Outrageously Yours

by Allison Chase

  Her impudence knocked him momentarily breathless. Only Aurelia had ever dared confront him in such a manner, always with a saucy grin and a glitter in her eye that was both contentious and conspiratorial, as though she had every assurance in the world that he would come round to seeing things her way.

  He always had.

  “Lord Harrow?”

  He blinked and brought the woman beside him back into focus. Her confidence had slipped, and a particle of doubt flitted across her features. She must believe she had offended him. She could not know what agonizing memories her innocent query had stirred.

  “I cannot deny it, Ned,” he said evenly. “You see, anyone can be taught the basic principles of electromagnetism. I desired someone for whom science was a passion and an art.”

  His own choice of words brought him up short. Desire ... passion ... the terms had suddenly taken on meanings that had nothing whatsoever to do with science. He quickly explained, “I need someone who can grasp the nature of a breakthrough if and when it occurs, and who will not be put off by risk or controversy.”

  She stumbled over a rock and might have gone down if he hadn’t caught her elbow and steadied her. “I see those boots are still posing a problem.”

  His jest went ignored. “Controversy, sir?”

  He released his hold, but the imprint of her arm seemed branded into his palm. He mashed his other fist against it. “You look alarmed, Ned. Does going against society’s grain frighten you? For that is what science often does. It quashes preconceived notions and replaces them with radical new innovations. The public is not always quick to embrace such change.”

  Much would depend on her answer, he decided. How committed was she to this scheme of hers? And why? Just as he had demanded this of his applicants, he wished to demand it of her now but in an entirely different sense. Did she love science and learning enough to risk her future as a wife and mother?

  She brought them to a halt. Some vital matter seemed to hang between them as she studied him feature by feature, as he might have studied a particle beneath a microscope. “No, sir, I am not frightened of any judgment society might level upon the work we perform here. I am subject only to the edicts of my own conscience, and those I will never compromise.”

  Like her impertinence a moment ago, her earnestness echoed Aurelia’s spirit and pierced his heart through. The differences between them were marked. Physically they were polar opposites, this woman being dark in coloring, tall, and willowy, with sweet elfin features, and Aurelia having been blond, petite but voluptuous, and classically beautiful.

  Having loved the latter, he should not have found himself attracted to the former. Except that wrapped within their dissimilar outward traits, he perceived the same inner core . . . the same uncommon courage. Down to the letter, he truly had found the assistant and partner he’d sought. He could not have guessed at the outset how disquieting a prospect this would be.

  He set off walking again, trying in vain to escape the snare he had unwittingly set upon his own heart. “You like gardens, Ned?”

  She trotted to match his pace. “Sir?”

  “Gardens. Most people take them for granted, sparing them little thought other than to acknowledge the pleasing geometrical aspect of the design. It’s a rare individual who understands that every garden has a soul of its own, and is as unique in its needs and potential as a human being.”

  “To be honest, sir, I’ve seen precious few gardens of this scale. But my uncle was especially fond of roses, and I can say that the present course of my life began, in large part, within the confines of his rose garden.”

  “Mine, too, Ned.” Simon drew the diverse mingling of scents deep into his lungs, absorbing inside him the most tangible essence of the wife he had lost. “I walk here every evening before dusk. The light is extraordinary at that time. It helps me sort out the day’s results and plan for the next. Will you join me?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  He leaned closer to her, so close the clean fragrance of her skin prevailed over the garden’s florals to claim his senses. Her pupils dilated, darkening the irises to gleaming, hypnotic obsidian. “I promise you, young Ned, that your conscience shall not be compromised here, not by me.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Her chest rose and fell heavily, and he thought he detected, beneath her coat and waistcoat and shirt, the faint outlines of her woman’s anatomy. Or had his mind merely conjured what he now knew to be true, just as yesterday it had conjured what he had believed to be true?

