STEAMPUNK ROMANCE: An Innovative Clockwork Steampunk World Adventure: The Complete Collection Boxed Set (Mystery Suspense Romance Short Stories)

by Haven, Rose

  I kissed him then, and wrapped my legs around his waist. Though my sex was still sensitive from his ministrations, I was desperate for more friction. I did not fear pain, but I did fear what would happen if he stopped. Edmund’s arms tightened around me as we tangled together on the bench until finally, finally, he slid into me.

  It was uncomfortable, but not painful. He held me against his chest so that I could not see his face, but his arms were quivering as he forced himself to remain still, waiting for me to adjust. After a moment, I rocked my hips experimentally. He gasped. I found that I enjoyed that sound, so I rocked again.

  “Rose–” His voice failed him. He buried his face in my neck and took shuddering, laboured breaths.

  “Move, Edmund!”

  We rocked against each other without rhythm or finesse. He pulled back to watch my face as his thrusts began to speed up. He was huge above me and within me. I rubbed against him in a way I would have considered absolutely obscene if I could think clearly. I pressed my forehead against his, feeling the feverish heat of him, and let my passion take over. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t speak; when he pressed into me, I pressed back harder. My entire world had fallen away and all I could feel was his firm fingers and passionate embrace.

  Finally, I felt another wave of pure pleasure crash into me. I was not expecting it. The way Edmund’s eyes widened and his thrusts became suddenly erratic told me that he had not expecting it either. He groaned and kept his eyes locked on mine as he rode out what could only have been a climax of his own. I couldn’t have looked away if I’d tried.

  Shaking and sweating, we clung to each other. Edmund was breathing so heavily that I could feel his entire body shifting against me. My own chest heaved with my exertions. It occurred to me, belatedly, that my mother’s people may have heard what Edmund and I were doing. Instead of horrifying me, the thought was quietly thrilling. Let her listen. Let her hear her daughter with her manservant. Let her know that I would never be the prim and proper lady she’d always hoped I would be.

  They would also have heard my plan to follow them and reclaim what they had stolen from me. Good, I thought. It was unsportsmanlike to attack your enemy without due warning.

  Edmund seemed to have realised that someone could be listening in on us as well, because he bent forward to whisper in my ear: “I will help you find them.” He kissed me on the temple. “I will fight with you, Rosalie.”

  I burrowed my face into the crook of his neck and let the cool air from the gaping hole in my attic wall wash over me.

  “Give me a few minutes to recover,” I whispered. “Then, fetch me a pencil and some paper. We have work to do.”

  THE END

  Steampunk Romance

  Unwound

  Book Two

  Rose Haven

  Steampunk Romance: Unwound

  Chapter One

  “Edmund, did you move the gasket lubricant?”

  “I’m not sure – what is gasket lubricant?”

  “Never mind,” I said, finally catching sight of it behind my workbench and climbing underneath to fetch it. “I’ve found it.”

  “Excellent.”

  Edmund entered the room with his arms laden with a silver tray which smelled of warm bread and sweet meats. His cane rested in the crook of his elbow. He gazed around for a free space to set it down, but all of the surfaces were covered in blueprints, nuts and bolts. I brushed my hair out of my eyes and moved some blueprints off the corner of my workbench.

  “Just leave it there, I’ll eat in a moment.”

  Edmund frowned at me and shook his head. “I think you should eat now.”

  “I’ve almost finished –”

  “Rosalie,” he said, in a stern yet warm voice. “Please.”

  He was taking liberties. He’d been taking liberties ever since the attack on my home which had left him with an angry red cut on his hairline which had only just begun to heal. While he took liberties like calling me by my Christian name and forcing me to eat, there were other liberties – of a more personal nature – which he had not taken since that evening.

  I sighed and rubbed my greasy hands on my skirt. “One moment,” I said.

