“And you know that because”
“Because of the two counterweights at the top of the clock linked by a metal coil in the middle. This is designed to swing back and forth, to act as shock-absorbers against the roll of a ship.”
He stopped gathering the jars and gave her his full attention. “Of course, your experience in the shipyard. Harrison designed the clock to take in temperature, humidity, and motion so sailors could calculate longitude with precision. No ship should be without it.”
She looked out a front window and caught the yellow gorse and the flattened spiny leaves of Butcher’s Broom, lining the lake. “My father died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. My mother followed, dying of influenza, but I believe more from a broken heart from the loss of my father. My brother, Ethan was out privateering. My younger brother, Thomas, died.” Her voice caught from the memory of Thomas. “When the British controlled Boston, we suffered the impressment of soldiers in our home.” If only Thomas…his senseless death… Guilt, simmered beneath the surface like a capped volcano, unable to erupt. She clutched her heart and tamped down the misery.
Anthony took a step toward her, but stopped when she shook her head.
She didn’t want sympathy. Didn’t deserve it.
“War broke out and Ethan had been captured and, as far as I knew would breathe his last breath in an English prison. Jacob had been accused of a crime he didn’t commit, escaped Boston, and embarked on privateering, raiding the coasts of England. My family had put too much work into the shipyard to let it collapse. I was the only Thorne left. The workers came to me because they didn’t want to lose their jobs.”
She walked to the sink arrangement and pushed the pump up and down until a spray of water burst out, and then opened the cupboard beneath to investigate the brass piping. “Fascinating to have a pump inside. Brass, too. A fine piece. Guericke’s vacuum pump? How deep is the well?”
“I made improvements of Guericke’s design. Forty-three feet. I insisted the lab be built over the well. About the shipyard”
“When the British left Boston, I was commissioned by the Continental Congress, who had authorized the creation of a Continental Navy, to build ships needed to counteract the British naval activities in coastal waters and to facilitate the seizure of commercial and military prizes. So through the encouragement of the workers and Patriots, I managed the shipyard.”
“Remarkable.” Anthony finished all thirty-five jars, seven rows of five, sealed with a wooden cap and contact wires projected within.
She glanced at him. “I did what I had to do and readily handed over the reins when Jacob returned. The time freed me to work on other interests.”
“Electricity.”
“Exactly. I was always fascinated when I scuffed my feet over the rug and static fire would appear. After reading Dr. Franklin’s notes, I improvised by taking a glass jar with a metal foil cemented to the inside and outside surfaces, and then, projecting a metal terminal vertically through the jar lid to make contact with the inner foil. Like making lightning in a jar.” She paused to examine the cluster of jars. “What do you hope to attain by making this series?”
Anthony brushed a wand near the top of the jar, prompting an electrical charge. “You see, the charge passes along the rod and is held within the insulated vessel. Watch when I touch the conducting element to the ends of the rod.”
Electrical fire snapped from the device.
“You have stored energy.” In a twinkling of the eye, pure energy boomed around them, and Anthony transformed into an eager boy, full of innocent enthusiasm. His excitement was infectious, the pursuit of the unknown and attaining discovery a sphere of activity in which they were permitted to remain children.
She clapped her hands together. Oh, how he made her world full of magic.
When the spark went out, Anthony let out a breath. “It is not good enough. There has to be improvement.”
She stroked a gilded jar, her fingers traced the subtle shape of each dip and turn, then rubbed against the thick ridge of the stem. A little purr escaped from her throat and the slight shift of his body caused her to look into deep stormy blue eyes. His pulse throbbed at the base of his throat. The force of his aura crashed through her like an electrical charge. Heart racing, she shifted back a step.
Someone knocked. Anthony opened the door and bade a footman to enter. “His Grace has sent a reminder that it is time to get ready for the ball,” he intoned, pivoted and left.
Thank goodness for the distraction. To have a bath. No. To dunk her body in ice-cold water.
“That nonsense. Doesn’t he see how important our work is?”