  A powerful longing tempted him to draw her into his arms and sample those womanly curves, to undo whatever bindings held her in check, to kiss away the confounded shadows across her chin and upper lip and expose her femininity in the ripening fullness of the climbing sun.

  The moment stretched as they stood like two deer dazzled by the flare of a hunter’s torch, he horrified by the rebellion of his own impulses, and she . . . by the risk of discovery, he supposed. A long, low growl broke the spell.

  With a rueful look, she stepped back and pressed a hand to her stomach. “Sorry, sir.”

  “I say, Ned, have you not eaten today?”

  “No, sir. Hadn’t time before I vacated my rooms, and Mrs. Walsh said ...”

  “Mrs. Walsh strikes again.” Simon made a mental note to have a stern talk with his housekeeper. “Come, lad, let’s get something substantial into you. You’re going to need it.”

  A few steps behind Lord Harrow, Ivy made her way up the spiraling staircase that led up the tower to his laboratory. The climb seemed interminable, the narrow windows they passed at intervals providing dizzying glimpses of the tree-tops. The endlessly curving stairs were beginning to render her light-headed.

  Her sister Laurel had once told her that to fight off a bout of dizziness, it helped to focus one’s gaze on a stationary object. She did find that centering her gaze on Lord Harrow, a few steps above her, produced a steadying effect, at least on her equilibrium. Her pulse was another matter, launched to a wild canter by the close proximity of his sturdy legs and the ripple of muscle across his back as he alternately gripped and released the rail. The sway of his coattails didn’t help, not considering how, from this angle, she was afforded intermittent glimpses of his buttocks, tight and sleek inside his snug breeches.

  Risking giddiness, she tore her gaze away. She had no business admiring the Mad Marquess’s—

  “Feeling better, Ned?”

  Snapping out of her musings, she almost replied to the contrary until she realized he referred to the breakfast of eggs and toast that had been served to her beneath the disapproving eye of Mrs. Walsh. Lord Harrow himself had descended to the kitchen to give the order, and the housekeeper had merely sulked as Cook prepared the meal. Though Ivy had wisely kept a neutral expression at the time, she had secretly rejoiced in her small victory over the surly woman.

  The memory of it helped take her mind off the climb. “Much better, sir.”

  “Good. There can be no fainting allowed in my laboratory.”

  The very suggestion rankled. “Sir, I am no fainter.”

  There was little Ivy abhorred more than women who swooned at the slightest discomfort. She’d always suspected that the vast majority of them didn’t swoon at all, but rather enjoyed the swarm of attention following such an incident.

  “No need to be indignant.” At long last reaching the landing, Lord Harrow stopped and dug a key out of his coat pocket. “It was a joke.”

  “Oh.” Good heavens, she had reacted as Ivy the woman would have, not as Ned the man, who would have grasped the humor. A careless slip, one she must take heed not to repeat. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  He dangled the key as she joined him on the landing. “Ready?”

  “Oh, indeed yes, sir.” Her stomach fluttered, partly with the exhilaration of stepping into her first laboratory, and partly with apprehension of what she would witness on the other side of that door.

  “Need I remind you that precious few people ar
e permitted to cross this threshold, Ned? Only those I hold in the highest esteem and whose trust I have never had cause to doubt.” His levity vanishing, he turned the key in the lock. His pale eyes issued a steely warning. “Do not disappoint me, young man.”

  His features hardened, and Ivy understood that his words must never be taken lightly. On the contrary, they demanded an oath of honor and loyalty. Her insides fluttered more riotously, and amid her determination to fulfill her duty to Victoria, a new resolve rose up: to prove herself the worthiest of assistants, with the qualities and skills to make him proud.

  Thus she could not be certain if her next utterance constituted a lie for Victoria’s sake, or the truth for his. “I won’t disappoint you, sir. I swear.”

  With a solemn nod he opened the door and gestured her to precede him inside. Several steps in, she stopped, overwhelmed, overawed . . . overjoyed.