  My workbenches had almost completely overwhelmed the space in my bedroom, where I had adjourned to focus on my experiments after the attack on my home. The Mothers – the organisation which had blown a hole in my father’s attic and stolen all of my prototypes and records – had failed to consider that my memory was strong enough to replicate most of my work within a few days of their attack. Edmund and I had given the maids a story about an experiment gone awry. My experiments were volatile enough that they believed us, and the attic was being repaired at that very moment. My bedroom was as large as I would have liked, but I could not use any of the other rooms without frightening the maids and forcing them to contact my father in France.

  Edmund, the manservant my father had hired, was helping me as much as he could, but his knowledge of the sciences was limited. Instead, he kept me fed and watered, and saw to it that I got adequate rest. I was glad for him, though I despised the interruptions. If I’d had my way, I would have put every ounce of my mental powers to the task at hand – not pausing to eat or sleep until the deed was done.

  My hair was a mess and my clothes were in such a disarray that it would have been obscene, but Edmund had seen me in worse states of undress. It did not stop him from lingering on my loosened corset and hitched up skirts.

  “The maids want to know when it will be alright for them to come in here and clean,” he said.

  I stuffed a slice of meat and bread into my mouth, barely tasting it in my haste to complete the meal so that I could get back to work. “I have only just gotten the room organised.”

  “Organised?” Edmund repeated, raising an eyebrow and gazing around the room. “I did not know that the word might mean something different in this part of England.”

  “Nobody likes intellectual snobbery, Mr Price,” I said. Edmund laughed. “Still, I would rather they stayed out. At least until my business with the Mothers is done.”

  Edmund pursed his lips and chose not to respond. He did not like that I was working to take down the group of women who had all-but destroyed my upstairs laboratory and stolen my steam engine prototype. He seemed to think that I was putting myself in unnecessary danger. I thought that the danger was entirely necessary, but I had not yet been able to persuade him to my line of thinking.

  “Well, I will let them know,” Edmund said bracingly. “Is there anything else I can do for you while I am here?”

  I looked at him thoughtfully. It had been two days since the Mothers had come – two days since our servant/mistress relationship had become complicated. I had still been reeling from the discovery that my mother – whom I had believed to be long dead – was actually alive and working for an organisation which seemed to be hell-bent on stifling the scientific breakthroughs of good English scientists. In a fit of madness and desperation, I had turned to my manservant. Edmund had proven to be a remarkably competent lover.

  Afterwards I realised what a disaster such a relationship could be. My father had insisted that I find a suitor for many years now, but I knew that he would not take the news of our affair with anything resembling good humour. The odds were quite good that he would dismiss Edmund if he knew how close we had become. I had not even taken any precautions to avoid pregnancy! It was one thing to hide a daughter away in the attic because her hobbies would raise some eyebrows among the nobility. It was quite another to have to send your daughter out of the country because she’d borne a child out of wedlock. These thoughts had begun to flood my mind within moments of Edmund pulling away from my sweat-soaked body and pulling his trousers back up, and I had steadfastly ignored my attraction to him since then.

  Edmund seemed to be taking my lead on the matter. He had not broached the subject of our affair, and he had not made any romantic overtures since the night when he’d clutched me to his chest and
told me that he would follow me into any danger. That he would fight the Mothers at my side. It was a beautiful sentiment, and one he seemed intent on fulfilling even as he kept a respectful distance and did nothing more than allow his eyes to linger on my half-undressed body.

  Instead of taking me, like I knew he wanted to, he spent his days in the gardens. I could see him from the window in my bedroom. I had to keep the curtains drawn so that he wouldn’t distract me from my work.

  “No thank you, Edmund – that will be all.”

  He bowed and took his cane from the crook of his elbow, leaning gently on it as he limped out of the door. He’d been right by the wall when the Mothers had blown their way into my attic, and I had feared that the explosion had exacerbated his existing injury, but he seemed to be no worse for wear for it. If it weren’t for the cut on his forehead, one would never know that he was in an accident.

