Echoes of Aether

by Gail B Williams

  “Yes, thank you. There’s a man in the area called Vostock. As the name suggests, his origins are Russian, but he grew up in Devon. The place was never big enough for him and he soon moved up in the world, using his fists and his cunning to work for the most powerful person he could. I witnessed him threatening Montgomery, and Montgomery has indicated that his life is in danger if he doesn’t find a way of paying Vostock what is owed.”

  Amethyst looked down at her naked left hand. One word from her and she’d be able to help Monty with that. She closed her hand into a fist. She couldn’t. Even before she’d known about the debts, she couldn’t have married the man.

  “What’s interesting about Vostock is while he’s been in the area, the number of public disorder offenses have reduced.”

  “The number of what?” Great-Aunt Flora asked.

  “Brawls. Pub fights. Street fights.” Jenson shrugged. “All the unpleasantness that generally goes along with gangs and rivalry.”

  “And men drinking,” Great-Aunt Flora added.

  Jenson bowed slightly. “That I cannot deny, Great-Aunt Flora, much as I may wish too.”

  “I’m confused,” Amethyst admitted. “Public disturbances going down has to be a good thing, but we know Vostock is not a good man. Why would the two coincide?”

  “As far as I can tell, it’s because Vostock is taking control of the gangs. He’s somehow persuading them that it’s better for all concerned to stop fighting each other now in readiness for a bigger fight with someone else later.”

  “Demonstration?”

  Jenson looked at Maker, though Amethyst still didn’t dare.

  “Probably. I haven’t been able to get much detail on the demonstration as such; not so much as a location, but it seems to be the local event.”

  “Has the local constable not been much use?”

  Jenson considered before answering. “The local constable has been threatened into silence. He’s too terrified to tell me what his line of enquiry was.”

  “Not much of a police officer then, is he?” Great-Aunt Flora declared.

  “No, and when this is done the young man will be replaced, but now isn’t the time to do that. For now, everything has to carry on as if Vostock has complete control.”

  “He does.”

  “No.” Jenson’s response was every bit as dark as Maker’s comment had been. “It only appears that way. I can’t tell you what’s going on, but I can assure you that Vostock does not have everything his own way.”

  “Are you really saying there’s going to be a New Jacobite Rebellion? And it’s going to start from here?”

  “It certainly appears that way.” Jenson nodded. “I know Vostock is gathering, well, what you might call troops. There’s certainly a connection to the Chalmers, though at this point I can only link them through ideology, but it’s too coincidental for them to be here at this time. My biggest concern is that Vostock seems to be getting his orders from elsewhere.”

  “Elsewhere?”

  Jenson turned to Amethyst. “Did you find the entry?”

  She nodded, opening the book on her lap and finding the entry on the outer column of the right-hand page.

  “Earl Pembrey.” She noted Maker turn and lean against the mantle as she scanned the page. “Owns property in South Wales, Cornwall, Oxfordshire, Cumbria, Cork in Southern Eire, and an estate in the Highlands of Scotland. He sits in the House of Lords.” She stopped reading but didn’t look up. “You know him then, Maker?”

  “Keep reading.”

  She did. “It lists where he was educated, the businesses he had interests in. His family…”

  “Keep reading,” Maker commanded.

  She actually didn’t want to. The one name she had noticed made her stomach churn. She turned the page, hating that she knew what she would see. She swallowed.

  “Read it, deary.”

  She looked up at Great-Aunt Flora; the older woman knew what was coming. Lips gone dry had to be licked before she managed to speak again. “Daughter Violet, married to Lord Fotheringham, Fifth Earl of Umbria, Benjamin Maker.”

  Chapter 46

  “Well.”

  It seemed the whole room was reeling from the revelation. Jenson knew he had to speak, but finding the words was problematic.

  “Well.”

  He looked at the taut back of Maker. Almost like he didn’t know the man anymore.

  “A well’s no good without water.”

