by Juliana Gray
“No, not at all,” she said dazedly. “But I’m afraid I don’t quite understand. Why were you coming to see Mr. Burke, if it’s all meant to be a great secret until after the race?”
“Oh, that. Well, it was a bit of an impulse, really. I was on my way down and realized I was no more than a few hours’ drive away, so I thought I’d come to refuse his offer in person, ha-ha. Just to see the look on his face.” Mr. Hartley grinned.
Her throat went dry. “His offer?”
“Why, he’s been sniffing after the company himself! A week or so ago, we received a formal offer from his business manager to the tune of fifty shillings per share. Fifty shillings, ha-ha!”
She dropped her teacup into its saucer with a sharp crack. “Fifty shillings a share!”
“Fifty! Can you credit it? When the stock’s trading at under five shillings at the moment.” He drank his tea and shook his head in the same gesture. “The man must be mad, unless he’s had some wind of our success.”
“Quite mad.”
“Of course I shall jolly well refuse him now. If we win this race as I expect, Manchester Machine Works will be worth a great deal more than that, ha-ha. And I’ve no doubt that we will. No doubt at all.”
“Fifty shillings per share.” Her mind went over the calculations again, and returned the same extraordinary number.
“Charming figure,” Mr. Hartley agreed. He reached for one of Signorina Morini’s fine almond macaroons. “These are jolly splendid. Have you a good cook here?”
“Marvelous. It’s . . . it’s been altogether the most delightful time of my life.”
“What, tucked away here in the middle of nowhere? Lady Alexandra Morley?” He laughed and took another macaroon from the plate.
“Extraordinary, isn’t it? But I find that the longer one spends away from London, the less one tends to miss it.”
“No doubt, no doubt! I like a nip of the old country air myself, from time to time.” He brushed the crumbs from his lap and consulted his watch. “But I must be off. I’ve a train from Florence tomorrow morning, and all sorts of arrangements to manage. The machine’s coming in by steamship to Civitavecchia.”
She stood up and held out her hand. “A pleasure, Mr. Hartley. A charming coincidence. I wish you much luck at the exposition. Do . . . do stop by when you’re next in London, and tell me all about it.”
“I shall, Lady Morley.” He took her hand and shook it vigorously. “I shall.”
She saw him out to his waiting carriage and walked in a daze back inside to the kitchen, where she collapsed in a chair at the table and stared at the swirling grain of the wood.
What had Finn meant by it?
A week or so ago, Hartley said. Finn had known she was a shareholder by then. He knew her fortune depended on the company. It couldn’t be coincidence.
But he’d left. Without a note, without a kiss. Without a word.
So was this, then, his good-bye? The most generous, most selfless of gifts: her independence. The restoration of everything she valued most. A tender, dignified farewell.
Or simply payment for services rendered. A slap in the face.
She put her head into her arms. The sobs overtook her in a gust, wracking her body, relentless and unfamiliar. She hadn’t cried, really cried, in years. Not since before her marriage, not since that night at Lady Pembroke’s ball.
She couldn’t explain why. She had what she wanted, after all. She had her money back, or nearly so. In a few weeks, assuming Hartley won his race, she could go back to London and resume her old life, as if nothing had changed, as if she’d never been away. No more Fulham or Putney. No lending libraries. No shabby dinner parties, the remains of the roast carefully husbanded to last the household for the rest of the week.
She should be laughing, not crying.
She should feel full, complete. Not empty.
Not hopeless.
Something touched her shoulder, warm and steady. She caught the faint scent of baking bread just before she heard Signorina Morini’s voice.
“Signora, what is wrong? Why the crying?”
“Nothing. Oh, nothing!” A fresh burst of tears overwhelmed her.
“Signora, signora.” The housekeeper settled into the chair next to her. “You are missing Signore Burke.”
“Of course not. I’m . . . I only cracked my elbow on the . . . the corner . . . and . . .”
“Hush, signora.” Her plump arm lay across Alexandra’s back with gentle pressure. A comforting warmth seemed to radiate from the contact. “Hush.”
