His Clockwork Canary

CHAPTER 26

SOUTHEAST OF LONDON PICKFORD FIELD

The flight from Canterbury to the outskirts of London did not take long; however, given the winter season, they were already well under the cloak of night. The moon sat full and bright in the sky and the city of London glittered on the horizon almost as keenly as the stars above.

Although Queen Victoria was not a fan of the twentieth century and thereby anachronistic technology, she could not ignore, dismiss, or halt the natural progress of science. Candles had given way to oil lamps and then to gas lighting, and now, because Peace Rebels had inspired (or infected—the distinction depending on whether you were a New or Old Worlder) and educated nineteenth-century innovators, electricity was “ahead of its time” and fast becoming the most popular source of lighting in the home.

Simon’s own town house was wired for the modern convenience, although Fletcher still seemed inclined to fall back on old ways. How Simon, a forward thinker, had ended up with a valet who deplored change had always been a source of amusement and frustration on both sides. This morning, after Teletyping Ashford, Simon had placed a long-distance telephone call to Fletcher. The connection had been poor, but Simon had been able to prepare the man for a change of monumental proportions.

“I do not know precisely when I’ll be returning home,” he’d said. “But when I do, it will be with a wife.”

To which Fletcher replied, “Whose wife would that be, sir? Should I start preparing for the invasion of an angry husband?”

“My previous indiscretions are just that, Fletcher. In the past. I refer to my own wife.”

“Are you snockered, Master Simon?”

“No, Fletcher. I am not snockered. I am married.”

“Were you forced by gunpoint, sir? An irate father or brother perhaps? I could alert your solicitor. Perhaps he could find a loophole.”

“This marriage is of my design, Fletcher, and I expect you to welcome Mrs. Darcy with an open mind and heart.”

“I see, sir.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t. Should I prepare a bedchamber for Mrs. Darcy?”

“We won’t be sleeping in separate rooms.”

“Ah. It is quite serious, then.”

“Most serious,” Simon had said, his chest aching as he’d fought against the notion of love. A fruitless effort, it would seem. As the day had played out, he was most certain he was unequivocally in love with Wilhelmina Darcy. The realization was as invigorating and chilling as the frigid night air.

Restless, Simon joined Phin in the cockpit as the superb aviator began their descent into Pickford Field. “When I last made this trek two weeks ago, I was at the wheel, and the Flying Cloud handled like a flying death trap.”

“She was in dire need of upgrades and fine-tuning, true,” Phin said. “Although I’m sure it didn’t help that you’re a shite pilot,” he said with a teasing grin.

“Be that as it may,” Simon said, adjusting his goggles. “Thank you for all you’ve done. And thank you for being so kind to Willie.”

“Not a hardship. Trust me.” He glanced toward the stairwell. “She still below?”

“Putting the galley to rights and resting her eyes.”

“And lovely eyes they are,” Phin said. “A man could get lost in those swirls of color.”

“Yes, well, I’ll thank you to keep your wits.”

Phin laughed. “Good God, man. You are arse over teakettle in love. In the words of Mr. Goodenough,” he said with a wink, “bully for you.”

Simon shook off the green-eyed monster and smiled a bit. “You don’t need to meet us at Lambert’s tomorrow.”

“And miss out on the rest of the adventure?”

“Surely you must have duties here at Pickford. Unfinished repairs. Booked charters.”

“Nothing I can’t put off or reschedule.”

Simon braced for landing and narrowed his eyes on the former militiaman. “Did Jules ask you to look after me?”

“I’m no man’s keeper, Simon.”

“He knew about my run-in with a Houdinian. Knew that Willie had been injured and that I was determined to pursue the engine, no matter the danger. It’s no secret that I’m inexperienced when it comes to facing a deadly opponent. You, however, are a professional.”

Phin spared him a glance as he steered the airship toward the moonlit landing strip. “Don’t get all pissy about it.”

“I’m not,” Simon said honestly. He appreciated Phin’s multiple areas of expertise and he’d be a fool to turn away a man who could help in protecting Willie from harm. Especially since Phin was a man both he and Jules trusted implicitly. “That means Jules has been in communication with you since he left for Australia. Have you heard from him recently?”

“Not since last week.” The Flying Cloud skimmed over the snow-dusted field, the whirling blades slowing, the engines quieting. “Considering his expedition,” Phin said, “I did not anticipate hearing from Jules anytime soon.”

“So you know what he’s after.”