  Slack-jawed, Jenson turned to Great-Aunt Flora for her comment. The muscles about his mouth and cheeks started to twitch up, and he released the small laugh that wanted out. Trust Great-Aunt Flora to bring him back to the world. “Well at least that cuts off one avenue of investigation, saves me time.”

  “Explain,” Maker commanded as he finally turned around and faced him. Him again, Maker seemed as unable to face Amethyst as she was to look at him. What had happened?

  “I had theorised that Earl Pembrey might be Mr Brown, or Mr Quinn. But you’ve met Mr Brown and you’ve seen the drawing I have of Mr Quinn, confirmed they are the same. That precludes Quinn being the earl.”

  Maker nodded. “Indeed.” The usual expressionless mask was back.

  “How would he be mixed up in all this?” Jenson asked.

  “He’s a very wealthy man,” Great-Aunt Flora provided when Maker didn’t respond.

  “Violet married beneath herself.”

  Jenson saw the surprise in Amethyst’s expression, and guessed his own would match.

  “He’s a very wealthy man,” Great-Aunt Flora emphasised.

  “He’s a venture capitalist,” Maker said at last. “Always gets a good return.”

  “Always?” Jenson asked.

  Maker’s gaze was direct and dark. “All ways.”

  The distinction of the two words put a distinctly different spin on things. “You think he might be mixed up with the New Jacobites?”

  Maker considered it for a moment. Shook his head.

  “He’s loyal to the Queen?” Jenson couldn’t let this go.

  A nod this time.

  “You’re sure?”

  Maker nodded. “He’s loyal to his own purse. So it’s not in his interest to destabilise the economy.”

  Which was exactly what any uprising would do. In the interregnum, anything could happen, fortunes could be won and lost. Revolution was a move that would upset the whole board of the aristocracy, the empire. It was a move for the desperate, not the patiently acquisitive.

  “Would he play both sides?”

  “Possible.” Maker frowned and looked at the ceiling, searching the heavens for inspiration. “Pembrey is clever. He could play both sides, but it’s more likely to be an immediate thing for him. There’ll be something he wants.”

  Finding out what that something was would not be easy.

  “The weapon?”

  Jenson looked at Amethyst. She was looking to him, not Maker. Something had definitely happened between the two of them.

  “The A-Gun?” Great-Aunt Flora asked. “That’s a nifty device, but hardly world-changing.”

  “It could be,” Jenson said. “I think that there are a lot of groups that would be interested in weaponry like that. The police, some sections of the military. Unfortunately, there is always money to be made in weaponry.”

  “That kills, aye, but the A-Gun doesn’t.”

  “It could,” Amethyst stated in a low and unhappy tone. “The one we’ve seen doesn’t because the output has been calibrated not to, but notch that calibration up and it might. You could stop a man’s heart in his chest with no mess, little sound. It would be an assassin’s dream weapon.”

  That Amethyst saw that depressing possibility was itself a depressing idea. More worrying was the idea of the other weapon, the acoustic one. He looked to Amethyst again, and the way she looked back suggested that she thought much the same thing.

  “Is it possible?”

  “I’d need to check with Stephen, but frankly, anything is
possible.”

  “What are you talking about?” When neither of them answered, Great-Aunt Flora turned to Maker. “What are they talking about?”

  Maker shrugged but Jenson was reasonably certain he knew. “I’ll get Stephen.”

  “The goggles are in the workroom.”

  Maker raised a hand in acknowledgement as he left the library. In the silence of his wake, Jenson looked at Great-Aunt Flora and she looked back, while Amethyst looked at the book now closed on her lap.

  “What’s happened?” Jenson asked.

  The weight of Great-Aunt Flora’s gaze fell on Amethyst and eventually she looked up, looked at Jenson. Misery marked her features.

  “I made an absolute idiot of myself, and Great-Aunt Flora wants to ‘talk’ to me about it.” The idea seemed to pain her. “And I’d really rather she didn’t.”

  “Ah.” This was awkward. “I should leave.”

