. The crowd gasped and a few people cheered.

Ren, who was a bit less enamored of the spectacle than most, spotted one of the those insufferable twins down behind the contraption, preparing to pull on some sort of lever behind the base of the egg.

At a signal from the opposite twin, he pulled sharply. There was a loud scrape and a puff and then a great
whoof!

The bird was aflame.

“Oh, a phoenix.” Button sent a sly glance in Ren’s direction. “How … astute.”

Ren watched the flaming bird and thought about his fine house which he had only recently begun to enjoy. Then he thought about it lying in piles of charred timber and rubble. He glanced across the room at Callie, who had drifted closer to where her family stood, watching the show. Another treasure he didn’t want to see damaged.

“If you’ll excuse me…” He didn’t wait for Button’s pardon, but began to make his way through the crowd to Callie’s side.

Just as he was about to reach her, the bird made another creaking, groaning sound … and began to spin counter to the spin of the eggshell.

Chapter 30

Except that this new motion of the bird itself was no graceful rotation. The flaming phoenix swayed and lurched and ground around in an uneven spin. The squeal of abused metal rose above the soaring music. Even as Ren watched, he saw the twins glance at each other and then take simultaneous steps backward to disappear into the crowd.

Oh, hell.

Not far from him, he heard the little sister pipe up, her tone critical. “It didn’t make that noise when we tested it at home.”

The bird began to spin faster, and now the imbalance in its rotation turned it into a lurching pillar of flame. The wings rose higher in response to the speed. The grinding grew louder. The spinning became faster—and so off balance that it began to move the cart in a broken circle with the force of it.

Bloody hell!
“Get back! Move away!” Ren shouted to his guests.