A Clockwork Christmas

by JK Coi, PG Forte, Stacy Gail; Jenny Schwartz

  Her blasted memory worked fine now that it was too late.

  She ground her teeth together as horror and bitter anguish warred for supremacy. What a deep, dark hole she had dug for herself. In the sobering dawn of a new day she knew the night’s pleasurable frolic had meant nothing to Roderick. Maybe even seducing the thief who’d stolen his love’s happiness had been part of his diabolical plan. At the very least their scandalous intimacies were nothing more than a scratch he needed to itch, because his heart clearly still belonged to his Beth. What had passed in the night had meant nothing.

  Just like I’m nothing.

  Cornelia’s breath caught. The thought, that she was nothing, was something of which her mother had never tired of reminding her, and it was as familiar to her as the scars on her back. But for some reason it now…hurt. Her throat constricted, and she pressed a hand to an odd ache in her chest. It was just as well the truth hurt, she decided forcefully, swallowing hard to ease the knot in her throat. Nothing snapped a dreamy maiden out of a sensual fairytale faster, to be sure. It was good she’d reminded herself of the true score now that passion no longer addled her brain, and she was bloody glad he could see her scars. Now he knew she was just as ugly on the outside as he knew her to be on the inside.

  “Cornelia…”

  The regret in his tone drove a dagger into her heart.

  “I’m glad you’re awake,” she announced briskly, continuing to plait her hair and telling herself she only felt stricken and vulnerable because she wore nothing more than leggings. “The main reason I called on you last night was to let you know Irish Paddy is doing his people proud by throwing a glorious Christmas Eve party, a real event of the holiday season, according to the word on the street. I know it’s cutting things rather fine, but with so many people attending, that would be the perfect time to strike. I have one more parlay planned later today to verify the egg’s exact location before we can—”

  Warm hands cupped her upper arms while lips came to nibble along the slope of a shoulder that bore one of the more jagged scars decorating her flesh, a long-ago wound she’d once despaired would never heal. She flinched away as if the ancient pain lingered, and in a way it did. People like her weren’t fit to be touched by good people like Roderick. They both knew that, so why did he persist? What the devil was his motive?

  “Cornelia.” The regret was still there, but this time it was wedded to the bite of impatience she knew so well. “If you’re angry with me for my ungentlemanly manner, let’s hash it out now. I’m sure you have certain expectations—”

  “The only expectation I have at the moment is for me to be well on my way before all the streetlights are out.” Spotting her crumpled chemise, which had somehow wedged itself under a workbench, she made a dive for it. This was difficult enough without her naughty bits bouncing about in the open air. “And I do expect you to return the compressor to my place before tomorrow so I can install it onto the airship. I’ll be out of the house most of the day, so please let yourself in. Something you seem to be rather good at, I might add—”

  “Stop your blathering and look at me.” He spun her around to face him, and it occurred to her now would be a good time to know how to swoon fancy-lady style. How could she do anything else when confronted with her idea of a perfect man wearing nothing more than a disgruntled frown? “Though you’ve never led what I would call a conventional life, I’m well aware you possess a rather, erm, prim moral code when it comes to the intimacies men and women share. We should talk about what happens now.”

  “The only thing that should happen now is for you to make yourself decent while I go on my merry way. No,” she added more sharply than she intended when he opened his mouth to speak, but she couldn’t help it. The last thing she wanted to hear from him was that any of her “expectations” were ludicrous. “We were two ships passing in the night, as they say, but the night is now a thing of the past. I know most women in society assume a marriage proposal should follow the grinding of giblets, but I’m neither a lady nor a true part of society, so allow me to reassure you—you are off the hook. This was boredom, this was convenience, and as soon as Christmas is here this is over, one way or another.” Coward that she was, Cornelia took to her heels, snatching up the doublet and hat as she went.