  At first the snaking confusion of equipment crowded beneath the domed ceiling swam indistinctly in her vision. She didn’t know where to go first, what to examine. She might as well as have been a fairy-tale princess waking up in a magical castle, except that instead of enchanted objects and glittering jewels, wires, cables, levers, and gears formed the ramparts and crenellations of this stronghold that reached as high as the skylight in the ceiling.

  If only she knew whether Lord Harrow would turn out to be the prince of the story, or the villain.

  Her mouth hanging open, she began a circuit of the room and was immediately relieved to detect nothing that lent credence to Jasper Lowbry’s outlandish story. No coffin-sized vat contained fluid and a corpse; there were no organs stuffed into jars, no operating table affixed with wires extending upward to a lightning rod attached to the roof.

  Of course, the large armoire across the way could very possibly accommodate an individual, or even several, judging by its formidable size, some six feet wide and at least eight high. She pondered venturing over to peek inside. . . .

  “Well, what do you think?”

  She jumped at the boom of Lord Harrow’s voice, echoing against the domed ceiling. The macabre images faded, and gradually the equipment around her began to take on characteristics her astounded mind could identify.

  She saw no sign of Victoria’s stone, but it could be hidden anywhere, including inside the armoire. Somehow, she would have to find a way to escape Lord Harrow’s watchful eye and search the room.

  For now, she surveyed what she could see. A table held a half dozen voltaic cells of various sizes, including the one Lord Harrow had used in his challenge. Beside them was a galvanometer, a compasslike instrument used for measuring the strength of electrical currents.

  Along the curving wall a vat was connected to a coal furnace, with copper ductwork extending halfway across the room to a hulking form draped in a shroudlike cloth. Could a body lie beneath? Ivy shook the ridiculous thought away as Lord Harrow crossed the room and with a dramatic flourish whisked the canvas sheeting away.

  Ivy gasped at the odd contraption that gleamed and glistened in the sunlight. The apparatus comprised many components, including four tall, upright shafts wrapped in copper wiring. She identified what she believed must be pistons, poised to power a system of gears, a wheel some three feet in diameter, and a center beam that spanned the equipment like the arm of a scale. One end of that beam met a bellowslike instrument that appeared as though it would expand and compress as the beam dipped and rose.

  Curiosity sent her to the device, as tall as she was and more than double that across. She reached out a hand.

  “Eh, eh.” Lord Harrow’s admonishment stopped her. “We’re looking today, not touching.”

  She dropped her arm to her side. “It’s some sort of motor, isn’t it? Like Faraday’s, only ...”

  “Much larger. Much more powerful.”

  She spun about, startled to discover Lord Harrow standing right behind her. She caught a waft of the shaving soap he had used that morning, a scent that stirred her insides to quivery attention. This close she perceived the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, not quite laugh lines, nor worry lines, either, she decided, but the etchings of many hours spent concentrating on his experiments.

  “I’ve never heard of one so large,” she said.

  Pride illuminated his pale eyes. “That’s because there isn’t another like it.”

  “What does it power?”

  He shook his head. “That is not for today, either.” His faint smile smoothed away her disappointment and eased her frown. “Today is merely for familiarizing yourself with the equipment.”

  Turning back to the motor, she visually traced the ductwork back to the vat. “It runs on steam power?”

  “The charge from the steam is what starts it generating its own electricity.”

  “An electrical charge from steam? Good heavens. I’ve heard of such a thing in theory, but I didn’t know anyone had yet managed it.”

  He circled the machinery and ran his hand along the duct. “The friction of the water vapor against the copper piping produces a charge. The force of the steam sends the charge to circulate around these magnetic coils to produce a pulsing current.”

  He pointed to the various components as he explained. “This turns the shafts, which propels the charge through the pistons, along the center beam, and so forth, thus generating a continuous current. The exciting thing is that once my motor is started, it becomes self-maintaining. I can cut the steam and the motor continues running on its own current.”

