Ether & Elephants

by Cindy Spencer Pape

  Nell sighed. “Not like you and Papa, at least not yet. But I don’t want to be alone, Mum. I mean, I love all of you, all my brothers and sisters, but I want my own family someday. And I’m not getting any younger. Roger’s a wonderful man. I’m so fond of him, and more importantly, I trust him. He’ll never break my heart.”

  “You’ve completely given up on Tom?” Caro clasped Nell’s hand in her own. “Oh, I know we never speak of it, but I’ve always known, since that first day I came to live with you. You love one another so deeply. It breaks my heart that he won’t even consider an annulment.”

  Nell looked at Caro, letting her mother see all the despair in her heart. “Never. I suppose I’ve always known that, but I’m finally ready to admit it. There’s a chance, he said yesterday, that the baby his so-called wife was carrying was his. That changes everything. Even if the wedding should prove fraudulent, and it may well, he’ll never deny it. I have to face it, Mum. The truth of it is, he chose to be with someone else. Yes, he was young, and I was just a schoolgirl, but he knew even then that I loved him.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I believe he truly loved me. He said he did. But not…not enough to be loyal, to wait, even after he promised. And because of that, I don’t think I could ever truly trust him. If by some miracle he was free, and we did wed, I’d be forever wondering if he was faithful. I couldn’t live like that. So I’m moving on. It’s the only thing I can do. It’s time to face the fact that we were never meant to be together.”

  Caro gathered Nell in her arms and held her tightly while she cried. When Nell’s tears subsided, Caro wiped them with the hem of her overskirt. “My poor, brave girl. Whatever you want, you know you have your father and me right beside you. All I ask is that you take a little time to decide. Worry about your Charlie first. After that, you can sort out everything else, even set a date for the wedding if that’s what you decide. Now, let’s go change, so you can introduce me to this Roger of yours.”

  Chapter Five

  “I suppose we ought to get back before the ladies send out a search party.” Tom climbed back on his horse after they’d deposited the criminals at the village gaol. “First thing tomorrow, we’ll head out looking for this boss-man those bastards talked about.” He’d derived a fair bit of satisfaction out of extracting information from the prisoners before delivering them to the constabulary. Too bad these lowlifes hadn’t known much, but at least now there were more leads to follow. He rubbed at his sore knuckles.

  “I’ll wait at the station with the wagon,” Victor said. “Some of the parents are arriving on the next train.” The Order had contacted all the parents and paid for their fares to come retrieve the rescued children, which would happen over the next couple days.

  That night, however, was Melody’s dinner party, which none of them dared ignore. The children’s party would be the following day, during which Tom, Nell and Roger could slip away to continue their search.

  Bloody Roger. Was Nell going to marry the blighter?

  At Tom’s right elbow, Connor rode on a massive black horse, chatting away about the latest antics of his three-year-old twins. Apparently Eva, the girl, wanted to follow in the footsteps of her mother’s Gypsy circus-performing relatives and had been caught trying to hang by her knees from her bed canopy. Her brother Josh merely excelled at escaping his nanny whenever they went outdoors.

  Tom snickered. “Sounds normal.” The four littlest Hadrian youngsters led Caro and Merrick a merry chase. In the past few years, though, Tom hadn’t spent much time with his foster siblings, Sylvia, Will, Rose and Vivienne. Watching them play had done nothing but make him wonder if he had a son or daughter of his own somewhere. If so, where? And what might that child be doing?

  “Father says there’s talk of setting up a branch of the Order in Calcutta,” Connor said. “Only they’ve no idea who to send. Not many Knights want to leave behind their families in England, or drag them to the heat and unrest of the subcontinent.”

  “Hmm.” No one had mentioned this to Tom. The idea had a certain appeal. “I’ll speak to the duke. There are a few of us with no ties, enough to form a small office.”

  “No ties? You have more family than any of us.” Connor snorted. “But it sounded like something you might be interested in. Hate to see you go, though. Josh and Eva would miss their godfather.”

  “They hardly ever see me anyway.” Tom had been negligent there, too, and for the same reasons. “It wouldn’t be forever. Besides, an airship can make it in what, two days? Three?”

