A Lady Never Lies (11 page)

She did not reply. He could almost hear the echo of his words, hard and cold, in the silence between them, until the jabbering of some small animal outside the door interrupted the frozen air. Two of them, in fact, from the sound of it; squirrels quarreling over a newly unearthed nut, or else working up the courage to enter the cottage and trace the tantalizing smell of his ham sandwich, wrapped in paper in the pocket of his duster coat.

“I see,” she said at last. Her voice was soft, small, quite unlike her; her features remained in place, betraying no emotion of any kind. “There it is, of course. I’m venal and petty and vain, and altogether spoilt by a life of idleness and uselessness. Yes, very true. None of my friends would deny you there.”

“I beg your pardon,” Finn said. “I spoke quite without . . .”

She held up her hand and spoke with greater strength. “But for all my sins, Mr. Burke, I do have my own peculiar brand of honor. I do have this: I’m loyal to my friends. It may not weigh much in the balance, I suppose, but as it’s my only virtue, I tend it with the most devoted care.”

Finn allowed her words to hover between them, taking on weight as the seconds ticked by, transforming into a kind of pledge. Her eyes seemed to bore through his, to will him to believe her.

“Very well, then.” He reached for the toolbox and handed her a spanner. “Close the door before we begin. That should at least give us a moment’s warning, should we have an unexpected visitor.”

* * *

A
t some point well before noon, as an unreasonably strong sun beamed through the old glass window, and her fingers trembled with the strain of holding a pair of wires in place for—she peered at Mr. Burke’s pocket watch, laid out on the worktable next to him—thirty-eight consecutive minutes, Alexandra began to think she had made a dreadful mistake.

“Tell me,” she said, and was surprised to hear her voice come out in a husky, bedroom-y sort of growl. She cleared her throat, swallowed carefully, and tried again. “Tell me, Mr. Burke. What exactly does this contraption do? And what exactly are we doing to it?”

“Shht-shht,” came his response, shot between his teeth like a pair of bullets. His head bent down toward a rectangle of polished metal, a magnifying monocle strapped to his eye; his fingers worked with delicate precision at the mass of fine wires crisscrossing the metal plate.

Alexandra, who had never received a “shht-shht” in her life, restrained herself with great effort from sticking the ends of her wires directly into Mr. Burke’s two ears.

A good thing, because they were lovely ears. Too lovely for a man, really. Such a neat, perfect question mark of an ear, such a glorious peach-blush seashell of an ear, should have been bestowed on a woman, who had much greater need of ornamentation than sturdy Phineas Burke. Somewhere, she thought, lived some poor lady with monstrous wide ears that stuck out from her head like a pair of deformed potatoes, while Mr. Burke sat there with his wires and his monocle and his pincers, entirely indifferent to the beauty of his ears. Alexandra’s eyes followed the curve of cartilage downward to the tender nubbin of his earlobe, where it merged into his neck. Rather a nice neck, too, solid and strong, with clean pale-gold skin that seemed to beckon . . .

“Lady Morley!”

She started. “What’s that?”

“You may remove your hands. I’ve finished up the wiring.”

“Oh, thank God.” She drew back her hands and rubbed the joints furiously. “Whatever were you doing?”

“The wiring,” he repeated, frowning downward at his handiwork. With one hand he unbuckled the monocle and drew it away from his right eye.

“Yes, of
course
the wiring. I mean the wiring for what?”

He looked up at last, and she caught her breath at the expression in his eyes, the intensity of his concentration.

Lucky wires
, she thought.

“For the
battery
.” His tone conveyed a certain sense of bewilderment at her ignorance.

“Well, if you’d
told
me.” She straightened in her chair and forgot all about his ears and his neck and his eyes. “It’s only
do this, Lady Morley
, and
do that
, and perhaps
if you please, Lady Morley
, if I’m quite fortunate.”

He had the effrontery to smile. “I did warn you, if you’ll recall.”

“I thought you must be exaggerating. No one could possibly be that beastly.”

His smile grew into a laugh. “Oh, I’m a right old beast in my workshop. I’m the last to deny it. Look here, would you like a cup of tea? I’m parched.”

“Tea? You’ve got tea?”

“Oh yes. Couldn’t do without it.” He rose from the worktable and stretched his lean body to an unimaginable length, his hands reaching almost into the rafters, his muscles flexing powerfully beneath the dense cotton of his mechanic’s smock. “Ah, that’s better. One begins to cramp most abominably, after an hour or two.”

“Yes, quite,” she said, under her breath, and watched him saunter across the room to an enormous wooden cabinet along the wall.