“Same as you. The jubilee prize.”

“Yes, but are you aware of his destination?”

“I am.”

“Then you must understand my concern.”

“You think he’s risking a journey into the future for nothing.” Phin cast him an enigmatic glance. “What if he’s not after the clockwork propulsion engine?”

“What else?” Simon frowned. “Briscoe?”

“He is family and he is in quite the pickle,” Phin said as he finessed the airship to a smooth and full stop.

“But that was thirty-six years ago. Given my infamous cousin’s pickle, he’s probably dead by now.”

Phin shrugged. “Not if Jules arrives in the future close to the same day Briscoe did.”

“You mean before the Peace Rebels even left there?” Simon massaged his temples. “I cannot begin to fathom the effect and impact that could have on our time. Surely Jules is aware.”

“Of course he’s aware. He writes science fiction, for God’s sake. I’m sure he’s considered the paradoxes and ramifications. Look, good man. Jules didn’t inform me of specifics and I didn’t ask. I know my boundaries and I know his limitations.”

Meaning his brother’s mission was top secret? An official assignment? Who better to infiltrate and pinch something or someone from Her Majesty’s Mechanics than another Mechanic? “What do you know of Jules’s . . . extracurricular activities?” he asked as Phin cut the engines.

“Probably as much as you do.”

“I only know that he is a Mechanic,” Simon admitted, trusting he wasn’t betraying Jules’s confidence.

“Then we’re on even ground.” Phin pushed his goggles to the top of his head. “Here comes your lovely bride,” he said with a nod toward Willie, who’d just breached the upper deck. “Listen, Simon,” he continued in a low voice. “Jules trusted you with a covert tip about the Houdinians. Let us trust that he knows what he’s doing. Aside from being quite brilliant, he’s the most cunning bastard I’ve ever known.”

“But his bum leg—”

“Won’t slow him down.” Phin rapped Simon on the shoulder. “See you at Lambert’s on the morrow,” he said, then moved forward to bid Willie a temporary farewell.

• • •

By the time they took the short train ride into London and then an automocab to Covent Garden, Willie felt as though she had been awake for three days. Her brain was as exhausted as her body and she was emotionally drained. She wanted to fall into bed and to sleep for a week. But first she had to get past Simon’s valet and cook, the meticulous caretaker who had been in Simon’s employ for five years—Fletcher.

“You’re sure he is expecting us,” Willie whispered as Simon guided her from the automocab to the stone steps of his Georgian townhome.

“As I said before, I not only spoke with Fletcher this morning, but I telephoned again from Phin’s office. Yes, he is expecting us.” Simon paid and tipped the driver, who’d carried their bags to the stoop just as the front door swung open, and they were greeted by a stiff-backed gentleman with slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair and astonishingly kind brown eyes.

“Welcome home, Master Simon. I assume the lovely woman upon your arm is Mrs. Darcy,” he said whilst retrieving their bags.

“Please call me Willie,” she managed, feeling more flustered than she had anticipated. She had never employed a domestic and felt extraordinarily uncomfortable at the thought of someone attending to her needs.

“As you wish, Mrs. Darcy.”

Simon just smiled as they followed Fletcher into the entryway and Willie got her first peek inside Simon’s home. The interior, for all its spaciousness, was not overly extravagant. Whilst moving toward the stairway that would take them to the first floor, Willie peeked into the ground-level drawing room, adjacent dining area, and a small parlor. The decor and furnishings were simple and quaint, and even though this residence was far grander than her rented rooms, she did not feel overly intimidated. On the other hand, she did not feel entirely at home either. Each room was extraordinarily tidy and free of clutter. And for that matter was absent of anything that spoke of Simon’s adventurous and technology-savvy persona.

“I’ve never been much of a homebody,” Simon said as if reading her mind. “When I am here, I spend most of my time in the library. I’ll give you the grand tour later.”

“Please, sir, allow me to tidy up in there before—”

“Move one pencil and I shall have to sack you, Fletcher.”

“You should be ashamed, sir.”

“Of threatening you?”

“Of that library,” the valet said with a sniff, then continued up the steps.

Willie blinked.

Simon squeezed her waist and spoke close to her ear. “I told you he was a fussbudget and a stick-in-the-mud. I did not say he was conventional.”

“I heard that,” Fletcher said, halfway up the stairs.

“He also has excellent hearing.”