Our. She liked the ring of his opinion. “What time is it? My goodness the whole day has vanished. Maybe it will be good for you to get out and seek entertainment, clear your mind.”
“Or clutter it. Nonsense and absurd is the human mating game.”
“It can be fun, too,” she coaxed.
“I suppose having your teeth pulled is fun.”
Rachel moved past him in a swirl of skirts, confining her laughter to a snort. “You have to escort me. It wouldn’t be proper otherwise.”
“You didn’t think about having a proper chaperone once today.” Anthony grumbled, the words in him like electricity, dashing itself against glass.
She noted Anthony’s scowl. “I did but we are friends. No. More like brother and sister, and this is in the interest of science.”
“That’s what you call it. Very well, off to the broodmare competition.”
“You are terrible.”
“I thank you for the compliment.”
Chapter Five
Anthony could not fathom a more hostile environment: a huge, hot press of overdressed giddy people with nothing to do but drink and talk to one another at the top of their lungs with their singular blend of nonsense and idiocy. So full of noise, that the wall of sound blasted enough to make his ears bleed. To lay on a bed of nails for the evening had more appeal.
“I suppose the whirl of silks and satins, the orchestra and so on, must be exciting for you, Miss Thorne.” He wrinkled his nose. Women’s stale perfume and oceans of flowers exuded a cloying sweetness that testified to the fanciful tendencies and ostentatious taste of their host.
She fanned her face with her hand. “I feel like Cleopatra, out to conquer the world.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. “There are other things in the world besides a ridiculous ball. I have long embraced the estimation that the quantity of noise that anyone can tolerate undisturbed survives in inverse proportion to his mental capacity, and consequently viewed as a reasonable good measure of it.”
Up close, Miss Thorne was exceptionally beautiful. Best of all was her mouth and her eyes. Together they created a sort of wry, amused liveliness, as if whatever occurred to her, she would remain calm, composed and unruffled through it all, and then she would find some value in it to make her smile.
“You must admit that the ball is thrilling.”
He leaned into her, dipped a formal bow. “I get the same thrill a chimney sweep does, shimmying down the chimney into a hotbed of ashes.”
She angled her head up. Her lush mouth mocked him. “We must not squander away life in a small corner of the world. To be nourished with new actions, new aspirations, and new events will lend us new visions.”
“More like revelations akin to a rapid current of guests flowing like negative charges into a single room.” He spoke to the air as she whirled away with yet another partner.
Lord Humphrey and his father, the Duke of Banfield, moved beside him. Long time neighbors and good friends of the Rutland’s, it had always been assumed that Lord Humphrey and his sister, Abby would have married.
“You look bored, Lord Anthony,” said Lord Humphrey.
“This is my excited face. You haven’t seen bored.”
“Miss Thorne presents a picture, don’t you think, Lord Anthony?” The Duke of Banfield, pressed on his cane for support. “She h
asn’t missed one dance.”
“Our Miss Thorne is definitely enjoying herself with all her suitors,” added Humphrey.
Anthony rolled his shoulders, his frockcoat suddenly tight. Like dogs after the butcher’s cart.
“I see she is leaving the punch table and being guided out of the ballroom with that rake, Sir Bonneville,” said the Duke of Banfield. “Don’t you think someone should do something about it?”
Already on the move and cursing under his breath, Anthony stalked after the dandified profligate. He cursed under his breath. Miss Thorne was a naïve Colonial unaccustomed to the nuances of a degenerate like Bonneville. Or was she? He really had no idea of her character. Was she as innocent as he thought? They had vanished. Anthony parted servants in their finest livery and laden with heavy silver trays of wine glasses and appetizers. He searched down one hall, and then another. No doubt, Bonneville dragged her off to the farthest reaches of the house. Standing where one hall met another, he heard Bonneville’s wheedling voice.
“Miss Thorne, aren’t you the prettiest Colonial I’ve ever seen.”
Anthony’s head snapped around, just in time to see Bonneville lead her into the library…away from prying eyes.
