Romancing the Inventor

by Gail Carriger

Imogene got to lick all the dimples.

  Beneath her tongue, Genevieve writhed and murmured praise or curses – difficult to know as she spoke her native language. Imogene wished she could understand French. But she was learning without instruction either way. She memorized the taste and texture of the other woman’s skin – where it thinned over the points of hip and elbow, where it plumped over muscles in arms and legs, where it softened into stomach and thighs. She nuzzled into the belly button, the long indentation of spine, the backs of knees.

  Genevieve’s responses were glorious. Little whimpers, the occasional twitch from a ticklish spot, and when Imogene chose well, a moan. Imogene paid careful attention to those moans, returning for more, to the muscles on Genevieve’s upper back, the sides of her neck, the nipples on her small breasts. Nibbles, much to her delight, got louder moans (and even some wiggling).

  Genevieve grabbed her up and kissed her; out of frustration or a need to participate more, it mattered not. It was a wonderful thing to kiss back, Imogene’s tongue pressing into a sweet vanilla mouth as she draped her naked curved weight over her inventor’s leaner frame. She didn’t know skin could tingle so. She didn’t know the rush of color behind closed eyes as Genevieve traced a path over her body with firm hands. Hands that were both sure and curious, dipping and stroking and squeezing. Hands that also trembled, with fear or nerves. Imogene could do nothing to allay that fear but offer more of herself. Offer up everything on a wish to be trusted.

  She’d no idea that the awful ache she’d been feeling for months could intensify into something so completely unbearable and then crash over into a pleasure so intense and sweet, she was left shaking.

  She also didn’t realize what an utter joy it could be to bring such pleasure to another person. Not once but several times.

  “What do you know,” she said, looking up from between the inventor’s legs with a cheeky grin. “I’ve found the x.”

  Genevieve laughed. “You’re sure you’ve not done this before?” Then she gasped.

  Imogene had her mouth full and elected not to answer.

  “I suppose… you do not use that tongue of yours very often… you must have been… saving it… for something.” Genevieve’s voice was hoarse and stuttering.

  Imogene flicked her tongue over the x.

  Genevieve switched back to French for a while. Finally, in frustration, she cried, “Why… do you not speak my language? It is so much more suited… to this… Oh!”

  In answer, Imogene twirled her tongue and pressed, and Genevieve splintered under her ministrations, losing all her words, even the French ones.

  Then Genevieve shifted her over and went on her own equation-solving quest. Less tentative, more driven. Imogene blushed to think on the noises she herself made as a result.

  * * *

  Eventually, they were too exhausted to continue.

  Imogene’s heart was willing but her body was wrung out.

  She rose to take to her own bed. She understood their agreement. One night was all Genevieve had promised, and the dawn was coming.

  The inventor’s sleepy voice, rich with a full coloring of French silkiness, said, “Please stay.”

  Imogene had noticed that in times of great stress, or excitement, or (apparently) pleasure, Genevieve’s accent became more pronounced.

  So she stayed, and curled against her inventor, feeling sweat-soaked and satisfied.

  Perhaps if she were very, very good, they might do it again someday.

  * * *

  “That can never happen again, Miss Hale.”

  Imogene woke to the voice of her inventor, roughened by sleep, and callused fingers stroking through the long tangle of her hair.

  They were curled together, legs entwined, but Genevieve had already left the bed, for all her body still resided there. No doubt the inventor had thought it all through and decided that in order to protect Imogene, and protect herself, last night had been a horrible mistake.

  Imogene sighed and rolled away into a bright beam of sunlight. It didn’t have to be so cheery, did it? I’m back to Miss Hale. How came my own name to sound so sad?

  She slumped into the mattress in frustration and stared up at the ceiling. “I know, only one night. But it was wonderful, wasn’t it?”

  She was pretty darn certain, now, that the attraction was mutual.

  “It was glorious,” replied the inventor. She was always one to give credit were it was due.

