Mission: Nutcracker

Chapter 6

6

Terminus, 17 December 1871

Fiona watched helplessly as Tessa left. She had no doubt her mother had manufactured some sort of complaint to make sure she and Devon ended up alone. But to what end? There was no one around to spread the gossip that they’d been in each other’s company, much less without a chaperon. Was she hoping Fiona would throw herself at Devon? Hardly. Fiona could hardly talk, as much as she wanted to. She wanted to know why Devon had come to see her, so she gave him her most inquisitive, “Now that the niceties are over, and you can speak openly, why are you here?” look.

And if he didn’t read her mind, he at least read her look.

“You’re probably wondering why I’ve come.”

Fiona kept herself from spreading her hands in an exasperated, “of course” motion. She simply nodded and put on her most polite smile.

“I needed to talk to someone else who had witnessed last night’s events from inside the house.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and she noticed that he’d not gotten his hair cut recently. She refused to notice, however, how it curled charmingly at the nape of his neck over his collar. “As you can imagine, those people are in short supply at the moment, most of them having been taken. Oh—I’m sorry.”

At the mention of the kidnapped tinkerers, Fiona’s hands had started shaking, and tea spilled onto the saucer. She leaned forward to put the cup down, and he took it from her. She almost grabbed it back but thought better. No reason to cause more of a mess. He placed it on the small table between them.

“So I needed someone besides Pierce to corroborate my observations. You have a good eye and a talent for tinkering, so I thought you may be use—er—amenable to helping me.”

Had he been about to say useful? Fiona arched an eyebrow.

“Can you help me?” Devon asked.

Fiona nodded. She closed her eyes, and her skin heated, and her heart rate increased as she recalled the fire and the confusion. And the automatons. Something bothered her about them… “They moved like men. Not at all stiffly or artificially.” The voice was hers, and her eyes flew open. She found he’d leaned closer to make out her words, and he jerked back as though she’d tried to steal a kiss. Humph. She had no reason to be embarrassed, but the fire beneath her skin flared even more.

“Do you know of any advances that have been made with limb articulation recently?” Devon asked.

“N-no.” Now the lump had returned to her throat, but she was able to speak around it. “Machines mimicking human movement? Acting independently? The technology hasn’t advanced that far. Although…”

“What?” Now he leaned forward again, and her wicked side imagined what he’d do if she pressed her lips to his.

“Father did know of some colleagues who were experimenting with aether and mechanisms to see if they could use a combination of the two to motivate objects, like dolls, to do simple tasks. He said it had to do with finding the right frequencies, and the mathematical formulas were extremely complicated. So much so that only the most talented tinkerers and aetherists were up to the tasks.”

“So life is reduced to formulas.” Devon shook his head. “And those reserved for machines.”

“Not life. Just a more-complex-than-usual machine. They still don’t have free will.”

Speaking of free will and less than noble motivations, where was Tessa? She should have delivered the smelling salts by now. Fiona swallowed.

When Devon asked, “Do you believe life requires free will? What about base animals who are motivated by one thing, survival?” Fiona could only shake her head. Apparently she was limited to only speaking comfortably of tinkering subjects. Philosophy clammed her up.

She looked down and picked up her teacup and saucer again. Devon ran his hands through his hair.

“Did she do this to you?” he asked. “Your mother?”

Fiona looked up, wide-eyed, and shook her head. She couldn’t make herself tell him, “No, you do.” Especially since she couldn’t figure out why herself.

“Would it help to know that I have no intention of marrying you?”

Fiona reeled back as though he’d slapped her. Sure, his statement brought some relief, but he didn’t have to be so blunt.

“I wasn’t asking you to marry me!” But why wouldn’t he want to? She wanted to curl in on herself—perhaps her mother was right.

“Oh, good, I can shock you out of silence.”

The heat beneath Fiona’s skin had nothing to do with his flirting with her and everything to do with her own anger. “Shock me? Are you a neuroticist now?” She set her teacup back on the small table between them and stood, her hands on her hips. “You’re an arrogant, selfish…” Coils, she needed a better insult vocabulary.