Anthony’s blood rushed through his veins, pounding against his eardrums like thunder as he loomed in the shadows, his quarry unaware of his existence. Miss Thorne was family. Abby would never forgive him if anything happened to Rachel.
“I’m probably the only Colonial you’ve ever seen.” Her laughter tinkled.
Anthony balled his hands into fists when Bonneville took her cup, gliding his fingers over hers…overlong.
Sir Bonneville shifted toward her, his white complexion stretched tightly over bone, like a corpse bleached in the sun.
“Did I tell you that you have the most beautiful blue eyes?”
Rachel kept stepping back until, finally her shoulders hit the bookcase. “Three times. Once when we were dancing, at the punch table, and now.”
“I cannot help it. Your eyes explore my soul and beg my spirit to enter you.”
If that wasn’t a carnal invite. Bonneville was lint on Anthony’s cuff, easy to flick off compared to the farm boys that had honed their skills on him.
“You said there was an original published text in this library by Sir Isaac Newton.”
So that was how she was lured by Bonneville. Her voice raised a pitch, her words dagger sharp. Anthony ground his teeth. No one insulted family.
“May I taste your rosebud lips?” prompted Sir Bonneville.
Anthony clenched his fists harder, waiting for her to rebuff the asinine dandy. How good it would feel to release some energy.
“Rosebud lips?” she scoffed. “I have to go.” She took a step to move around Bonneville.
Teetering with both cups dangling in his hands, Bonneville sidestepped, blocking her exit. He lowered his head, his sight pinned to her bosom.
Blood shot to Anthony’s brain.
He stepped from the shadows and came up next to them. “Is there a problem, Miss Thorne?”
Bonneville twisted his head around and caught Anthony glowering at him that roared, Steer clear as obviously as words.
“Lord Anthony, they let you out of your cage? I had the little Colonial first. Move on.”
“Miss Thorne is not a piece of property to be claimed.”
Jacked-up on sour gin, Bonneville was inspiring. Victory was won by miles but in Bonneville’s case it would be inches, as in, how many inches could Anthony slam his fist through Bonneville’s face?
“It would be a very rash presumption to think that nowhere else in the cosmos has nature repeated such a strange experiment as your birth, Bonneville.”
“You think I’m afraid of you.”
“You should be.”
“Why? Are you going to zap me with your electrical fire?”
“The idea has merit.”
Rachel put her hand on Anthony’s arm like a schoolmarm warning a recalcitrant boy. “An incident would be disastrous.” She referred to the toll on her reputation. Then there would be the consequences of his father learning of his son’s brawling at a ball.
“You’re right, Miss Thorne.” Anthony offered his arm and turned her toward the exit. She trembled. Fire hardened his muscles and licked through his veins. How he hated Bonneville for putting Rachel in a compromising situation.
Bonneville dared to put a hand on Anthony’s shoulder.
Anthony kicked his leg back, at just the right angle, his heel smashed into Bonneville’s kneecap with the same thrust he’d use to kick down a stall door. He felt the crack through his boot. Rachel turned and Anthony followed her line of sight, shrugging with innocence. Bonneville was down. In misery. Punch stained his orange en chenille frock coat, breeches, and splattered his cadaverous face. An improvement.
Rachel blinked. “Did you do that on purpose?”
“Do what?”
“Trip him.”
“He fell, merely a gravitational force. The punch adds color to his complexion don’t you think?”
Her smile made his spirits soar.
“I’m glad you did. I was thinking more of Newton’s impulse of force, if extracted and found to be equal to the change in momentum of an object provided the mass is constant. Do we concur that Sir Bonneville’s mass is constant?”
Smart girl. They rejoined the Duke of Banfield and Humphrey. A flurry of servants fled down the hall in the direction of the library. The wailing Sir Bonneville had been discovered. No need for any questions. Anthony would deny they were in the library and the Banfield’s would back him up—an unwritten code between neighbors who lived side by side for four centuries.
Humphrey grimaced. “Gossip at the ball claims Lord Ward is not going to quit.”