Now Willie smiled. She found the casual relationship between this particular employer and domestic most endearing. Perhaps it would not be as difficult to acclimate to this new environment as she had feared. Breaching the landing, she noted the first floor seemed to be composed of two large rooms. Since the door was open, it was clear that the room at the front of the house was the principal bedchamber. She glanced over her shoulder at the closed double doors to the rear. “The library?”

“In all its mortifying disarray,” Fletcher said. “Do have you have a headache, Mrs. Darcy? Should I fetch some medicine?”

“What? Oh. Oh, no,” she said, realizing she was wearing her sunshades in order to conceal her race.

“Willie’s sensitive to bright light,” Simon said as Fletcher carried their valises into his bedchamber.

“I see,” Fletcher said.

“No, you don’t,” Simon said.

“No, I don’t.” Probably because it had been dark outside and Fletcher had illuminated each room with only minimal lighting. Bright did not apply. “However, it is not my place to question.”

“But you will.”

“Not at this precise moment, sir. Would you like some tea, Mrs. Darcy?”

“I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“No trouble,” he said as he glided toward the hallway. “Dinner?”

“It’s been a long day,” Simon said. “We’ll be retiring early.”

“Very well. Welcome to our humble home, Mrs. Darcy,” he said, turning on the threshold and affording her a slight bow. “I warn you, Master Simon is most incorrigible to live with, although he does have a good heart. Should you need anything at all, do not hesitate to ring.”

Simon rolled his eyes.

“I like him,” Willie said when the door closed.

“I heard that,” Fletcher called even though it sounded as though he had already reached the landing.

She laughed then, a welcome feeling after being so tense and anxious throughout the day.

“Music to my ears. You should laugh more often, Willie. We’ll have to do something about that.” Simon smiled whilst dragging off his paisley scarf. “What do you think of this room? Will it do? I know the decor is quite masculine but—”

“You forget I lived as a male for the past ten years,” she said whilst shedding her sunshades and outerwear. “I’m not accustomed to frilly things.”

“Not even in the privacy of your flat?”

“I couldn’t afford the slightest chance of giving myself away.” She swept off her derby, admiring the whimsical mechanical bird and lace as well as the charmed chain around her waist. Small considerations, yet they made her heart swell with immense pleasure. They made her feel pretty. “It’s astonishing to me that I denied my true self for so long.”

“Yes, well that’s over now.”

She shook her head. “I cannot move on entirely until we have solved the mystery. Until I understand what happened to my mother. Until we have—”

“Hush now.” Simon moved forward and took her into his arms. “We’ve been at this all day. Time to rest our minds. We’ll have another brain buster in front of us tomorrow whilst we try to narrow down and pinpoint which underground passages to explore. Good thing the Golden Jubilee and hence the announcement for the Triple R prize is a few months away. Realistically it could take a while to locate that vault. Especially if Filmore opted for the New York City rather than the London safe house.”

Willie stiffened in his arms. “We cannot afford months, Simon. We need to find the engine before it falls into dangerous hands.”

“The Houdinians have successfully protected the time-traveling engine for over thirty years.”

“Aye, but the Houdinians are quite possibly down to one, and the Triple R Tourney has inspired thousands of adventurers and explorers to set off in search of a technological invention of historical significance.”

Including Strangelove. Her stomach turned just thinking about that man. Now that she was back in London, she felt that his eyes were upon her, his spies everywhere. Imagined or not, the notion rankled.

“I cannot believe that in all these years news did not leak of the survival of the clockwork propulsion engine. Remember my mother’s words regarding a traitor? We cannot be the only ones searching for it.” Willie palmed her brow. “Gadzooks! Maybe the man who shot me was looking for it! Why did that never occur to us?”

Simon shushed her mounting hysteria with a demanding kiss. She struggled but a moment before giving in, giving over. She parted her lips and welcomed his tongue, reveled in the feel of his hands smoothing down her back and squeezing her bottom. Her panic ebbed and her passion flowed. Indeed, her heart was beating most frantically, her desires flaring most earnestly. “Take me, Simon,” she begged whilst tugging his shirttails from his trousers. “Take me now and completely. Ravish me. Make me forget my name.”

One night of oblivion. She was desperate to rest her mind.

He looked down at her with such fire, she was certain she felt flames licking her most intimate places. “My dear Willie, do you know what you’re asking for?”

“Everything you have.”