“. . . and it hurts so . . . hurts like the devil . . .”
“Of course it is hurting you. Of course. Hush, hush, mia cara.” She stroked Alexandra’s hair. “I have the post from the village.”
Alexandra let out a shuddering sigh. “Just put it on the table. I’ll have a look.”
“There are letters for Signore Burke, for the duke. There is also the newspaper.”
“How charming. I’ll see that Wallingford gets it.” She rolled her head sideways, away from Signorina Morini, facing the wall of cupboards. No point letting someone else see one’s misery.
“Hmm, yes,” said the housekeeper. She went on stroking Alexandra’s hair with light fingers. “Of course, it is possible you see something in the newspaper, something to give the smile back into your face.”
Alexandra managed a choking little laugh. “Oh, quite impossible. Nothing but death and scandal and mayhem in the newspapers. The best one can hope for is bad news for one’s enemies.”
“Ha. You are clever, signora. Is what I am loving best about you, this clever head. Is making me laugh. Is making Signore Burke laugh.” She gave Alexandra a squeeze across the shoulders. “The laughing, it gives a long life. Signore Burke, he is wise to choose you.”
Alexandra straightened and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Well, he seems to think it a poor bargain indeed. He has, thankfully, come to his proper senses, so we can all resume our . . . our former lives without further ado.”
“Hmm, yes.” Morini rose from her chair with a last pat to Alexandra’s shoulder. “Still, signora, there is the chance you see something you like. Something of the good news. Is rare, the good news, but perhaps that is the reason it make us happy.”
She left as quickly as she came. Alexandra sat staring at the table, still feeling a warm tingle in her scalp from the housekeeper’s stroking fingers. So soothing, so comforting. Morini would have made an excellent mother.
The post lay on the table where the housekeeper had been sitting. Alexandra glanced at the pile of envelopes and the newspaper underneath and tried to summon the barest scrap of interest in the doings back home. Which ministers were in favor and which were out. Which opposition members had given scintillating speeches against this or that law and which had fallen flat. Railway disasters, diphtheria outbreaks, mine cave-ins, food shortages. Lady X’s party had featured servers dressed as centaurs; Lord Z was conspicuously absent from his wife’s latest confinement.
Once, she had eaten it all up.
Footsteps pattered through the doorway. “Oh, there you are!” said Abigail. “Who was the visitor? So awfully sorry to have abandoned you like that, but you know I’m hopeless with strangers. Either can’t say a word, or else ask some frightfully indecent question by mistake. Oh, is that the Times? Do let me see it. I put a fiver on a Derby horse before we left, and I’m desperate to see if I’ve won.”
Alexandra waved her hand. “By all means.”
Abigail picked up the paper and lifted herself onto the table, legs swinging. “I shall skip right over the first few pages, if you don’t mind. Nothing but railway disasters and mine cave-ins. Oh, bugger it! I’ve lost. To a nag named Sainfoin, if you will. Such rotten luck. That chap down the pub positively assured me. Well, that’s that. Perhaps next . . .” She stopped in midsentence.
Alexandra looked up. “What is it?”
“Alexandra,” she said, in a strangled voice, “you haven’t seen
the newspaper yet, have you?”
“No. It only just arrived. Has somebody died?”
“No. Quite the opposite.”
She folded one side behind the other and handed it to Alexandra.
MR PHINEAS FITZWILLIAM BURKE, R.S.
in respect of a Scientific Experiment, conducted to
Rigorous Standards and to his Thoroughgoing
Satisfaction, concedes the following to
A . M .
THAT the Female Sex enjoys Unrivaled Superiority
to the Male Sex with regards to steadiness of purpose
in pursuit of Academic Enlightenment;
THAT the Male Sex is by far the more easily
distracted from its Intellectual Labours
by Thoughts of Love;
THAT in Courage and Steadfastness
the Female Sex has no Superior;
THAT all of the above are Scientifically Proven to
hold true at speeds exceeding Forty Miles per Hour.