“What’s that?” He opened the cabinet door and extracted a large tin canister and a pair of chipped earthenware cups.

“Nothing. Can I help you at all?” she said, more loudly, rising from her chair.

“No, no. Quite capable. Besides, it’s all a bit rough-and-ready for a lady.” He set down the cups and the tin and turned to a high narrow table against the wall, next to the cabinet, on which rested a jumble of implements, both scientific and practical. He muttered something, searching through the objects, until he found a large glass beaker.

Alexandra sank slowly back into her chair, keeping a wary eye on the proceedings.

“Nervous, are you?” He chuckled and reached for the pitcher, pouring water into the beaker until it was nearly full. “Don’t worry, Lady Morley. I’ve made myself thousands of cups of tea over the years, and at all hours. I fancy myself a bit of an expert, in fact.” He set the beaker atop a gas ring and lit a match beneath, releasing a neat circle of blue flame.

“Have you really got a gas line here?” Alexandra asked in amazement.

“No, no. I’ve brought my own,” he said, tapping a cylinder underneath the table with the toe of his shoe. He went back to the cabinet and took out a teapot.

“Good God.”

He half turned to grin at her. “Rough-and-ready, as I said. Do you like ceylon?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Excellent. I’ve a particular blend I favor. A bit strong, but I imagine you like it that way, don’t you?”

She faltered. “Yes . . . yes. How did you know that?”

He removed the lid from the teapot and began spooning in leaves from the tin canister. “I’ll admit I’m no expert on women, but I do know what sort of lady prefers a weak blend of tea, and which likes it strong.”

She began to laugh, carried away by this new mood of his, easy and familiar and equal. “I daresay you know a great deal more about women than you let on.”

A blush crept up from his collar to spread through his neck and into his cheeks. “Then I daresay you’d be surprised,” he said. The water in the beaker had already begun to bubble, spurred on by the intense efficiency of Mr. Burke’s scientific gas ring, and he picked it off the flame with a pair of metal tongs and poured off the water into the teapot.

“How terribly intriguing,” Alexandra said. “I wonder what you mean.”

He replaced the lid on the teapot. “I haven’t any cream to hand, I’m afraid, nor sugar. I like to use a bit of honey, myself.” The blood remained high under his skin.

“Honey? How rustic.”

He turned to face her, propping his long body against the table as the tea steeped behind him. “I picked it up from a fellow in India. Eats a spoonful or two of honey a day, and claims never to develop a cough. The stuff has a remarkable effect on germs.”

“You’re a traveler, then?” She drew her finger along the grain of the wooden table, up and down, watching the blush begin to fade from his cheekbones, leaving only a pink glow beneath the scattering of freckles.

“From time to time. Curiosity, you see.” He turned back to the teapot and went through the mass of objects on the table until he produced a square of fine wire mesh, which he placed on top of the first cup to strain out the tea leaves.

“Which countries have you visited?” She watched the tea as it fell in a smooth amber stream from the pot into the cup. The mesh worried her. What was it doing with his scientific equipment? Was it used for experiments with highly volatile chemicals?

Had he washed it since?

“Oh, India, as I said. Siberia. The Caucasus, Mesopotamia. Much of the Continent, of course, though not yet Athens, sadly. I was on the point of making the crossing from Brindisi last year, when the most violent storm kicked up. Dreadful nuisance. Here you are, then.” He picked up the cups and brought them to the worktable then went back to the cabinet. “Did you want the honey after all?”

“Yes, please,” she said. His long legs dwarfed the journey from table to cabinet to table again, covering the distance in an easy stride or two. In his broad hand, the pot of honey looked like it belonged to a doll’s set. “I should have loved to travel like that,” she went on, stirring the honey into her tea, “but Lord Morley’s gout made that sort of thing quite impossible.”

“You never thought to go without him?” Mr. Burke settled into the chair next to her and dipped his spoon into the honey pot.

The chairs were still set close together from the wiring operation. Alexandra could feel the heat from his body shimmer against her skin, could sense the air hum with his vitality. “No,” she said. She bent over her teacup and let the steam drift into her nostrils, warm and spicy and faintly sweet from the honey. “As I said, Mr. Burke, I’m loyal to my friends. And my husband was one of them.”

Perhaps he felt the alarming closeness of their bodies, too, for his chair scraped briefly against the wooden floor, and his voice reached her ear from a greater distance. “And you never felt burdened by this? Confined?”