  Ignoring the ache in my chest as I watched him go, I stuffed one final mouthful of food into my jaw and turned back to the blueprints I’d been working on. I was attempting to recreate the modifications on the pistols the Mothers had threatened me with. I hadn’t gotten a very good look at them, so I wanted to get the ideas down on paper before I attempted to recreate them for myself. It didn’t help that Edmund kept coming in and distracting me – but then, he had been a distraction since the moment father had hired him to see to my needs while he was away in France.

  He still did not know that my mother was still alive. I did not know whether that was a discussion best left for a face-to-face encounter, or whether I ought to warn him in a letter before he returned to find his house half-destroyed and his daughter on a vengeance spree.

  “But I shall be finished before he returns,” I muttered to myself as I scratched some lines on to the paper in front of me.

  I could remember that the pistols had wires curled around the barrel. I had asked one woman – Elizabeth – what the wires did, but she’d been less than forthcoming. Perhaps they were connected to some kind of automatic firing mechanism? They seemed to attach themselves to the trigger, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Beneath this picture was another, more elaborate one. Modified pistols were not the only weapons the Mothers had borne – there was a mechanical flying machine as well, a ‘dirigible’ my mother had called it. That was an experiment for another time. Once I’d mastered the pistols, I would turn to the next challenge.

  The frustrating thing was that without a real pistol to test my theories on, I only had speculation and half-hearted ideas. I could not simply go out and buy a pistol… could I? Who would I even purchase it from? I hadn’t left the house in several years. I’d been content with my experiments and Father had seen to all of my needs. If he were here I would have asked him to buy a pistol for me. Perhaps I could persuade Edmund to run such an errand.

  I walked over to the door and stuck my head out. “Mr Price!” I called, hoping that he was still in the house and within shouting distance. “Would you come here for a moment?”

  As soon as I closed the door, I remembered the bell. No wonder the maids thought I was mad.

  I turned back to the plate of food, which was only half-eaten. I stuffed another mouthful into my lips, knowing that Edmund would demand that I finish the whole thing before we went anywhere.

  “You called, Miss Lapointe?” Edmund said, standing in the doorway with his hands behind his back and an amused expression on his face. I took a moment to admire that face. Edmund was not attractive by conventional standards, but he had an interesting face which I found fascinating, and wide, intelligent eyes.

  I swallowed my mouthful and nodded. “Would you mind escorting me into town?” I asked.

  “If you need me to run an errand, I would be happy to do so,” he said.

  I grimaced. “I’m not sure you would be,” I told him, reaching around to tighten my corset and running a hand through my hair. I really ought to put it up. How did young women wear their hair nowadays? I hadn’t been out in public since my coming out ball. “I need a pistol.”

  Edmund’s face, predictably, twisted into a look of horror which was tremendously unappealing. “A pistol?”

  “A pistol,” I confirmed. “You remember that the ones the Mothers were using were modified? I’m trying to recreate the modifications.”

  “So that you can…” He let the end of the sentence dangle.

  “So that I can stop them,” I said slowly. We’d had this conversation before. “They need to be stopped – they’re stealing scientists’ work, and killing them.”

  “But they spared you!” Edmund replied. “Can you not just count yourself lucky?”

  Those were words spoken by a man who’d never had his life’s work stolen from under his nose. “No, I cannot.”

  Edmund breathed out through his nose. He looked like he was planning to refuse. I did not want him to – if he refused, then I would need to remind him that he was my servant and I was his mistress. I was already allowing him incredible liberties by giving him the space to question my decision, but I really did need that pistol.

  Finally, he nodded shortly. “I can get one for you,” he said. He spoke through gritted teeth.

  “I will need to accompany you,” I said.

  “If you describe what you want –”

  “I am not entirely sure. I would need to see it.”

  Edmund breathed out through his nose again. His shoulders fell. “I’ll have the carriage brought around,” he said.