“Go on.” He leaned back and had the audacity to look amused.

“Dandy.” Was the best she could come up with.

“But you need my help to get your father back.”

There was no retort to that. She resumed her seat and primly poured more tea. Once she sat, her anger faded, and the block in her throat returned. She looked around for something to write with and on, but the only paper she knew of was in her mother’s writing desk in her bedroom, and she wasn’t about to go into her mother’s bedroom. And her father’s workshop was locked, the key likely still with him.

Devon thankfully picked up the previous thread of their conversation. “Our best bet for finding them is to figure out who made the automatons. Especially since we don’t know why they were taken.”

“Do you think they were really machines?” Fiona asked, curiosity again overwhelming her reticence.

“I don’t know. All I do know is that we’re dealing with someone very sophisticated and deadly.”

Now a chill flushed out the heat that had sustained Fiona. “Do you think they’ll hurt them?” she whispered with the last of her voice.

Devon didn’t offer false comfort. “I don’t know. It depends on what they wanted them for.”

Fiona swallowed, the lump in her throat now multifaceted with worry. Surely no one would kidnap tinkerers just to turn them into something awful, would they? She’d heard rumors of some ethics-challenged inventors trying to incorporate flesh into machines, specifically limbs taken from wounded soldiers. But then anyone would do, and there were plenty of displaced people to choose from. Not that she condoned it in any case. No one deserved to be turned into a machine.

She looked up from her teacup, surprised Devon hadn’t interrupted her thoughts.

“Did you come to any interesting conclusions on your mental wander?” he asked. His tone teased, but the weight of his eyebrows over his hazel eyes made his expression serious.

Fiona shook her head. She didn’t know if she could have said anything, and she didn’t want to. Why put such a horrible idea into the world?

He stood, and she did as well.

“I should be going,” he said. “I got word this morning that I’m expecting company, so I need to prepare my household.”

Fiona put her fists on her hips and frowned. Company now?

“Don’t think I’m shirking my duties or that I don’t want to help.” His grin could only be described as smug. “It’s quite likely that my company could prove to be very helpful. I’ll keep you posted.”

Tessa ran into the room, breathless, and stopped when she saw them standing, the tea table between them. Was that disappointment on her face? Fiona resisted the urge to groan.

“Everything all right, Miss?” the maid asked.

Fiona nodded.

“I was just taking my leave. Please let me know if you remember any other interesting details,” Devon said to Fiona. “You know Sheriff Blair is useless, so it’s going to be up to us.”

Fiona nodded again.

Tessa brought Devon his cloak and hat, and he bowed to Fiona, then left.

“Well, Miss?” Tessa looked like she could barely contain herself once she’d let him out. “Is he courting you?”

“No, not at all.” Fiona grabbed a shawl that had been lying over the arm of one of the chairs. It smelled like her mother’s perfume, but she didn’t care. The whole encounter had made her flush hot and cold so much that she felt devoid of energy. But at least he wasn’t thinking marriage. She could deal with their relationship being strictly professional. That way he wouldn’t realize that love wasn’t for her, and she was too poor to be of interest to him strategically.

Coils, she hated it when her mother was right.

When Devon arrived back at his house—mansion, he corrected himself—he decided to go in the side door in case someone waited for him in the front parlor. He needed a few minutes to settle into his office, get his bearings, and write down his thoughts after meeting with Fiona. Well, his thoughts beyond how pretty she looked in that shade of green and what had happened to bring the household to such ruin. The last Devon had heard, Bryan Telfair had a thriving business making custom dolls that displayed a limited range of behaviors depending on how their limbs were moved or what lever was flipped. It all sounded creepy to him, but then, he had never liked dolls—a childhood leftover from his parents not wanting Therese to have them since they gathered dust and seemed to make her breathing problems worse. But he couldn’t respect a man who had let his business lapse, and he guessed that Bryan, like many tinkerers, had gotten distracted by a New Shiny Thing. He’d seen many an NST derail a clever mind, which tended to crave novelty. But still…didn’t family responsibilities matter?