No one had ever asked her such a thing before, not her closest friends. No one had ever supposed how she might feel about remaining in England, season after luxurious, monotonous season, with her aging, gout-afflicted husband. “Of course not. I had a perfectly agreeable life. I . . .”

A brisk knock sounded on the door.

“Burke! Burke, I say!” The doorknob rattled furiously. “Burke, you ass!”

Alexandra froze in place. Mr. Burke’s eyes locked with hers, round and stricken.

“Wallingford!” she hissed.

NINE

B
ut it wasn’t Wallingford at all.

“What the devil sort of hovel is this?” demanded Lord Roland Penhallow, entering the workshop in brisk strides. Or at least they sounded like brisk strides, from Alexandra’s limited vantage beneath the chassis of Mr. Burke’s automobile. “And why have you got it all locked up?”

“Security,” Mr. Burke replied. “A competitive lot, we motor enthusiasts.”

“Ha-ha. And rather useful for keeping seductive marchionesses at bay, eh what?” Lord Roland’s footsteps halted at the center of the room. Alexandra could just see the high polish of his shoes at the edge of her vision.

“That, too, of course,” Mr. Burke replied, rather too readily.

“What do you think Wallingford was on about last night? I hardly recognized the man. All that business about goose down.”

“I suspect, old boy, that your brother’s got troubles of his own in that quarter,” Mr. Burke said.

Lord Roland gave a low whistle. “You don’t say! Wallingford and Lady Morley! I suppose it’s a natural match, both of them high-tempered schemers and whatnot. And it explains last night’s doings, all those accusations about her seducing you. Jealousy, from my brother! Ha-ha. Very good.”

“I don’t mean Lady Morley,” Mr. Burke said tersely.

“What’s that? But who—good God, you can’t mean Lilib . . . you can’t mean Lady Somerton! Damn you for a slandering . . .”

“Pax, old man!” Burke chuckled. “Not her ladyship. Good God, no.”

“What, then? Not Miss Harewood!” Lord Roland sounded thunderstruck. “You can’t be serious.”

“Mere speculation.”

Alexandra craned her neck, straining to see more. Or, failing that, at least to breathe. The chassis sat low to the ground, with the rear axle mere inches from her nose and gleaming with grease, hiding her effectively if rather terrifyingly. She tried not to imagine the whole works crashing down upon her, and instead concentrated on the four male feet nearby. Lord Roland faced away from her, the heels of his shoes planted squarely before her eyes; Mr. Burke appeared to be leaning against the worktable, at ease, one foot crossed over the other. Distracting Penhallow from the motor-car, no doubt.

A warm feeling gathered inside her. He was only doing it to keep himself from being found out, of course, but it was pleasant (
pleasant
, she told herself firmly, nothing more) to imagine that he was protecting her. That he leaned against the worktable to save
her
disgrace.

“Hmm. Miss Harewood. Any port in a storm, I suppose,” said Lord Roland. “But what has goose down to do with it all?”

Burke replied impatiently. “Haven’t the slightest. Look, have you got a genuine purpose to your visit, or have you only come to harass me? I’ve got rather a lot of work to do.”

Alexandra’s ear began to ache, pressed against the hard wooden floor, while the smell of oil and dust and metal flooded her brain. Her shoulder blades felt as if they were pressing through her skin. How the devil did Mr. Burke stand it, hour after hour?

“Yes, yes. Of course.” Lord Roland paused and shifted his feet, turning to the right. “So. This is it. The workshop of a genius, where mere mortals fear to tread. All sorts of . . . of doings . . . and . . . I say, what’s
that
?”

Alexandra started, bumping her nose against the axle.

“A few spare parts. Look here, Penhallow . . .”

Lord Roland turned again to point his feet in her direction. She cringed away, trying to melt herself into the floorboards. “And this! The machine itself!” He took a few steps away, apparently surveying it. “Absolutely marvelous! Really, old chap. I’m floored. Er . . . is that the engine?”

“Yes, I’m almost certain.”

“Ha-ha. The old sense of humor, eh? What a card you are.” He paused and sniffed, audibly. “Do I smell lilies?”

“Penhallow, for God’s sake. Leave me in peace. Save it all for the dinner table.”

“Burke, you ass. I’ve come for a friendly visit, to buck up your spirits . . .”

At that instant, entirely without warning, a mote of dust found its way into the back of Alexandra’s throat.

Mr. Burke spoke firmly. “My spirits don’t need bucking. Out.”

Lord Roland paused, his indecision almost palpable in the air. And then, like a dam under flood, he broke. “Damn it all, Burke. It’s the most confounded coil. Last night . . . all that nonsense about raising the stakes . . . oh, you must know I’m most frightfully in love with her.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Mr. Burke muttered.

