“Why,” Lady Abigail asked, “was that the goal?”
“It seemed the best way for a young girl to be seen, and no, I should not say it aloud, but I suppose I have the looks to make it work. They are conventional and fashionable as of right now. It seemed the very antithesis of what I was last season—quiet, meek, stuttering, invisible. I wanted to command the attention of the room.”
And she had done that.
She still felt restless.
Attention had not been what she’d truly been after, it seemed. But this girl sitting opposite her, someone who needed her help and guidance… that prospect sent giddiness coursing through her. Having thetonsee her wasn’t enough. She’d become a champion, a fairy godmother.
CHAPTER6
Devon focused on the tube that poured steam into his device, heating the cage with its fragrant ground beans from below.
Because if he didn’t concentrate on metal and beans and steam, he’d think of how lovely Miss Clarke had looked that afternoon. Usually, she was perfectly coifed and glittering, not a hair or seam out of place. Today’s gown had been older and chosen, he assumed, more for comfort than the approval of others.
Yet, he approved more than usual. Miss Clarke—dressed to impress—was an intimidating sight. Miss Clarke dressed for no one but herself was a tempting one, an image that made a man think of cuddling and nuzzling and languid kisses, and obviously, it had been too long since Devon had kept a mistress.
Steam. Metal. Grounds. Fire.
Failure.
Not even Lavoisier and Dalton held the answers he needed.
He dropped his elbows to the large, battered workshop table and dropped his head into his hands. He’d won at the tables this evening, but still he was several thousand pounds away from having enough to buy Frederick’s. Even if he did, he’d not improve his design for coffee brewing enough to improve Frederick’s offerings. Right now, whatever he brewed in his device tasted vaguely of beans, mostly of metal.
A resounding failure.
A spare to his own family and an unnecessary part in this workshop. Clarke was a genius and his daughter a diamond. What was Devon?
He stood straight and stretched his back. Feeling sorry for himself was annoying. That would never do. He strode around the shop, swinging his arms, looking for inspiration in the gears and discarded bits and bobs lying about. Those were the things to inspire him—the forgotten broken bits, the bobs no one wanted. He’d find what he needed there, felt it in his bones.
Devon refused to be a failure. He still had seven weeks to raise the funds, and if every evening proved as winning as this evening had, he’d be able to buy Frederick’s, no matter what other toff had taken it into his brain-box to steal it out from under him.
If offering a reasonable price right away was stealing.
And it wasn’t.
Devon dropped his grumbling as he spied a particularly brilliant pile of old parts. He’d not rummaged through that one yet. Wasn’t that the sort of tubing Lavoisier described in his book?
Yes, things were looking up. He dove in.
* * *
Lillian held her candle aloft as she perused the row of book spines, looking for just the right title. Ah, there it was. She pulled it from the shelf. And dropped it when an explosion shook the house.
She shook her head as she knelt down to pick it up and pulled her wrapper tight. Papa would hurt himself one day, especially if he took to doing the dangerous work by candlelight in the middle of the…
Papaneverperformed hazardous experiments during late-night hours. Only one foolish semi-apprentice would do such a thing. “Lord Devon.”
She dropped the book and rushed into the hallway. She was huffing by the time she slammed open the door to her father’s workshop. “Lord Devon!”
Smoke billowed around her, obscuring her view, making her eyes sting and throat burn.
Coughing from the floor.
She fell to her hands and knees. “Lord Devon?” She searched under the worktable and in the corners of the room.
More coughing. “Miss Clarke.” More coughs.