As if on cue, Lord Ward and his wife appeared. “Humphrey’s right, I’m not quitting.”
Anthony scoffed. “Not quitting? You never started. No doubt you’ll dazzle us with parlor tricks, hanging orphans from the ceiling and charging them with electricity or shocking dead cats to jump.”
Lady Ward worked her fan with the passion of a blacksmith on his bellows. A woman in her thirties, she was beautiful in a hard and glittering manner, except for her ridiculous pouf hairstyle. Indeed, an architectural feat, erected with scaffolding of wire and gauze and covered with fake hair set with flour and lard, and then topped with ostrich feathers. Built so high that Anthony considered how it might interrupt bird migration patterns. He was glad Rachel did not adopt the high powdered fashion and kept the rich glow of her chestnut hair.
“Miss Thorne, I understand you are a Colonial?” Lady Ward’s purr was a subtle intimation, connecting Rachel to what was considered the rude and democratic tide that had swept over the Colonies.
“From Boston,” Lord Banfield answered for Rachel. “I take your pettiness as a personal affront.”
Undeterred, Lady Ward smacked her lips. “Any relation to Captain Thorne?”
“A very distant relation.” Anthony cut in, blunt to the point of insult. He would nip Lady Ward’s wagging tongue before it had occasion to start.
“But a patriot, everyone must assume.” Lady Ward dipped a patronizing smile with the same predatory relish that a vulture shredded carrion with its beak.
Rachel needed his protection, vulnerable to the subtleties of Lady Ward whose personal mission was to vulgarly flaunt her rank and socially destroy those she considered inferiors.
“Must be terrible without civilization, all savages and wigwams.” Lady Ward’s ostrich feathers fanned a breeze over Anthony’s heated face.
Rachel cranked her neck to peer at the towering mass of Lady Ward’s hair that dwarfed her husband by two feet. “We ill-bred Colonials have a saying that a donkey looks into the mirror and wonders at the charm of her own reflection.”
Lady Ward inhaled, her ostrich feathers trembling.
Anthony smirked. The Yank could take care of herself.
The Duke of Banfield stom
ped his cane unable to contain his chortle. Lady Ward glared at him then pivoted her attention to Anthony. “How are your experiments?”
Rachel’s lips took on a mutinous tilt. “Lord Anthony is soon to unveil something so spectacular it will set the world on end.”
Lord Ward took a pinch of snuff. “You are young, Miss Thorne. How tragic.”
“Are you sure a flower pot did not fall on your head?” Anthony scowled. The falling urn incident at the Chelmsford lay fresh in his mind.
Lord Ward narrowed his eyes. “So glad the pot missed you, Lord Anthony. Of this I am most sincere.”
Anthony took a step toward Lord Ward. “I have learned a little sincerity is a dangerous thing. A great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”
“Ah. Well. We must not monopolize your time.” They bowed and drew back. “Magnificent ball.”
Lord Banfield laid a detaining hand on Anthony’s shoulder. “Cowards make the best bullies. They understand fear and know how to use it. Don’t waste your time.”
Anthony saw the worry that darkened Rachel’s expression. His hands remained fisted.
“Both were so smug, but do you think Lord Ward might have been the one who tried to kill us with the flowerpot? Do you think he killed your lab assistant?” she asked.
“I have the same concerns. Lord Ward has the money, the influence, and the motive. He is a strong opponent to my father’s policy in the House of Lords to end the costly war in the Colonies.”
Rachel sighed. “I’ve made a mess of things tonight. I fell for Sir Bonneville’s ruse to lure me to the library, and then I was far too outspoken with Lady Ward.”
With an I-told-you-so look about the loathsomeness of balls, Anthony parroted her earlier remark. “To be nourished with new actions, new aspirations, new events will lend us new visions, won’t it, Miss Thorne?” His broadside earned a pained expression from her.
Humphrey snorted. “Don’t mind Lady Ward. She has nothing to offer the world except a headache, existing to parade her own equation between status and human worth.”
Light of My Heart Page 4