  Work was a welcome distraction for Cornelia. With the patience her particular lifestyle had taught her, she waited for her would-be informant whom she knew frequented a local tavern, The Blue Crab, during the lunch hour. It was a place peopled by everyday working stiffs, so she dressed appropriately in a plain woolen frock with a bustle that had seen better days and a bonnet to hide the color of her hair from view. To further complete the look, she had darkened her fair brows with kohl, perched wire-rimmed specs on her nose, and used just enough powder on her face and lips to give her a dull, washed-out appearance. It was a simple but effective disguise designed to make her blend into the surroundings to the point where she was all but invisible. If she’d done her job right, no one would know she was there.

  No one, except her target.

  Just past noon a stout woman in a maid’s gray uniform, white pinafore and ruffled cap sailed through the door and lit upon her usual corner barstool next to Cornelia, who put on her best pitiful face and waited for the bait to be taken.

  It took less than a minute.

  “Fish and chips, and a Dewars neat to wash it all down,” the woman ordered with a harassed air. Her doughy face and bulbous nose held the telltale ruddy flush that had attracted Cornelia’s attention in the first place, while her beady eyes scoured the bottles behind the bar with avid attention. “Hover close, Edmund, it’s been that much of a morning. How anyone can expect a body to prepare for a party of three hundred while still maintaining a normal daily routine is beyond me. Wouldn’t you agree, dear?”

  Cornelia did her best to appear startled before offering a watery smile. “Yes, ma’am, that would seem unreasonable.”

  “Unreasonable. That’s the word.” The Dewars came first, and it was knocked back as though noonday was a perfect time to indulge in some liquid happiness. “You seem to be having the same sort of day that I am, miss. Why the gloomy face?”

  “I…” Cornelia looked to the untouched coffee in front of her and thought of Roderick. Certainly nothing could make her appear gloomier than the too-sexy professor, so she might as well let it work for her. “I’m very much afraid I’m going to be fired from my job. You see, I broke something.”

  “Ah well, breaking a dish or two is just the way of things, isn’t it?” The fish and chips arrived with another scotch. The scotch disappeared before the food was even touched. “Not to worry, dear. The owners rarely miss these sorts of things.”

  “True, but I’m afraid it wasn’t a dish. This was a pretty little art thing. I was dusting and, well… I accidentally knocked this egg sculpture off its pedestal. They think it was the cat, of course, but I just feel so guilty, like I should say something—”

  “Don’t,” the woman blurted, her flushed face glowing rosier by the minute. “If it’s anything like the egg sculpture my boss has, you’ll wind up swimming with the fishes in the harbor.”

  Cornelia’s eyes went wide, and she leaned forward to better share confidences. “Really? Are these egg things terribly expensive? The one I broke was kind of small, but it had gold scrollwork on it and it opened up, so maybe we’re talking about different things—”

  “Oh, we’re talking about the exact same thing, dearie.” The woman nodded wisely and at last tucked into her meal as a third drink appeared. “If anything ever happened to my boss’s egg there’d be hell to pay, mark my words. For the sake of your continued good health, let the cat take the blame and keep your trap shut.”

  “I’m so glad I spoke to you,” Cornelia said fervently and slid some money onto the polished counter. “I feel I owe you lunch, at the very least. You probably just saved my life.”

  “Well, if you insist.” The woman’s eyes lit up and she sco
oted closer to her new benefactress with a cozy air. “I do love helping out the young ones, you know. It’s a tough life us working stiffs have, don’t you know. We’ve got to stick together.”

  “True, true. It’s not like our employers give a thought to all the hard work we put into making their lives run smoothly. I for one would never keep such a valuable bauble like that egg just lying about gathering dust where anyone could knock into it. Whoever has to clean around your boss’s egg must have daily palpitations.”

  “The boss has a fair few treasures lying about, but at least that egg is no one’s source of anxiety.”

  “Oh? I suppose your boss is smarter than mine and had the foresight to lock it up safe and sound?”

  The woman shook her head and drained the last of her drink. “That egg is the prized possession of the boss’s only child, a daughter. She has it with her morning, noon and night.”

