Infernal Devices (All Steamed Up)

by Abigail Barnette

  Infernal Devices

  An All Steamed Up Story

  By Abigail Barnette

  Resplendence Publishing, LLC

  http://www.resplendencepublishing.com

  Resplendence Publishing, LLC

  2665 S Atlantic Avenue, #349

  Daytona Beach, FL 32176

  Infernal Devices

  Copyright © 2011, Abigail Barnette

  Edited by Christine Allen-Riley and Jason Huffman

  Cover art by Les Byerley www.les3photo8.com

  Electronic format ISBN: 978-1-60735-232-7

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Electronic release: January, 2011

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.

  To my awesome editor, Christine Allen-Riley

  Chapter One

  The scrap of paper that Miss Permilia Deering clutched in her black satin glove instructed her to cross the street, go to the door with the little brass plaque in the shape of two playing cards—aces, a heart and a spade—and to pull the bell and wait. It was only the second to last clue in the intricate riddles she’d followed to find the Two Aces, the most notorious club in all of London.

  Now, all she had to do was lift her foot and cross the street.

  It was easier thought about than done, a fact she wished she would have considered before she’d hired the taxi that had taken her first to the park to meet her friend, Miss Cecilia Watson, who had handed over the paper only after looking this way and that to be sure she was not watched.

  “You must not tell anyone where this came from. I can’t even tell you how I got it. But I won’t have my name mentioned in even the same conversation as that place.” She’d actually blushed as she’d slipped the instructions into Permilia’s hands. “I think you are making a very grave mistake.”

  Permilia had not argued with her, for it would have been a waste of time, just as Cecilia had known that further argument with her friend would have been pointless, as well. Permilia had been obsessed with the club since the first time she’d heard of it at Lady Covington’s summer ball. Le mot du jour had been Monsieur LaQuebec’s circling of the globe by airship, a pioneering feat in aethernautics that had been much cause for celebration. Lady Covington, feeling quite painless late in the evening, had remarked, “What marvelous things they’re building these days! Monsieur LaQuebec’s flying machine, the marvelous inventions of those fiends at The Two Aces...” and her speech had been promptly cut off by Lord Covington while ladies tittered and gentlemen had smirked. After that, it had been as though Permilia’s ears had been permanently attuned to the words “two” and “aces” in any sort of proximity in a sentence. And after she’d learned exactly what people had been talking about behind their hands, playing cards had become positively distracting.

  The Two Aces was a debauchery club.

  From the stories she had overheard and the information she had deliberately sought out, she’d learned fantastical things. Men and women engaging in marital congress right out in the open. People tied up and left at the whims of club patrons. And machines.

  Oh, the machines. She’d heard of machines that could give a woman pleasure no man was capable of, machines that ran on steam and aether batteries and were designed to tease and delight their users—and those who used them on others. She had tried to imagine what such machines would look like, over and over again as she’d lain in her bed at night, slowly stroking herself beneath the covers. One day, she hoped she would go to the club herself, to see what all the fuss was about.

  When she’d become engaged, Permilia had redoubled her efforts in finding the club. She felt rather guilty about the whole thing, but what was to be done? She had come this far, and there was no turning back.

  Now all she had to do was cross the street.

  She took a deep breath. In a few weeks, she would be married to Mr. Wallace “Cold Fish” Sterling, lying beneath him as he grunted politely throughout their perfunctory intercourse. If she did not ring the bell now, she might as well resign herself to feeling nothing below the waist ever again, and that was a predicament reserved for married life.

  It wasn’t that she desperately wanted to be married. It was simply expected. She knew it and Wallace knew it, though they had never explicitly spoken of it. But that had to be the reason they had agreed to marry. He certainly showed no interest in her otherwise.

  She stepped off the curb and hurried across the street, taking a path between the glowing auras of the street lamps. Once at the door, she checked and double checked the instructions on the paper, the placard on the door. Two aces, a heart and a spade. This was the place. She wiped her hands against her skirt, then, remembering that she wore gloves, rolled her eyes at her own nerves. She had to appear confident. At ease. She had to act as though she belonged there. She reached for the bell pull and yanked the thick velvet rope once, then twice, then paused for a space of two heartbeats, then rang again.

  A slot opened in the door, and eyes, one covered with a brass monocular, scrutinized her.

  “Peppermint,” she stammered, then bit her lip.

  The door slid closed. Permilia waited a few moments, hoping to hear the click of a bolt of the creak of the hinges. But there was nothing. She looked down at the list in confusion. Why, the paper didn’t say peppermint at all! It said pepperpot. Cursing, she gripped the bell pull. She rang once, twice, then waited two heartbeats and pulled the rope again. But no one responded, even when she stood on tiptoe to get her mouth near the little slot and yelled, “Pepperpot! I meant to say pepperpot!”