  “There, see. I’m good for something beyond equations.”

  “Miss Hale, I will not take advantage of you like this.”

  “I think you might call me Imogene, at this juncture.” Her voice was more sarcastic than she liked. She tried to pull herself back to dourness and reserve. To that place where she kept her secret close, nose up-tilted, and sleepwalked through her own existence.

  “It is not right.”

  “And I shall call you Genevieve.”

  “You are too young.”

  “No, I’m not. Stop looking for excuses.”

  “You deserve some nice young woman who will give you all her heart, and not some old broken tom with too much history and no ability to love again. I’ve been sucked dry, choupinette. There’s nothing left here but some superficial flirting.”

  Imogene would not believe that. “Nonsense, you love your work. You love your son. You even love Lady Maccon, in a strange way.”

  “That is not the same thing.”

  “There must be something left for me. I would settle for very little.” For now, but I want all of it. Heart. Body. Skin against skin. Long nights and lazy mornings. But she could never say that. Genevieve would find it terrifying.

  The inventor sat up and turned away to sit on the edge of the mattress. Her shoulders were hunched in regret. Imogene rolled to her side and placed a tentative hand on the small of the other woman’s back.

  “Tell me why, at least?” Imogene didn’t add that she was owed that courtesy; she wasn’t sure she was. After all, she’d pushed and pushed, knowing the other woman must have good reason for her reluctance.

  “Has no one spoken to you of Quesnel’s mother? His blood mother, I mean. Gossip in the servants’ hall?”

  “No. But I haven’t asked. It seemed wrong, too painful a subject.”

  “Angelique.” Genevieve’s voice was tinged with tones Imogene had never heard before – flat and blurred. It was like she’d lost all the French off her tongue.

  “She was very beautiful. Like you. Only all sunlight where you are the moon. She had the biggest eyes you ever saw, pansy violet they were. Quesnel has her eyes. And her hair, all silken blonde. She was French like me, changeable and quick. Had some training as a spy, although not many knew that. We met young, parted ways, then met again when we were old enough to know ourselves better. She was pregnant by then. I adored her. I would have walked through a boiler barefoot for her. She had Quesnel soon after and we were as much a family as women like me…” She paused and tilted her face to one side, glancing at Imogene out of the corner of her eye. “Women like us ever get.”

  Imogene let out a long breath. Well, that was some victory in acceptance at last. “What happened?”

  The inventor turned to face her but wasn’t seeing her at all. Her green eyes were focused on some memory of pain, as if by watching it again the hurt could be dulled. Only, it seemed to sharpen and cut anew.

  Imogene realized that Genevieve reminded herself of this often. It was a tool she used to slice herself, with guilt or shame, so that she remembered to withdraw from the world. This was a wound she reopened constantly so it never scabbed over, and never healed. She was bleeding ghosts instead of blood. And she did it out of some morbid need to punish herself.

  Imogene’s heart sank. She was strong enough to fight for the possibility of now, but a now could never be won, fencing with ghosts.

  Genevieve continued, “It was not enough. I was not good enough, or strong eno
ugh. Family wasn’t enough. We weren’t enough.”

  Imogene shook her head, confused. How could anyone want more than Genevieve? What more was there to want? Except…

  “Immortality?”

  The inventor nodded. “She left me for a hive and its queen. And service to both. She was a very fine lady’s maid. And a decent spy. She could not take Quesnel with her, you see? Drones are not supposed to have children. Although they found out eventually and tried to take him anyway.”

  Her face was so drawn, Imogene thought with horror, that the dimples might never return.

  “I could not follow her. I’m not good at sharing. And even if I wanted immortality, which I don’t, what good would it do us? The odds against either of us surviving are astronomically small, let alone both. And then what? An eternal life apart. Vampire queens cannot share a territory, let alone a house. So, I let her go, because she wanted it more than she wanted me. To love someone is to allow them their dreams, no? Even if you do not share those dreams. And I tried to protect her, mon dieu, I tried. And I tried to protect our son.”