He directed the carriage driver to go straight to the stable, and took the opportunity on the walk back to the main house to stretch his legs and ponder through the events of the night before and the morning. Luckily the place where the clockwork cockroach had poked him had healed well after being cleaned, and there was barely a scratch. His ankle, however, had not fared so well, and he pondered taking something when he got inside. Then he shook his head. He needed to be mentally clear for the day, not muddled by laudanum. So, he’d deal with the pain. It wasn’t so bad if he remained sitting.

After crossing the drive and walking around the back lawn, he arrived at the delivery entrance. A small part of him thrilled at his petite rebellion and subterfuge. Sometimes a man needed a break. He’d become accustomed to being accosted when he arrived home from meetings and errands and he had to admit, he didn’t mind overmuch. The attention meant he was making a name for himself and moving beyond being the useless “cowardly cousin.”

So why didn’t he ever feel like he did enough?

When Devon opened the door, he found himself face-to-face with the last person he expected—or wanted—to see there. He knew Layla Bollington from the occasional interview she’d done with him after he’d returned and then once he’d re-started his family business interests. She stepped back, seemingly as surprised to see him as he was her, but then her lips split with a grin that shone against her dark brown face. Devon simultaneously cringed and admired the woman. The daughter of formerly enslaved people, she had fought with all her might for her current position as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal, and he knew she would not miss an opportunity for a scoop.

“Why, Devon Meriweather,” she said, and her lilting accent made the syllables of his name bounce. “Just the man I wanted to see.” She stepped back and gestured for him to enter his own home.

Shaking his head with amusement and rueful acceptance, Devon complied. “What can I do for you today, Miss Bollington?”

“I was hoping to talk to you about what happened last night at the Tinkerer’s Ball. Of course Jim Blair—who’s waiting out front for you, by the way—wants the official statement, but I know there are more interesting facts about what happened than the law wants to know about.”

Devon smiled. “It all happened so fast I can barely recall the order, much less the details. Why don’t you come back in a couple of days after I’ve gotten my head straight, and you can do an official interview?”

Surprisingly, Layla looked relieved. “I’ll do that. How’s ten o’clock?”

“That will be fine. I’ll have coffee waiting for you.”

“You know the way to a girl’s heart.” She dropped a quick curtsy and swept out of the door.

Devon shook his head again, this time with bewilderment. What was happening in his own home? Had someone tipped Bollington off to something? She could have interviewed any of the attendees of the party, at least the ones who had made it out. But then he realized—he didn’t know how many had escaped. He and Fiona had joined a group on the lawn, but they hadn’t gone in to begin with. And he hadn’t seen if the door had closed behind them or if anyone had followed them besides the servants. He added to his mental list—talk to Thom to see if anyone else was missing besides the two upstairs attendants and find out exactly who had been taken.

He walked as quietly as he could to his office, taking the servants’ hallway. He slipped into the office via a space that looked like a closet but served as a way for the maid and butler to enter and leave the office without being observed from the receiving parlor. As much as he had objected to Pierce’s extravagance in buying the place, he could appreciate the perks of a large house with secret passages. There must be others they hadn’t discovered yet. He’d heard that many of the larger Southern houses had had them installed in anticipation of a Yankee invasion, which thankfully hadn’t happened. He cringed to think at how the beautiful city would have burned at the hands of unsympathetic invaders.

A folded slip of paper on his desk caught his attention—a telegram. He swallowed against the anxiety that rose in his throat. When he read the telegram, his suspicions were confirmed.

Help on the way. Expect investigative team Dec 18.

He stifled a groan—he didn’t want an investigative team, a government-sponsored committee to muddle facts with opinions. He needed someone with creativity and guts to help him find the missing tinkerers. Ah, well, he’d deal with them when they arrived.

But first he had to find out what Sheriff Blair knew. Perhaps the man had stumbled upon leads worth following.