  She cursed under her breath and turned away, resolved not to think of it as defeat, but a minor setback, when she caught sight of a figure crossing the street. He wore a long, leather coat that slapped at his legs as he walked, a tricorn hat so terribly out of fashion that it was positively arcane, a leather bandit’s mask over his mouth, nose and chin, and a pair of brass goggles that obscured the rest of his face. He looked alarmingly like one of the clockwork men that had become so popular around the ton. The man slowed when he saw her, then came to a stop. It unnerved her to be watched when she could not see his face. She couldn’t even be sure he was watching, but something low in her abdomen told her that he must be. She felt so naked under his gaze.

  The mask over his mouth obscured his voice, but he spoke clearly enough to be understood. “They’ve changed it.”

  “Excuse me?” Permilia found that her mouth had gone very dry. The man’s broad shoulders and his confident stance made her feel very confused. Then she realized that he had overheard at least a part of her exchange with the impassive door. “Oh, no, I wasn’t—”

  “It’s daffodil now, but they won’t let you in tonight, now that you’ve already gotten the password wrong.” He walked towards her slowly, or perhaps he walked toward the door. Without seeing where his gaze fell, she did not know.

  “I wasn’t interested in...” she flushed. “I was just curious.”

  “You could ask another member to vouch for you,” he continued, ringing the bell once, twice, then waiting for the space of two heartbeats and pulling it again.

  She knew her cheeks must look freshly slapped, from the way they burned. “I don’t know anyone. I don’t know those kinds of people.”

  “You are those kind of people,” h
e responded, sounding bored. The slot in the door opened, and the eyes went from her to the stranger in the leather coat. “Daffodil.”

  The door opened at once, and the man swept his arm before him grandly. “After you, miss—”

  “Ophelia.” Why had she picked a doomed mad woman? Was it a sign?

  “Are you coming in tonight, Ophelia?” the stranger asked, perhaps a bit impatiently.

  This was the moment she could choose to follow the stranger and perhaps ruin her reputation, or go home and strive to forget any nonsense about pleasure and debauchery and writhing, naked flesh and—

  She stepped through the door.

  Chapter Two

  Permilia stepped into the small space beyond the door, painfully aware of how close she stood to the stranger. As the door closed, she tried to place a step or two between them, only to find herself face to face with clockwork man. The eyes and the monocular snapped open mechanically, the lens of the monocular rotating to focus on Permilia. With a gasp, she jumped back, and the stranger caught her shoulders.

  “Down, Cogsworth,” the stranger said, still holding Permilia’s arms. “So, Ophelia, what brings you to The Two Aces tonight?”

  She watched the clockwork automaton swing away from them. The machine had a convincingly sculpted upper body, dressed quite fashionably in a vest and coat, but his form ended in a polished brass stand attached to the wall. The automaton pulled a gear switch, and the whole of the room shuddered and jerked, giving Permilia the very odd sensation that the floor had disappeared from beneath her feet. She clutched the front of the stranger’s coat, then realized what she had done and pulled away.

  An eyebrow arched over the top of the stranger’s brass goggles.

  “I’m just here to…see.” She looked away, to the upper corners of the room, which appeared to be getting taller. The clockwork man appeared to be rising above their head, though he remained firmly attached to the wall. “Are we descending?”

  “This is your first visit, then,” he said, carefully moving her away from the wall. “Stay towards the center, please.”

  “Yes, it’s my first visit.” Something about his attitude rankled her. It was as though he found her curiosity tiresome, or he did not believe she belonged there. If that were the case, he shouldn’t have asked her to come inside. She lifted her chin bravely and informed him, “I want to see the machines.”

  He went very still for a moment. “What would a nice young lady like yourself know about the machines?”

  In for a penny, in for a pound. “I know that they have been designed to give pleasure. And that many people in London believe them to be better than…marital relations.”

  “Indeed? And you’ve experienced ‘marital relations’ then?” That eyebrow shot up again, and she would have dearly loved to see his expression.

  “N-no,” she stammered, then took a deep breath. This man was a stranger. What could honesty hurt? “It’s high time I was married, and I want to experience everything I can before I end up shackled to some cold fish of a husband and find that I’ve missed my chance.”

  After a moment of silence, he asked, “Why here, though? Certainly there are plenty of men who would love to initiate you. You didn’t have to come here.”

  “If you don’t want me here, why did you ask me in?” She bristled at his implication, that she couldn’t find a man to bed her otherwise. “Besides, I don’t know if you’ve been out in polite society lately, but there aren’t exactly all sorts of randy goings on. Everyone is so damned.... so damned....”

  “Polite?” he asked, as the floor beneath them shuddered to a stop.

  “Now what?” Permilia asked, tapping her foot, and the stranger lifted a finger to point behind her.