  “What happened?” Imogene was almost too scared to ask.

  “She died. Not trying for metamorphosis. Just some stupid fall, on some stupid assignment in Scotland. And she went to ghost.”

  “Oh, God.” Imogene blinked. She was crying. Not for this girl she’d never known – how dare anyone break Genevieve’s heart – but for the soul-deep hurt in her lover’s eyes. “So, she might have made queen?”

  Genevieve nodded. “She might.”

  “I don’t want immortality.”

  “Oh, Imogene, it is not that. It is not her. It is me. There are some who drift through life with so much love. They give readily and easily. I think, perhaps, Lady Maccon is one of these. And her husband. And my son. It is a heady thing for them – they are constantly replenished, like a fountain. So, they may give again, and do so generously. And there are some of us who have only a finite amount, like a puddle. I doled out all of mine already. It is stepped in and muddied, splashed away and gone.”

  Imogene nodded, understanding. Not accepting, but understanding. “No drops left for me?”

  “You deserve so much more than drops. You should have a lake spread out before you. You should be the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing at night. But you are not. I think of her. And I always will.”

  Imogene gave a watery smile. “I suspect that sometimes, you may be thinking of inventions. I’ve seen you get up in the small hours, scribbling notes.”

  “You do not need to be kind about this.”

  Imogene had her pride. It wasn’t a noble’s pride but it was there, keeping her from begging. “You warned me. I came into this with my eyes open. Well, not totally, but enough.” She came over mulish, and moved her hand up the other woman’s back to the tattoo at the top. A slight raising of skin, another mark. Another sign of something else Genevieve once loved. Imogene stroked the divot of her inventor’s spine back down to the place where those two dimples rested.

  “We could still gertrude.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I figured the opposite of rodgering is gertruding.”

  The inventor let out a puff of surprised laughter. “You are remarkable, you know that?”

  “No, I’m a perverted parlourmaid whom you have elevated beyond her station. And I shall try to do my best to earn it, regardless of how we proceed from here.”

  “It would be too easy to love you.”

  “But not for you?”

  “But not for me.”

  Imogene’s heart sank. Rotten luck for me. Genevieve Lefoux is also too easy to love.

  * * *

  Imogene did try to stay optimistic, but she wasn’t particularly optimistic by nature. No one would ever call her cheerful. Even-tempered as a compliment, grave as a question, and arrogant as an insult. Heartbroken, Imogene fell into all three with a vengeance.

  She focused hard on her work. Genevieve did the same. And while Imogene still loved her job, she was, frankly, miserable. She moped. She hungered. She craved. It was all very melodramatic, which only made her frustrated with herself.

  Their conversation was not so relaxed as it had once been, their moving together around the potting shed not so easy. The clattering, huffing noises of the laboratory, which Imogene had once found comforting, grated on her nerves.

  The aching tension of need returned.

  In fact, for Imogene, the wanting was worse than before. Now she knew exactly what she was missing. Late at night, she touched herself instead, but it was nowhere near as good. It didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the need, either. The more they were in each other’s company, the more she battled her desire to kiss and to caress, not for possession but for connection.

  Imogene stopped flirting. It tortured her just as much as it did Genevieve. She still caught the inventor watching her, longing in her gaze. Imogene stopped reaching out, despite the ache. She knew Genevieve did the same. Many times the inventor’s hand twitched in her direction and then fell back against a trouser leg, unsatisfied.

  It wasn’t fair. To tell her no and then to still look so.

  Of course, it occurred to Imogene to hope that perhaps the inventor was fooling herself. Time had passed. Perhaps she could love again. But she was so very stubborn, and the hurt in her voice had been so fresh. Imogene was forced to constantly remind herself – no fencing with ghosts. The human with the sword always ended up looking ridiculous.