On the TRUTH of these FINDINGS,
Mr. Burke declares himself prepared to stake
both his LIFE and his HEART.
WRITTEN and ATTESTED
this 22nd day of JUNE, 1890
“Good God.” Alexandra looked up and met Abigail’s eyes. “Good God.”
“Quite. A full sheet, just as we agreed, back at that inn.” Abigail peered over the edge. “His name must be five inches tall. Rather sporting of him, to use only your initials. Do you think anyone will smoke you out?”
“I don’t know. I don’t bloody care.” Alexandra rose from her chair and folded the paper back again. Her nerves sang with the return of her fighting spirit. He loved her. He must love her. And she’d be damned if she let him walk away again. “Abigail, my dear.”
Abigail looked at her, eyebrows raised. “Yes, Alex?”
“How would you like to go to Rome with me?”
TWENTY-FOUR
Borghese Gardens
Rome
I say, Mr. Hartley,” said Alexandra, “this is really most inconvenient. Did you not consider your propensity for motion sickness before taking up automobiles as your life’s work?”
William Hartley lifted his pale head and cast her a mournful look. “Trains are all right. I thought the same would hold true for horseless carriages. It’s why I . . . oh dear.”
Alexandra sighed. “Take my handkerchief, sir. What a damnably sticky wicket. No, do keep it. I have several, I assure you.” She cast her eyes across the exhibition grounds, which were still empty of people in the early dawn light. Across the field, the temporary sheds housing the machines rose like ghosts from the shadowed grass.
In one of those sheds sat Finn’s automobile.
“I’m quite all right up to twenty miles an hour,” Mr. Hartley said hopefully.
“That’s no use at all. Mr. Burke’s machine can do forty with ease. Really, I’m most put out. The race begins in little more than twenty-four hours, and you’re all but eviscerated.” She tapped her fingers against the edge of the seat. “We must show well in this race. We must have a resounding triumph, or we’ll be forced to accept Mr. Burke’s bid after all.”
And I’ll be damned if I take his money, however he tries.
“No, no. There’s talk of an exposition in Paris next fall. Or perhaps the spring . . .”
She looked back at Mr. Hartley. “Can one of your mechanics drive?”
He dabbed at his face again with her handkerchief. “Possibly. But they’ve never tried it before, I’m afraid. Ought to have brought one of my engineers down, but the cost . . .”
She heaved a great sigh. “There’s nothing else for it. I shall have to drive.”
Mr. Hartley nearly toppled out the open door of the automobile. “You!”
“Me, of course. Do you plan to win the race by discharging effluent across the faces of those competitors in your backdraft? I should think not.”
“Do you . . . do you know how to drive?” he asked feebly.
“Yes, I do. Quite well. I shall have to take a bit of instruction from your mechanics, of course”—she nodded in the direction of the three men nearby, who leaned against the white fence circumscribing the grounds, faces purpling with suppressed laughter—“but I daresay I shall get on very well.”
“You . . . you daresay?” He clutched at the handkerchief.
She smiled at him and administered a pat to his shoulder. “There, there. You’re in no condition to drive in any case. Weak as a lamb, poor thing.”
“I say.” He straightened manfully.
“Don’t worry. I’ve studied the course. It’s a shame we didn’t arrive earlier, to familiarize ourselves with things, but you could hardly have foreseen the delay with the customs officials.”
“Deuced bureaucrats,” Mr. Hartley said, under his breath.
“Off you go, then! The general public will be herding on through in little more than an hour. Gentlemen?” She motioned to the mechanics.
They grinned at her as they came up: no tugging of forelocks, no ducking of heads, no your ladyships. An egalitarian lot, these motor-car enthusiasts. “Yes, ma’am?” one of them asked, folding his arms.
“As you’ve perhaps noticed, Mr. Hartley is unwell.”
“Sick as a dog, ma’am, looks like.”
“Dogs ain’t in it,” agreed another.
She cleared her throat. “Yes, well. As it happens, I have some experience with automobiles myself, and I shall be taking over the driving for the upcoming race.”