  She turned to see that one wall of the little room was missing, and beyond the opening was a wide foyer with plush chairs and potted ferns. Beyond that, a gold velvet curtain hung across the back wall. The stranger ushered her out of the descending room and into the foyer, where another wall-mounted automaton pulled a lever and sent the floor back the way they had come.

  The sound of music and laughter, underscored by lower voices and mechanical hisses and clanks, enticed Permilia to come closer, and she approached the curtain.

  “Wait one moment,” the stranger called, reaching into his coat. “If you’re going to be my guest for the evening, I’d like you to look the part.”

  She swallowed down a sudden knot of fear as he produced a collar, rather like someone would put on a guard dog, and a length of thick chain. “You don’t mean for me to wear that.”

  “I do.” His muffled voice was placid. “Or, if you like, you may go back upstairs and out onto the street and straight home to your safe, proper little existence.”

  Whoever this man was, he was infuriating. Still, he had a point. She had come here for adventure. It would be foolish to turn her back on it now. She popped a few of the pearl buttons at the back of her neck and folded down her collar. “I suppose, if it is a necessity, I will wear it.”

  He chuckled. “You’re overdressed. Take off your clothes.”

  “All of them?” She pressed her hand to her chest to still the frantic beating of her heart. “Right here?”

  He said nothing. With a deep breath, she reached behind her and unbuttoned as far as she could reach, but the delicate buttons ran in a line all the way to her hips. She couldn’t undo them herself. She could scarcely believe she was asking a stranger to undress her in a public room, but she said, “I need help.”

  With a nod, he slowly moved behind her. As astounding as it seemed, she grew damp between her legs waiting for his hands to fall on her. Would he rip her dress off, sending buttons this way and that? She shivered, then scolded herself. If he did something like that, how would it look when she returned home? People on the street were bound to notice that she’d been ravished.

  Despite his gruff manner, the stranger was very careful, taking the time to pop each button. Too much time, so that Permilia was able to consider what was happening to her. She had no idea who the man beneath the mask and goggles was, no idea what kind of person he could be. Could she really do something so intimate as letting him undress her? What if someone walked in and saw her? What would they think of her?

  Finished with the buttons, he tugged the sleeves down, then pushed the dress over her hips. It fell into a puddle on the floor.

  “This is the most undressed I’ve ever been in front of a man,” she said, and her statement, which she had intended to sound amused and self-assured, came out as a whisper.

  He leaned close to her ear, brushing her hair with his mask. “So far.”

  She held her breath as he walked around her in a slow circle. “Take off your bustle and petticoats.”

  Hands shaking, she unhooked the waist of her petticoats and let them drop to the floor with her dress. Standing before him in her combination and corset, stockings and boots, she waited for his next move. He seemed to study her for a long time, but there was no way of telling if he approved of what he saw. She thought back to her mother’s admonitions regarding her figure. Permilia had always been a tad…lush for fashion standards.

  Without a word of approval or displeasure, he came forward, unrolling the collar. The touch of the leather against her skin made her jump. She swallowed thickly as he fastened the collar with deft fingers. “I don’t know your name yet.”

  “You may call me your Master,” he said, with that same cool indifference that had colored his every word since they’d met on the street. He gave the chain a little tug, not enough to hurt Permilia, but enough to make her want to follow him.

  “What about my clothes?” she asked as he led her toward the gold curtain.

  “They will be taken care of, and waiting for you when you leave.” He gave the chain another little tug. “Starting now, do not speak unless you are spoken to. If you grow tired of our games, simply say ‘music box’. Do you understand?”

  “I understand that I do not lik
e being told what to do!” She took a deep breath. “If I say ‘music box’, what happens?”

  “We stop whatever it is we are doing and I escort you from the club.” He swept aside the curtain.

  Though Permilia certainly had questions that remained, she could not think of them once she saw the club proper.

  The air was hazy with pungent smoke that mingled with the scent of the gaslights that flared in sconces on the walls. Though the room was lit well enough, the smoke and the shadows from what appeared to be hundreds of bodies made it seem dark and small.

  “Welcome to The Two Aces,” the stranger said, before plunging into the crowd with Permilia in tow.

  Chapter Three

  As they moved across the crowded floor, Permilia wasn’t sure if she should let her eyes bug out of her head or cover them entirely. Surely she should not, as a virtuous young woman, see the things that were happening all around her. They passed a man who reclined on a settee with a glass of brandy and a cigar, completely nude with a beautiful blonde woman bobbing her mouth up and down on his erect male part. A group of men and women stood in a circle around a couple—no, three people, two men and a woman— who writhed, naked, on huge cushions on the floor.

  The stranger gave no notice to the spectacle of debauchery around them, as though it were something he saw every night. It very well could have been the case, she realized. He was obviously a member of the club, and certainly he knew his way around it as they wound their way past a sunken area in which two women cavorted with an automaton for cheering onlookers.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, raising her voice above the noise of the crowd before she remembered her promise to remain silent.