  I did not like to see him so defeated, but I was glad that he hadn’t needed me to push any further. “Thank you,” I replied. “Would you have one of the maids meet me in the drawing room – I’ll need my hair dressed before I go.”

  “I’ll see to it, Miss Lapointe.”

  I winced when he used my last name, but he’d already turned and left the room. I took a moment to straighten my dress and check my teeth in the reflection from one of my spanners before following him out.

  Chapter Two

  The maid did good work on my hair, but she made me go back to my room and change into a different dress.

  “There’s a white one, Miss, which would be more flattering on you,” she’d said as she’d pinned a wayward curl onto the top of my head. She was a short, mousy girl with a gap in her front teeth and vibrant green eyes.

  “What’s your name?” I asked as I watched her work in the large mirror behind the mantelpiece.

  “Kitty, Miss,” she replied. She made eye-contact with me in the mirror.

  “I do not recall seeing you before.”

  “No, Miss – I just started last month.”

  “I see,” No wonder she’d been willing to fix my hair. Most of the maids were afraid of me – after all of the explosions and odd smells which had come out of my attic in the last few years, they’d become hesitant to even be in the same room as me. I wondered what rumours Kitty had heard about me. “You think the white would be better?” I asked, brushing the dark blue skirt I was wearing, which hid the grease stains so much better than white.

  “I do, Miss,” Kitty said. She seemed to have realised her mistake because she added: “If you don’t mind me saying.”

  “I don’t mind,” I replied. “In fact, I would encourage you to be honest with me. I have not been out in the world for a while, and I am not entirely certain what the latest fashions are.”

  Kitty nodded. She made me take off my toolbelt – I felt naked without it, but I understood that it could not be an acceptable accessory in polite society. I returned it to my room and changed quickly, and by the time I’d returned to the dining room Kitty had unearthed a deep crimson cloak which I did not recognise.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked.

  Kitty bit her lip, looking a tad unsure of herself. “It was in the master bedroom. There’s a whole trunk of women’s clothes – full of mothballs, it was.”

  I felt a shiver as I ran my fingers over the cloak. I had to have belonged to my mother – there was no one el
se it could have belonged to. I had certainly never bought it.

  My mother had led the attack on my attic laboratory. She’d been there with a modified pistol strapped to her hip, claiming that she had my best interests at heart when she let those women take what I’d worked so hard to build. I’d thought that she was dead. I’d spent half my life mourning her, only to find out in the worst possible way that she was alive, well, and nothing at all like I thought she’d been.

  ‘I knew that you would be a danger right from the beginning. You’re too inquisitive, my dear.’

  ‘So you would have banished me to a drawing room for dancing and marriage?’

  ‘I’d hoped that your father would see to that, yes. But I see he continues to indulge you.’

  The very thought of it made my heart squeeze in my chest. She’d left my father and me, allowed us to believe that she was dead, all so that she could run around the country killing scientists and stealing their secrets. She hadn’t killed me, though. That mistake would cost her.

  “It’s lovely,” I said, my voice remarkably steady.

  Kitty deflated with relief. “It’s a bit old-fashioned, but it’s quite a nice style. People won’t look twice.”

  “Excellent.”

  I allowed her to help me into it, then told her that she should run down to the kitchens and help herself to something sweet. She grinned widely and bobbed into a curtsey. “Thank you, Miss.”

  Edmund was waiting for me at the door. He looked handsome in his tweed suit and black coat, and he gazed at me appreciatively.

  “You look quite lovely, Miss Lapointe,” he said.

  “Thank you, Mr Price,” I said cheerfully, because it was one thing for him to call me by my last name when we were alone, and quite another to say it in the entrance hall where the maids could hear. My father had a deep belief in displaying affluence, and the number of servants in our house had always exceeded our needs. Apart from my attic – and now, apparently, my room – there was hardly anywhere in the house where one could speak without being overheard by one of the maids. “The new girl picked it out for me.”