  Connor replied, “A commercial vessel? Probably three. An Order ship would make better time, but you’d need a pilot and crew, which we’re a little short on at the moment.”

  “It’s certainly worth considering.” Tom idly rubbed his horse’s neck. “There’s a lot of magick in India, things we know nothing about. Since it’s now British soil, we ought to find out more. Thanks for the tip.”

  Connor punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Whatever you do, don’t get yourself killed over there.”

  Tom ignored the urge to punch back. “With what we do, that’s never a guarantee. Besides, first I need to help Nell find her missing student. After that, well, it depends on what we find out.”

  “Just know we’re here for you, whatever happens. My family as well as your own.” Connor turned his horse onto the lane toward Black Heath. “You know, you might have Belle read the cards. She’s uncannily accurate.”

  “Maybe.” He wouldn’t. Connor’s wife Belinda, of Gypsy descent, did have a gift with the Tarot, but Tom had never approached her for a reading. Tom viewed his future with enough dread as it was. He didn’t need his fears confirmed. It was bad enough having a brother who occasionally had premonitions. Jamie couldn’t control his visions, but if he’d seen anything about Tom, he hadn’t said so, at least not since they were children.

  “Do it as a favor to me,” Connor said. “Ask her about the boy, if not about yourself. She likes to be useful, but sometimes our sisters make her feel like a layabout, since she isn’t a scientist or doctor or teacher.”

  Tom snorted. “I’d think raising twins, making herbal medicines and writing children’s books quite enough occupation for anyone.”

  “You’d think so.” Connor grinned. “She’s more than enough for me, at any rate. Still, she likes to help out the Order in small ways when she can. Ask her.”

  “Fine.” Tom resisted the urge to tackle his friend off that great black horse and wipe the smug look from his face, just as if they were schoolboys again. Instead, they traveled in silence until leaving their horses with the Black Heath grooms.

  While Connor ran up to the main house to find his children, Tom searched out Wink and Melody at the Babbage engines in Melody’s workshop. He raised an eyebrow about finding Braithwaite with them but supposed the poor sod had to find something to do. Still, it was Wink Tom turned to for answers. They’d returned her faithful companion, and George sat motionless by her side, his tail thumping twice when Tom entered the room. Tom absently patted George’s head before perching atop Melody’s workbench. “What have you discovered?”

  Wink brushed a few auburn curls away from her face. “Quite a bit. Mr. Braithwaite, why don’t you escort Lady Blackwell up to the house for some tea. I think we’re done out here for the afternoon.”

  Melody yawned and stretched. “Tea would be lovely. But we’re all family here. Come along, Roger, and call me Mel. Let’s let these two have their chat. Our cook makes the most amazing scones.”

  Though short and a tad plump since becoming a mother, Melody was a force to be reckoned with when it came to a contest of wills. Poor Braithwaite had taken her arm and left the workshop, most likely before he even realized he’d be missing something.

  “He probably can’t wait to go find Nell anyway,” Wink said, watching the two leave.

  Tom hadn’t thought of it like that. Bloody hell.

  Wink lifted a stack of papers and handed them to Tom. “At worst, you’re probably m
arried to a confidence artist and a bigamist, little brother. Easy grounds for annulment. The Order solicitors could probably have you declared a free man by Christmas.”

  The little brother was an old barb. Since Tom was only a few months her junior, it rankled nonetheless. “And at best?” He looked down skeptically at the sheaf of papers the machines had printed. As he’d told Nell, it didn’t change anything. Until he found out for sure about the child, his hands were tied.

  “At best, you’re not married at all. You certainly weren’t the first, and there’s every probability she used a false name, since each one is slightly different. Furthermore, there’s a question of timing. The only Charles born in that vicinity was only five months after your so-called wedding. That means she’d certainly have been showing by the time you married her, if this child were yours. That’s just going on the assumption that her child was christened Charles.”