The dust mote, with unerring precision, burrowed itself into the most sensitive spot of Alexandra’s throat, just below the epiglottis.

“I know you can’t possibly understand, you with your cold scientific heart and all that, but . . . well, damn it all, I had to confess to someone! And you’re such a brick, Burke. You’d never tell my brother, or the ladies. My secret is perfectly safe with you.”

“Perfectly. Now if you wouldn’t mind . . .”

Very delicately, taking care not to make the slightest outward noise, Alexandra shifted her throat.

“That damned beast of a husband of hers. We all know he’s treated her badly, of course, that’s why they’re all here to begin with. But the dear soul’s so loyal and honorable . . .”

“Penhallow, another time perhaps. I’m really quite busy.”

“But now that Wallingford’s taken this notion into his head, anything I say or do might cause her to be tossed out entirely. And that shrew . . .”

Tears began to stream from Alexandra’s eyes, rolling down the two sides of her cheeks and into her ears.

“. . . that shrew Lady Morley, taking Wallingford up on his wager! I should have rebuked her. I meant to, but Lilibet . . . but Lady Somerton gave me
such
a look.”

“Lady Morley is not a shrew,” Mr. Burke said sharply.

“Well, that’s charitable of you, old fellow, considering how she’s done her best to lure you in, ha-ha. A handsome woman, of course, but one can’t imagine sitting across from her at the breakfast table.” Lord Roland chuckled.

“Penhallow,” Mr. Burke said, speaking apparently through his teeth, “I’m deeply sorry for your troubles, but you really must see me another time. The battery . . .”

Alexandra’s throat gave way at last, with a muffled choking gasp of a cough.

“What’s that?” asked Lord Roland, wheeling about.

“Nothing. Hydraulics. As I was saying . . .”

Alexandra managed to suppress the next cough, but the third caught her by surprise.

“There it is again! What the devil sort of hydraulics have you got in there? It don’t sound at all healthy.”

Mr. Burke cleared his throat. “A mere . . . simply to do with . . . the braking system. A new design I’m trying out. Quite trying, involving the most immense concentration, and rather dangerous at that. I shall really have to ask you to leave.” His footsteps moved toward the door.

“But see here, Burke. That’s exactly what I came to speak with you about. I was thinking . . .” Lord Roland paused. “I was thinking that perhaps you might take me on as your assistant. To keep me busy, to keep me out of her way, you see. It’s the most honorable course.”

“My assistant?”

“Yes. Don’t you need another pair of hands to . . . well, to help sort out . . . all this . . . this whatnot you’ve got here?”

Mr. Burke sighed, so loudly Alexandra could hear the rush of air. “Penhallow, old man. Do you have the
slightest
idea how an electric battery works?”

“Well, no. That is, I have some notion that . . . the sparks rather . . . well . . . no. No, I haven’t,” Lord Roland said humbly.

“Can you even distinguish one end of my motor-car from another?”

Alexandra saw his lordship’s highly polished shoes turn in her direction. She shrank into the recesses of the chassis.

“I daresay . . . one would think that . . . well, if I should hazard a guess . . .”

“Precisely,” said Mr. Burke. “Now if you’ll be so good as to return to the library and resume your quest for knowledge. Perhaps compose a verse or two, cataloging the anguish of doomed love. And if the delights of that endeavor should pall, you might consult with Giacomo regarding the cheeses in the stables, as a more practical matter.”

“The cheeses?”

“He’ll tell you all about them. But for God’s sake, Penhallow, whatever you do,
leave . . . me . . . alone
!” The door opened with a forceful scraping of wood against doorjamb.

“I say, Burke, that’s hardly sporting.”

“Really? How ungentlemanly of me.”

“In any case, old Giacomo sent me down here to begin with. Said you needed help. It’s what gave me the idea.”

“Did he, the old bugger?” Mr. Burke sounded dark, almost menacing. “Now
that’s
hardly sporting.”

“Very well. I take your point,” Lord Roland said. His feet marched toward the door and beyond Alexandra’s vision. “But just remember, Burke . . . Oh, hullo there, Wallingford! Out for a stroll?”

No.
Not Wallingford. No merciful God would allow it.

Alexandra held back a groan and shifted her bones against the agonizing hardness of the floor. She couldn’t hear the duke’s reply; he was still on the other side of the door.

“Well, that’s the devil of a coincidence!” Lord Roland said. “He told me the same thing, about Burke wanting help in his workshop, and I thought to myself, Penhallow, old man, that’s just the ticket . . .”