In a blur of a second he had doused the wall sconces and locked the door. She was fumbling with the front laces of her new corset, her actions slowed by her weak hand. Simon accomplished the task with quick and nimble fingers, kissing her all the while. Her neck, her chin, her cheeks, her eyelids. His mouth skimmed over her face with butterfly kisses, so soft, so teasing. Astonishing that those barely there kisses invoked such an aggressive response. She fairly ripped Simon’s shirt from his body. She most assuredly heard fabric tearing.

“So that’s the way of it, pet.”

A statement. Not a question. The breath whooshed from Willie’s lungs as Simon backed her against the wall and yanked up her skirt. She felt his fingers stroking her bare inner thighs. She tensed, shocked when he homed in on her most sensitive and sensual region, his fingers teasing, rubbing. Good Lord. Her back arched as an erotic ache coiled tighter and tighter. Whilst one hand worked wicked magic on her nether region, the other hand caressed her breast whilst he kissed her senseless. Still mostly dressed, her clothes askew, Willie felt almost as exposed and brazen as if she were fully nude.

“Come for me, pet.”

He had never called her that. He had never been this forceful. It drove Willie deliciously mad. Her body quivered and clenched as she acquiesced to her husband’s bidding.

“Tell me your name,” he ordered as she shuddered with a colossal climax. “Your name, dammit.”

“Willie.”

“So we are not finished, then. Marvelous.”

Her mind grappled to make sense of his words as he swooped her off her feet.

A knock on the door. “Tea is served.”

“Leave it!” Simon bellowed over his shoulder.

“That was rude,” Willie whispered, half-dazed.

“He’ll get over it.” Simon bent her over the side of his massive bed. “Don’t move,” he ordered whilst ridding her of her boots, her stockings, her petticoats, her skirt.

Willie shivered with anticipation as he peeled each article of clothing from her body, and none too gently. At once she was completely naked, bare feet on the floor, torso plastered to his feathery soft mattress, her bottom scandalously exposed.

Simon trailed featherlight fingers over her shoulder blades, her spine. “Your name?”

“Willie,” she whispered.

“Yes, well, remember you asked for this.”

One palm at the small of her back, the other brazenly gripping her bottom, Simon slid into her from behind. The intrusion was shocking and welcome. She was slick with desire. Delirious with need. She groaned low with the initial thrust, then moaned, mewled, begging for harder and faster when his fingers twisted in her hair.

Scandalous.

Wicked.

She cried out in ecstasy, embarrassed by the vehemence but unable to temper her response to Simon’s fervent and imaginative lovemaking. This was not the young, reckless man she’d fallen in love with twelve years past, but the experienced, confident man she’d fallen in love with all over again.

“Name?” he asked as she shuddered with yet another orgasm.

“Wilhelmina Darcy.”

“Christ.”

He lifted her and suddenly she was on her back, in the center of a wondrously masculine bed. Simon’s bed. She realized in a far-off way that in all the frantic lovemaking he had been most careful not to harm her shoulder. That, in itself, heightened her senses. Along with the glorious feel of his tongue, lips, and hands honoring every inch of her body, pleasuring her in ways that made her cheeks flush and her pulse skitter. Just when she thought she would expire from the erotic sensations, Simon ceased his avid ministrations.

Her breath caught and her mind reeled. It was as though she was perched on a precipice, teetering on the brink of a breathtaking fall. The anticipation consumed her being, obliterated the outside world.

There was only Simon.

“Open your eyes,” he demanded in a measured voice. “Do not deviate from my gaze.”

She nodded, incapable of words. And then . . . he did nothing. He held his magnificent body above hers, poised, promising wondrous pleasure yet not delivering. Her breath stalled in her chest, his gaze . . . so intent, so unsettling.

And then she felt the tip of his shaft. The breach. The friction. She felt him moving inside of her—so slow, so controlled—and suddenly time ceased. She felt his hand moving over her mound, his fingers teasing her folds. He increased the pressure, making her crazy there as he drove into her with hard, unrelenting strokes in the other there. The orgasm was twofold. Earthshaking. Mind-bending.

“Name?” Simon asked in a gruff voice.

“Sorry?” Willie grappled to make sense of the query as her husband plunged deep and shuddered.

His release was fierce and loud. “Good Christ,” he rasped.

A heartbeat later—or was it a lifetime?—Simon rolled to his side and pulled her into his arms. “Willie,” he beckoned softly.

Body tingling, chest heaving, she struggled to engage her brain.

“Have you forgotten your name, pet?”

“Sorry?”

She thought she felt him smile as he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Sleep well, wife.”