  Every moment of that fateful night had been imprinted on Tom’s brain. “She was, or else she’d just put on weight. She wasn’t as slight as when we…slept together. She couldn’t have been four months along, though. We were only together the one time, and that was only two and a half months before the wedding. Either the babe came early or Charlie isn’t Polly’s child.”

  “You’re missing another obvious possibility. She may have already been with child when you slept with her, but not yet showing at all.” Wink shuffled through the papers. “The first wedding performed near Cambridge that year with a woman by the initials of P. B., was two months before yours. The child could easily have been his, or someone else’s entirely.”

  “No.” Tom’s throat clenched. “She was untouched before me.”

  Wink laughed. “You poor, delusional man. If we’re talking about a professional confidence artist, there are certainly ways to fake virginity. Unless you have some magickal proof, I’d keep an open mind on that subject.”

  “Hell. I don’t even want to know how you know that.” Tom dropped his forehead into his hands. “I’m sure it’s technically possible, but that’s not a consideration that had ever occurred to me. You think she and her father were taking advantage of her pregnancy to trap men into marriage? I just don’t see how that makes any sense.”

  “Not just any men,” she reminded him. “But young, impressionable men from wealthy families. How much money did you give her, brother dear? You’re lucky you didn’t sign over your entire inheritance.”

  “The property is entailed.” He waved off her question about the manor and fortune he’d inherited from his grandfather. “But yes. I did give her an entire quarter’s allowance, plus everything I’d saved since going up to school.” Not to mention card winnings, and various other incidental funds. He’d never been a spendthrift, and had once made his living as a card sharp. He’d had a tidy sum to hand over to his bride.

  “So you gave her all your money.” Wink tapped her toe on the floor. “Then what?”

  “After the wedding night, which she claimed she was too ill to consummate, by the way, she sent me back to the dormitory while she was going to secure an apartment. I never saw her again. Or her father.” And he’d searched. For years.

  “You know, he may not have been her father.” Wink tapped her fingers on the desk. “A lot of younger women marry older men. In which case, she may have been wed long before you came on the scene. And there’s no way of knowing how many other gullible lads they rooked or how long they’ve been at it. I can’t believe you never looked into this possibility before. I thought you and Papa had investigated.”

  He winced at the word rooked, though it was quite probably accurate. “We did, but remember, not all of this information was recorded on the Babbage engines then. We never thought to check other parishes for marriages, just for births, and obviously we couldn’t check every birth in England, not when every parish kept its own records on paper.”

  “Well, now we know.” Wink rested her hand on George’s head and absently rubbed the bronze. “And what about your interrogation? Did you get anything useful from the prisoners? Find out where or who their employer is?”

  “A general description.” The children hadn’t seen much and were too traumatized to remember what they had. “Not much more. Fine clothes, a steam car and an average-looking gentleman in his forties. He’d come around with instructions a couple times a month, maybe. All he was ever called was ‘Sir.’ No one had any idea—or at least gave up any suggestion—about where he came from or what he did.”

  “Well, that’s rotten.” Nothing frustrated Wink more than a puzzle she couldn’t solve. “Was there nothing in the paperwork at the mine? An address for shipping it out?”

  “Not a word.” Tom didn’t much care for unsolvable riddles himself. “Wagons came and picked up the ore. Others dropped off children or picked up bodies. There’s not a damn thing we can trace. I didn’t get a sense of anything but business as usual from anything in the office.” He hadn’t bothered to try his touch magick in the mine. He was sure all he’d have picked up was anger and terror.

  “Never say never,” Wink said. “We’ll keep at it, I promise. Now, let’s go find the others before the dressing gong. Teddy needs his dinner and I’m sure you want to see Mum and the little ones.”

  Tom let her shoo him out of the workshop. Blast it, they were no further ahead than they’d been yesterday. Well, except for twelve children going home to their families. That was something worthwhile. It just wasn’t enough.

  * * *

  Nell couldn’t resist stealing an hour to play hide and seek in the garden with her mother, her younger siblings and most of their friends. After a rollicking hour, she sat on a blanket with Caro and Geneva to catch her breath. Cuddling her young nephew in her arms, she watched Nancy close her eyes and count to one hundred. The girl had already bonded with Nell’s sister Sylvia and Victor’s niece Emma. She reminded Nell of Wink, with her grit and raw intelligence. Nell determined that some way or another, she was going to see to it that Nancy went to school. What was the point of having money if she never used it for good?