  “No.” The pronouncement from Great-Aunt Flora would brook no argument. “I’m sorry, Jenson, but you’re closer to her age than I, and old enough to know the world better than she does. You might be a useful bridge.”

  Unsure how he felt about that, the choice seemed to have been taken from him.

  “Someone had better tell me what happened.”

  “I threw myself at Maker and he didn’t respond.”

  “He did,” Great-Aunt Flora countered.

  “He didn’t do anything but stand there looking shocked.”

  “He would have done a lot more if I hadn’t interceded.”

  “Like run out of the door even faster?” Amethyst shot to her feet, slammed the book down on the chair. “I’m twenty years old. People are already telling me I’m too old to find a husband now and it turns out the one man interested in me is –”

  She cut herself off and strode away to the window. Great-Aunt Flora looked at Jenson, confused, then looked at Amethyst.

  “Amethyst Forester, get back here and talk to me.”

  Amethyst hugged herself. Given all that she’d been through in the last few days, Jenson suspected she needed something a bit more than that. He saw her shoulders rise as she drew in a breath.

  “All right.”

  The agreement was so soft he wasn’t sure he’d heard it, but he watched another intake of breath and then she moved back to them. Jenson moved the book, but she didn’t sit. Instead, she looked to her Great-Aunt. Her voice when it came was rough. She worked to normalise it, but wasn’t entirely successful.

  “The only man showing any interest in me is Montgomery, and he’s doing that to get control of my money. By law, on marriage my property would become his and there would be nothing I could do to stop him taking everything from me.”

  “That is the law, but you’re not going to say yes to him.” After what the man had done last night, that was an intolerable suggestion.

  “Maybe I should.”

  “No!” Jenson couldn’t believe she’d even consider it now. “You can’t.”

  “I’m reasonably sure my father would argue that I should.”

  “Of course he would,” Great-Aunt Flora said. “But he’s got problems of his own.”

  “And I don’t want to spend the rest of my life an old maid. I want to have a husband, children. Maybe not right this second, but one day. And I’m sick of hearing how my time’s running out. You were married at my age.”

  “Yes, but that was a very long time ago.”

  Jenson smiled. The young never seemed to appreciate the benefits of youth. He’d seen too many of his family go through similar issues. “Amethyst, I understand that at your age, you’re curious.” Somehow specifying that he meant about sex simply didn’t seem right with Great-Aunt Flora in the room. “That’s normal, natural, but you can’t throw yourself away. Keep true to yourself and wait until you find the one you want to be with.” He was pretty sure Maker was the one she wanted to be with, but dwelling on that fact did no one any good. “I don’t think that you need to worry about being alone for the rest of your life. This may be your first proposal, but it won’t be your last. What did I say?”

  She’d turned sharply away from him. He stepped closer, but she twisted her head to prevent him seeing her.

  “Amethyst?”

  “Third.” She swallowed. “It was my third proposal. I said yes to the other two.”

  He stared at her, at the back of her head. “I don’t understand.”

  She took a deep breath, moved behind the empty chair, her hands going to the winged back, as if she needed an anchor in the maelstrom. At last, she turned to face him.

  “Five years ago, Paul Fergusson proposed. He, well, he and Jade…”

  She didn’t need to go on, he nodded his understanding.

  “I said yes, made everyone really happy. But it quickly made me miserable. Eventually, Jade put us in a room together and got us to talk it out, call it off. A couple of years later‒” She huffed what might have been a bitter laugh. “‒Almost to the day in fact, Scott Beynon proposed. He was a very nice young man, I met him in Kew Gardens. He was bright, funny, friendly, easy to talk to, respectful. I did love him. I think. Unfortunately, he was also a soldier. He went off to the sub-continent, we were to marry on his return, only…”

  Her eyeline had dropped away and her throat closed up. He had to guess the next bit. “He didn’t return?”