  “Electrodynamic force.” She reached out again, almost but not quite touching the closest coil. “A generator.”

  “Yes. Much more efficient than the currents generated by the voltaic cells.”

  “In theory, this could be used to power all manner of machinery.” Tapping a finger to her chin, she considered the workings of the device. “You would simply need to attach the machine’s moving parts to your rotating wheel.”

  “Of course.”

  “Or . . . you could use wiring to direct the current to a completely separate apparatus, perhaps even powering more than one process at once.”

  “Even better, Ned. Go on.”

  She circled the machine, again examining each of its components and longing to see them in motion. “The use of magnetic electrodes would force the movable parts of any separate machinery into motion in response to the current.”

  “Very good.” The admiration in his voice brought her head up. His smile broadened as he approached her. “You’ve done your reading.”

  “Yes, lots of it.” As he drew near, her heartbeat accelerated.

  She caught herself staring, arrested by the firm lines of his face, the power of his silhouette. Then she blinked and shifted her gaze back to the generator, remembering that men didn’t look at each other like that; most tended to make eye contact only rarely. “I . . . er . . . had access to a first-rate library for most of my life. My uncle’s. It made country life so much more interesting.”

  She was babbling, and bit the insides of her cheeks to stop herself.

  Lord Harrow smiled indulgently. “That should prove enormously to my advantage. Come.” With the easy familiarity of a master to his student, he set his hand at her nape. “I wish to acquaint you with the components I work with. The conducting metals, the gauges of the wires, that sort of thing. It’s important that you become well versed with the strength of the current produced by the various elements. Have you used a galvanometer before?”

  “Uh . . . no, sir.” With his palm and splayed fingers producing warmth on her neck, it was all she could do to concentrate on the question he had asked her.

  His hold, though gentle, communicated a sense of strength, of authority. His fingertips produced a different sort of current that left her tingling, and scattered her thoughts even as his demonstration yesterday had scattered broken glass and burning potassium across the tabletop.

  She swallowed, cleared her throat, and attempted to gather the shards of her common sense. “I ha
ve not used one, but I have studied the basic principles.”

  “Good. Then we’ll assemble an improvised current meter together. Come.”

  She hesitated. “Another test, sir?”

  “No, this activity isn’t designed to trip you up, Ned.” He led her to a second laboratory table and released her with what seemed to her a manly shake of encouragement, even affection.

  He took a box off the shelf behind them, set it on the table, and lifted the lid. The interior was filled with what on first glance appeared to be clock parts—dials and gears, rods and shafts. Then he pulled a book from the same shelf, flipped it open, and set it beside the box. “You are quite possibly the most erudite first year I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve grown curious as to how far your knowledge will take you. Let’s see what you’re capable of.”

  Ivy stepped up to the table’s edge and peered down at the labeled diagram that filled a page in the book. Lord Harrow no longer touched her, but the memory of the contact continued to smolder along her nape, a sensation that proved as distracting as it was compelling. With him beside her, it wasn’t easy to remember the descriptions of galvanometers she had read in Uncle Edward’s library.

  “I’m not exactly sure how to begin, sir....”

  “I’ll guide you, but you do the assembling.” He reached one formidable arm around her shoulder and chose a demarcated copper ring from the gadgets in the box. “This was once part of a clock dial, but it will serve nicely in measuring current output. Now, what do you suppose comes next?”

  He continued to stand uncommonly close as she consulted the diagram, and then selected a magnetized compass needle, which she attached to a length of fine silk thread. “Like this, sir?”

  “Very good. Now you’ll need a conductor to catch the current. An improvised coil, perhaps?”

  As she took up a thin copper wire and began wrapping it around a slender dowel to form a clumsy coil, he leaned over her shoulder, his warm breath grazing her cheek.

  “I’m impressed with your workmanship, Ned. Yes, that’s correct. You need to suspend the needle from the coil, and position both over the dial. Are you quite certain you’ve never done this before?”