“Giacomo was entirely mistaken,” Mr. Burke said, in hard tones. “I’m in no need of assistance. Quite the opposite.”

“Yes, yes. You’ve made yourself quite clear on the subject. I’m taking myself off directly, and I’d advise my dear brother to do the same.” Lord Roland’s voice drifted away, out the door and into unintelligibility.

“And you, Wallingford?” asked Mr. Burke. “Aren’t you taking Penhallow’s excellent advice?”

“No,” said Wallingford, quite clearly.

Alexandra, staring in despair at the dark metallic gleam of the axle before her nose, felt her heart sink into the floorboards.

Wallingford’s booted footsteps rapped against the wood, rattling her head. “It occurred to me, in fact, that our friend Giacomo’s suggestion might just solve our problems at a single stroke.”

“Which problems?” Mr. Burke sighed.

“For one thing, the problem of keeping Lady Morley away from your vulnerable heart,” Wallingford said, “and for the other, the problem of avoiding that Harewood witch.”

Alexandra’s mouth tightened indignantly.

“Those are
your
problems, Wallingford, not mine,” Mr. Burke said.

Alexandra turned her head to watch their feet and saw that Mr. Burke had resumed his pose against the worktable, leaning against it with insouciant ease.

Wallingford turned to face him. “The problem of Lady Morley is entirely yours.”

“No, Wallingford. The problem of Lady Morley is entirely in your imagination,” replied Mr. Burke, not moving an inch. “A scientist of no particular charm, an untitled Irish bastard of no social standing. I daresay the impeccable Lady Morley would sooner cut off her right arm than share my bed.”

He spoke with firm assurance, with deliberation, each word cutting through the air between them to pierce her exact center.
Social standing. The impeccable Lady Morley. Share my bed.

Bastard.
She hadn’t known that.

“You sell yourself far too short, old man,” Wallingford said quietly, and then, with greater strength, “You’re a bastard of high breeding indeed, after all. And in any case, the inducement is high. She’d give anything to have us out of the castle.”

Mr. Burke uncrossed his long legs and straightened, making some motion with his arm that Alexandra couldn’t see. “For God’s sake, man. Do you see her here?”

“I’ve no doubt she’s assembling her plan of attack this very instant. Which is why I’ve come to help. No, don’t thank me.” Wallingford squared his booted feet on the floor, five unbearably short feet from Alexandra’s nose. “It’s my duty, you see, to protect you from designing females. You haven’t any idea what they’re capable of. Lady Morley would make mincemeat of you.”

“I daresay,” drawled Mr. Burke, “but at the moment I’m entirely absorbed in the improvement to my battery. I shouldn’t notice if Lady Morley herself were right here, holding the wires for me.”

“Holding wires?”

“For hours on end, I’m afraid. Very tiring work. I’d be so terribly grateful if you’d take it on. I believe I’ve got an extra smock somewhere, though it’s perhaps a bit oily. And then there’s the acid . . .”

Wallingford took a step backward. “Acid?”

“Yes, of course. How do you think a battery produces its charge? Sulfuric acid, non-dilute. Strong stuff, of course. Liable to blind you if you’re not careful. I’ve got patent protective goggles, myself.” Mr. Burke’s legs moved briskly over to the table against the wall, where he’d made the tea. “Look, here’s the stuff. Take a look?”

Wallingford took another hasty step backward, bumping into the automobile. It shifted slightly, with a faint groan of protest, the axle just grazing the tip of Alexandra’s nose.

Mr. Burke’s feet dashed to the machine. His voice exploded in the air. “Good God! Careful, man! Step away from that!”

Alexandra’s breath froze in her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut and crossed her arms above her face, because by God she’d be damned if her corpse weren’t viewable, like poor Lady Banbury who fell through the skylight last June, during an ill-advised equestrian-themed bacchanal on her lover’s rooftop.

But the machine held. She cracked her eyes open and fastened them on the curving metal, the individual bolts and fastenings, confirming their immobility. Somewhere through the machinery, she sensed Mr. Burke’s strong, capable hands steadying the shifting mass, returning it to equilibrium.

“Well, then! What a lucky thing you weren’t underneath just now. Assisting me, that is,” Mr. Burke said, between hard breaths of air.

“Look,” Wallingford said, “perhaps I could come back another time. When you’re working on . . . the steering mechanism. Or the wheels.”

“Don’t you think, Wallingford, you’ve done quite enough already?”

“Christ, man. It’s for your own good.”