  She shook her head and blinked away the tears in her eyes. “His personal effects, the posthumous medals. But not him.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged, less nonchalant than she was trying to make out. “I have no luck with relationships.”

  Apparently not. He moved to her, and put a hand over one of hers. Her head dipped further and tilted away, the tension beneath his palm dug into the fabric of the chair.

  “I just thought…”

  She struggled to articulate it, though pain rang through her voice.

  “Better by my choice and with someone I‒”

  She choked, but he knew she meant she’d rather give herself to someone she cared for, than have some scoundrel force himself on her. It was in so many ways such a logical, Amethyst way of thinking. And the first very girlish behaviour he’d seen from her. That was oddly reassuring.

  “Seems to me, what you did this morning was as a reaction,” he told her softly. “And such actions rarely bring the outcome we’re looking for.” He took hold of her hands and pulled them from the furniture, forced her to turn to him, then he hugged her tight. “You might be a little embarrassed just now, but you’ll survive.” He patted her shoulder in the most fatherly way he could, given that his feelings towards her were so very far away from fatherly. “Right. This is enough self-indulgence from you, young lady. Get to the workroom and figure out how we’re going to get Stephen Russell back here while I go out and see what I can find on Vostock and his plans.”

  He felt the laugh in her sniff as she stopped leaning into him, stood back and looked up at him through a watery smile. “Yes, Inspector. Whatever you say.”

  Chapter 47

  Behind the high-necked wide leather of the thick forging apron, Jade had his shirt off and his back to the wide-open door. Amethyst had to smile as she walked up. Two young girls, early teens perhaps, sat on the village green watching him and giggling together. Oh, were they in for some disappointment.

  As she reached the workshop, Jade twisted hot iron, four twists and an arrow head at the top of the bar. Four identical rods stood in a holder to his side. Apparently, someone was having a new gate.

  “Not your usual thing,” she said as he thrust the metal into liquid until the hiss of the quench faded.

  “Man’s got to make a living.”

  She nodded as she looked more closely at the work. “Looks good. As a commission, when’s it due?”

  “When it’s ready. Why?”

  She stood up and looked at him. “I need your help.” She told him about what she was thinking and what seemed to be the stumbling block.

&
nbsp; “Hmm. I see. Isn’t it in Stephen’s notes though?”

  “Possibly, but it’s hidden by those symbols that neither you nor I can decipher.”

  “Ah. So how do you get him back?”

  Jade wasn’t the first to ask that, but he was the first she felt free to answer truthfully. “I have no idea.”

  “Ah.”

  “Well, no idea isn’t entirely true. I have an idea. I’m just not sure about it. As I can’t decipher his symbology, I thought I might try to work it out using the receiver.”

  Jade considered it. “Makes sense.”

  “Only I have no idea where the receiver is either.”

  Jade smiled, took her hand and pulled her towards the back of the forge, to the area he’d made into an office. A lump sat on the side, covered with a thick raw cotton sheet, the kind Jade preferred for clean-ups. He whipped the sheet away and she saw it.

  The receiver.

  “What’s next?”

  She smiled. Everything already felt easier for having Jade back in her life. “We take this up to the workroom and see if between us, we can work out how to bring Stephen out of the aetheric dimensions and back into the land of the living.”

  He nodded. “Sounds like a plan. But I’m going to need to clean up here first. Can’t just walk away from a hot forge.”

  “Fair enough. Anything I can do to help?”

  He laughed. “Not while you’re all dressed up like a fine young lady, no.” He was already going back to the forge and she followed. “Go for a stroll around the village, and I’ll be ready when you get back.”

  “Maybe I’ll go tell your admirers what a wonderful young man you are.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You might as well, it’s not like I don’t have to flirt with them every now and then.”

  Because people would talk if he, an unmarried man, was never seen showing interest in girls. As she strolled away, smiling at the girls as though she’d got something they hadn’t and sending them chittering against her, she marvelled that she and Jade had a lot in common. The men they wanted were out of reach. An unfair reality they each had to deal with.