  For a moment Cornelia was flummoxed. “Maybe we’re not talking about the same thing, after all. It wasn’t a toy that I broke—”

  “Oh, this pretty bauble is no toy, but it is the one thing that makes the poor dear smile. She’s sickly, you see, with a bad ticker thanks to a bout of scarlet fever. People used to say she wasn’t long for this world, but she made a turn for the better once that pretty bauble came into her life. That egg is the only thing that seems to give sweet Miss Molly any peace.”

  “I see.” And she did. She saw that fate had it in for her, because as of now she was doomed to make history repeat itself.

  Chapter Nine

  With the snow falling in thick, wet flakes, Roderick maneuvered the puttering steam-powered Locomobile through the busy streets. A rousing snowball fight was underway in the Commons, a jauntily clad St. Nick waved to passersby from Birchford’s General Store, and Salvation Army carolers handed out pamphlets to busy holiday shoppers on the corner of Beacon Street. The turn of the new century was only days away and the frosty winter air was rife with the joy of the season.

  Too bad his mood was so foul he wanted to backhand the next idiot who dared to wish him a merry Christmas.

  He had dithered in delivering the compressor back to Cornelia’s place until noon, and though he told himself it was because he had hoped she would be around to help him lug the damned contraption up three flights of stairs, the fact of the matter was he’d simply wanted her to be there. Just be there. From the time she’d run from him that morning as though hellhounds nipped at her heels to this very moment, his only goal had been to bring her back to his side. He could still feel her, taste her. Smell her on his skin. There had never been a passion so pure or a pleasure so satisfying as the one he had discovered plunging into her depths. She was a tight, hot glove that fit him to perfection, and if he didn’t surround himself with that fit again he would redefine the meaning of Christmas madness.

  Just when he was about to circle her block for what had to be the tenth time he caught sight of a familiar muff through the evening crowds. He pulled in a breath to call out to her, only to hesitate when he took in the face that was only vaguely familiar. With the beginnings of a smile and his disgruntled restlessness fast becoming a memory, he powered down the engine and stepped out into the snow-dusted dusk.

  “Excuse me, miss. Could you direct me to the Paul Revere house?”

  Caught on the stoop of her brownstone, a bespectacled Cornelia darted a quick glance his way before she pushed through the front door. “I thought I spotted you as I rounded the corner,” she said, ushering him inside with a flurry of snowflakes. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.” For the past three hours. “Why are you in disguise?”

  “It was necessary.” Her sigh seemed oddly deflated as she shucked her muff, bonnet and cloak in the cloakroom. Placing the glasses in an armoire full of various items that he realized were nothing more than tricky bits of costuming, she began plucking the pins out of the tight bun at her nape. “And lucky for me it led to a fruitful day. I now know the location of the egg.”

  “Excellent.” She didn’t look happy, though. If anything, she looked like she was in some sort of pain. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m tired. And I need…” She stopped and looked around as if she wanted to find the thread of her thought before she made a helpless gesture. “I don’t know what I need.”

  Concern furrowed his brow. That didn’t sound like the indomitable Cornelia at all. “I think I know what you need.”

  “I’m curious, Coddington. Do you mean to be provocative, or does it just come naturally to you?”

  “My intentions are as pure as the falling snow beyond those windowpanes.” With a gentle kiss—because she seemed unaccountably fragile—he nudged her toward the stairs. “Go wash the rest of your disguise off while I light the fire in your bed chamber to warm things up.”

  “Please don’t trouble yourself, Coddington. I prefer the wall bed in my office.”

  “There’s a bed in there?”

  “Rest assured you haven’t uncovered all the secrets of my fortress.”

  He grunted. “Funny how this fortress mirrors its mistress.”

  She ignored him by trudging up the stairs. “I’m going to take a bath—uninterrupted, if you don’t mind. I promise not to electrocute myself prematurely.”