  The only thing that noticeably changed was that they now used each other’s first names. Their midday meals were awkward things, scrabbling to find a topic that didn’t touch on delicate territory.

  At one such luncheon, Imogene asked something she’d wondered for a while. “Why the potting shed?”

  Genevieve looked about, startled. “Oh, I suppose it is a little odd. Frankly, it is a traditional place of science. Used to accommodate a professor friend of mine, when the werewolves were here. I had it expanded, of course. He used it for sheep pickling.”

  “Training sheep in how to pickle?” Imogene asked, confused.

  “No, for pickling the sheep themselves.”

  Imogene choked and then coughed in surprise.

  “Werewolf thing. I would not think on it too closely.” Genevieve picked at her food.

  She’s not eating very well these days. Imogene worried, and subtly tried to push the cheese in her direction. Didn’t the French love cheese?

  The inventor appeared not to see it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  In Which Werewolves Meddle

  “She wants a word with us,” said Genevieve, coming back from her customary supper with the hive.

  Imogene was sitting at the escritoire, reading a book of poetry. Skoot was curled on her feet. She hadn’t registered the time or she would’ve sent him down. The vampires always looked for him after supper.

  Genevieve whistled him out and closed the door.

  Imogene had grown to like poetry, now that she understood more of the words. She couldn’t handle the heady stuff, like Wordsworth. But then Genevieve pooh-poohed Wordsworth out of hand as overly British. Instead, she’d found Imogene a slim volume of someone called Sappho in translation. In fact, she’d made it a gift.

  Imogene was incandescent about it. She’d never before possessed a real live book of her own. Occasionally, when she could work up the courage, they’d discuss one of the poems, long into the evening. Both of them talking a great deal, so that they didn’t touch, yearning, until it became unbearable and Imogene would flee to her cot, to yearn alone.

  “Countess Nadasdy?” she asked, as if there could be any other she Genevieve would refer to in that tone of voice.

  “Yes. And she is unhappy about something.”

  “Isn’t she always?”

  “Good point.”

  “I don’t see what she has to complain about. You’ve had two papers accepted
by the Royal Society, and that little throwaway poggle-whizzer gadget is selling extremely well.”

  “We have had two papers.” Genevieve insisted on sharing a byline with Imogene these days, although Imogene protested she was only the assistant. All she did was the sums and maybe a little tinkering with a wrench.

  “Still, she wants us, even specified you should come with me. You’ll be all right?”

  Imogene nodded. “She doesn’t scare me like she used to. If anything, I feel a little sorry for her.” Unsaid was the fact that, now she knew what it was like to couple with a woman, Imogene could see what the vampire queen was after. She understood the thirst. And why a girl could come over tetchy when she was denied. I could never believe any man as skilled with his tongue as Genevieve. Or I, for that matter. Imogene praised herself shamelessly. Although I could do with more practice.

  Countess Nadasdy was holding court in the drawing room, all three of her hive mates with her.

  “Good, you’re here. Come forward.”

  Imogene and Genevieve went and stood before her, out of reach, for all the good that did them, given the general strength and speed of the four predators before them.

  “Something of grave import has been brought to our attention. A report, in the Royal Society bulletin. A patent has been filed for a new sundowner bullet, from a Professor Swern. It is exactly the style and type you were working on, Genevieve. You remember, you showed me the prototype.”

  “Henry,” breathed Imogene.

  “No,” said the countess, “You, I think.”

  Oh, here we go again.

  “Don’t be preposterous. What motive could Imogene possibly have?” Genevieve leapt to her defense.

  “I need hardly tell you she has very little love for this hive, nor for vampires in general. Her behavior towards us indicates no affection or loyalty. I would suspect a great deal of money was laid on the table to buy her favor. I wanted the technology in order to keep it under control. Professor Swern has no indenture, so he will sell to the highest bidder. I understand the military is interested. I don’t like it, don’t like it at all. You, my dear little parlourmaid, have quite a motive.”