A slight breeze rustled the brim of her hat, the only movement in the stunned silence among them. She allowed the news a moment to digest.
“You, ma’am?” asked the first man at last.
“Yes, that’s right. I’ve driven an electric motor at forty miles an hour on roads far inferior to tomorrow’s route. Of course, you’ll have to give me some brief instruction on the operation of a steam-powered engine, but I imagine . . .”
“But ma’am,” broke in the second man, “it ain’t that easy! Begging your pardon.”
“Of course it isn’t easy. If it were easy, Mr. Hartley wouldn’t have become unwell.”
“And . . . well, it ain’t exactly what a lady might call safe.”
“I’m not exactly like other ladies.”
The men looked at one another and shrugged.
“That’s that, then,” Alexandra said. “Mr. Hartley, if you would be so good as to hand me your goggles.”
* * *
Phineas Burke’s head was priced rather high this morning, which rendered Delmonico’s company only just tolerable on the short walk up the hill from the hotel on the via Vittorio Venetto to the exhibition grounds in the Borghese gardens.
“She is a beautiful creature, you must admit,” Delmonico was saying, “though she makes rather much noise when one uses her hard.”
Was he talking about his automobile or his mistress? Finn rubbed his aching temple. “I daresay.”
“Yours, of course, has the advantage of silence,” Delmonico went on, “and of course she doesn’t lack spirit. But again, she tires too quickly. You’d be better off with my sort. Not so clean, I admit, and smells like the devil. But she’s cheap to feed. Just fill her tank when she’s empty.”
Surely he must mean his automobile.
“I’m convinced I can solve the problem of battery endurance,” Finn said. “I’ve already made astonishing progress. My motor’s cleaner, more efficient, far easier to drive.” He struggled to marshal his thoughts. He wasn’t a drinking man in ordinary circumstances, but the revelry at the hotel last night had gone on and on, led by that Belgian fellow, and the waiters had refilled his wineglass with great dedication. Filled with restlessness, filled with uneasiness that Alexandra hadn’t yet replied to his parting note, he’d emptied each round in due course. He’d stumbled into bed at two o’clock and thanked God, for the first time in well over a fortnight, that Alexandra wasn’t there to witness his disgrace. He was still half-drunk,
even now, and the remnants of intoxication paired most foully with the pounding of his head.
They had reached the white fence encircling the grounds and stopped to lean against the thin wood. “Ah, there we are,” said Delmonico, gesturing at the open field, with its row of tidy sheds along one side catching the light from the rising sun. “Fully fifteen exhibitioners, eleven of them racing tomorrow. Even that compatriot of yours with the steam engine has come at last.”
“Steam engine?” Finn shook his head, felt the resulting rattle, and stopped at once. “Who’s got a steam engine?”
“A Mr. Hartley, from the Manchester Works in England. Perhaps you know him?”
“Hartley, by God!”
“He sent me a cable two weeks ago. He says he has made a very great breakthrough and wishes to compete.” Delmonico leaned his chin on his hands. “If I am not mistaken, that is him now.”
Finn raised his hand to shelter his brow against the flashing sunrise and peered into the field. A dark object sat in the distance, at the beginning of the track, surrounded by men. “What, there?”
“I believe so. The machine has only just arrived.” Delmonico leaned forward. “It seems they want to give her a trial.”
“By God,” Finn whispered, ravaged head forgotten. “So they are.” With one hand he reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out his watch.
The mechanics backed away from the automobile, revealing its silhouette against the sunrise. Finn had seen it before, touring the works with William Hartley several months ago: a rather awkward body, with the driver perched high and the boiler positioned behind, delivering steam to the front-mounted motor. Still, a steamer was capable of high speeds and rapid acceleration. No gear shifting necessary, no need to crank the engine. A neat, efficient machine.
Except, of course, for the risk of boiler explosion.
Finn craned forward, trying to pick out more detail in the watery light. Good God, that was an extraordinarily odd hat Hartley was wearing. Almost . . .