  Roderick watched her go with a frown. Something was definitely off-kilter, no doubt about it. But if he knew Cornelia, she wasn’t going to let him in on it without a fight, if only because she didn’t know how. No one had ever been there to help divvy up whatever burdens she carried, so she’d always staggered on alone. What the woman needed was to learn how to play nicely with others, and the very first step in that process was to teach her the basics on sharing.

  The professor in him was resolved. School was now in session.

  Finding Cornelia’s true lair had been a nightmare when he had first run her to ground. Though he had mocked her security defenses as child’s play, they had in fact given him tantrum-worthy fits. The office’s outer entrance was a perfect example of her cunning. It was located off the third story landing behind a moth-eaten tapestry, but not even that much concealment had been good enough for the hyper-cautious Cornelia. No, she had taken it a step further by using the same technique that hid the periscope surveillance panel in the cloakroom, camouflaging the door as just another piece of paneling that blended into the rest of the wall. If it hadn’t been for a tiny seam through which a draft had emanated, he never would have found it.

  That alone had convinced him of her genius.

  He lit the fire as promised and found the fold-away wall bed behind a bookshelf he had examined a dozen times or more, then decided he’d been patient long enough. Calmly he made his way back down to the bath where the faint musical splash of water could be heard. Without a qualm he pushed through the door just as Cornelia, eyes closed, leaned backward to submerge the luxurious fall of her hair into the rose-scented bath. Water glistened over her pale flesh, the earthy globes of her breasts jutting with the arch of her back, the dusky rose nipples wet and puckering in the cool air.

  If he lived to be a thousand, he’d never forget her in that moment.

  “Bath time is always so much more fun when it’s shared.” He shut the door behind him while she gasped and splashed into a fetal position. As he rid himself of suit coat, vest, tie and shirt, he suffered a moment’s sympathy for her predicament. Learning new things was never an easy process.

  “Damn and blast, Coddington, am I allowed no peace?” Her outraged bellow echoed around the room as he bent to remove shoes and socks. “Am I not permitted to at least have a bath to myself? And stop that undressing this instant, it’s…it’s rude.”

  “I can’t very well bathe half-dressed, now can I? That’s an unreasonable notion.”

  “It’s unreasonable to think you’re sharing my bath!”

  “And yet I fully intend to do so.” Shucking his pants and underwear aside, Roderick was pleased that despite her protests she could
n’t seem to peel her gaze away from his stiff and ready staff. That was promising. “Move over.”

  “You’re deranged.”

  “I suppose I’ll just have to sit on you, then.”

  She let out a squeak and scuttled toward the middle of the tub when he unceremoniously splashed a foot behind her. “We’ll overflow.”

  “I’m not worried.” And he wasn’t. The more flustered she became the calmer he got. He settled with a sigh into the curve of the tub and slid her back between his legs. “See? I knew there would be room enough for the both of us. I have superior spatial acuity.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” And he kissed the side of her neck to make sure she understood his appreciation.

  She shivered. “You’re the most unconventional professor I’ve ever met, Coddington.”

  Roderick grinned against her wet hair. He had a hunch she’d wanted that to be a scathing insult, but her breathy tone spoke volumes of her heated agitation. “You’re the most prim and proper little thief I’ve ever met. That makes us even.” He fitted her more securely against him, until the iron-hard rod of his arousal pressed against her back. She started, but he ignored the reaction and reached for a glass bottle of rose-scented soap. “Want me to wash your hair while I’m back here?”

  “You…wash my hair?” Apparently that hadn’t been what she was expecting, if her bemused tone was any indication. “No, thank you, I’m getting used to doing it one-handed.”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  “Coddington, you are an exasperating—not too much,” she squealed when he poured a liberal amount on her head.

  For long minutes Roderick forced himself to be a good boy and do nothing more than carry out the simple task of washing and rinsing her dark gold tresses. But being good wasn’t all that exciting. The soap’s scent, which he related to Cornelia, was making him pant with desire and the sensation of her tensed body relaxing against him as he massaged her scalp was burning him alive. By damn, he should be given a medal for lasting as long as he had.