  Wink and Tom rounded the house and joined the group in the garden. Nell stood and surrendered Teddy to his mother while Tom made his way over to Belinda and escorted her toward the house. Had Tom taken a sudden interest in children’s stories? No, more likely it was something to do with Connor.

  A hand touched her shoulder. She jumped, but settled at the sound of Roger’s gentle voice. “You’ve a rather impressive family, and faintly terrifying friends.”

  “That I do.” She smiled up at him. The warmth of his body and the scent of his aftershave lotion surrounded her. Being this close felt…nice. Not earth-shattering, not heart-pounding, but as if she were wrapped in a cocoon of affection. She gave in to the urge to lean her head against his shoulder, which was nicer yet. “Are you still interested in becoming part of this impressively terrifying bunch?”

  “For you, my dear, I’d join a traveling circus.” He placed a kiss on her temple.

  Nell laughed. “Oh, my, don’t let Belinda hear you say that. She grew up in one, and her great-uncle is a good friend of ours. In fact, there were a few weeks some years ago when many of us joined his circus, to find a killer. Can you believe I sang on stage?”

  “Belinda is the youngest Lady MacKay, right? Dark hair, dark eyes? Rather…” Roger looked down at Nell’s modest bosom.

  “Voluptuous?” Poor Roger was trying so hard to be polite. “Yes, that’s Belinda. Also the one with the twin toddlers.”

  “From Gypsy circus to the wife of a Knight,” Roger said. “I suppose stranger things have happened.”

  Nell pulled away and took Roger’s hand, drawing him deeper into the garden, away from the others. “I told you my family was somewhat out of the ordinary. Is Belinda’s story any stranger than a group of street children adopted by a baron? You realize my mother—Fanny Jenkins, not Caro Hadrian, was a prostitute, don’t you? All I know of my natural father is that he was a dark-skinned sailor, possibly
from India or Burma or the like. Even Mum—Caro—was originally a governess. I’m no lily-white English rose with a perfect pedigree, despite the Honorable Miss in front of my name. Do you have a problem with that, Roger?”

  “No, no, of course not.” He hesitated just slightly over the words, giving the hint of a lie to them. Still, she believed that he wanted to be open-minded. Perhaps it would just take some time. “No matter your past, I never thought of you as anything but a lady. I’m a little shocked about the circus, though. I thought you hated to perform in public.”

  “I do. It’s a long story, but Belinda’s life and others were at stake.” She patted his hand. “That’s another thing you should know about my family. We do what we have to do, even if we don’t like it. We’re rather like Mr. Dumas’s musketeers. ‘One for all and all for one.’ And we don’t shy away from risks, especially when someone needs our help.”

  He lifted her gloved hand to his lips and kissed it. “Well, I can only hope that same fierce loyalty will extend to me, and any family we may have. I’ve watched you with children for years now, you know. You’re going to make a marvelous mother.”

  “I look forward to it.” About that, Nell didn’t have to be evasive, so she told him the absolute truth. “I’d love a big family. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “I look forward to that as well.” He drew her in close and lowered his lips to hers. “In fact, the sooner the better, my love. When can we wed? Are you intent on a long engagement?”

  “No. We can set the date as soon as we find Charlie,” she whispered. He was about to kiss her, and suddenly it felt awkward. She pulled back. “How would you feel about opening a school, you and I? One for children with nowhere else to go, like the ones from the mine today? And our own, of course.”

  “A charity school?” A small furrow formed between his eyebrows. “I don’t think my estate could support one. It’s a nice place, but not that lucrative. Besides, I wasn’t planning to continue teaching. I’d rather expected to settle down and be a gentleman farmer, with you as my pampered lady of the manor, not a working teacher or headmistress. Now, if you wanted to be a patroness, I’m sure we can find a school in Sussex that could use your enthusiasm and family connections.”