Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy) (13 page)

He was about to admire the nearest player
’s figure—a human
woman serving from the ad court—when she dropped her ball and turned to catch its bounce. “
Mister Auric
—” Her half-whispered, half-gasped address lit him from within, “—hello.”

“
Good day
, McEwan.”

“
I thought my sister had frightened you off.”

“
No, I—”

“
McEwan, what’s taking so long?” screeched her opponent. An unfortunate screech, so grating and so familiar and so...Wilhelmina Challender?

“
Tarry awhile, sir? At least to the end of this game. Please?”

“
Your servant, ma’am.” His cartoonish bow had been charming in theory but felt dumb in execution. Positively dumb. To his relief, Sonja curtsied in equally overdone fashion before returning to the contest. Yes, the so-called contest—South Hampshire Grammar’s tenured tennis coach versus one of her least graceful protégés; determined and powerful perhaps, but Sonja was not a young lady one would count among the nimblest of racqueteers. Derek had played mixed doubles against her once or twice in the teacher-student friendlies last year, when he’d been at the receiving end of her wicked passing shots.

Most of the other girls dinked the ball daintily over the net, relying on spin and angles to out-
manoeuvre their opponents. Sonja, on the other hand, liked to test the catgut to its limit. She slammed, swiped, grunted, harangued, and generally did everything in her power to win the match.

She was nothing if not entertaining to watch.

Wilhelmina Challender sliced a serve out to Sonja’s forehand and received an up-the-line humdinger in reply. Sonja threw a wild fist in celebration, while her seasoned opponent stitched on a magnanimous smile for the crowd. Underneath she must be fuming. Less than a week had passed since the incident in the Lake District, and no decision had been made by the School Board regarding whom to punish, or whom to commend for their conduct. Like Wilhelmina’s gratuitous ball toss, it was all rather up in the air.

“
Fault,” a line judge croaked as the serve missed by a few inches. Going off the copper lines and the ball’s weighty flight and bounce, Derek reckoned it was some kind of electro-magnetic sensor system, perhaps a circuit, coordinating the magnetic proximity of the ball to the lines. But how was the magnetic circuit communicating with the automatons? By radio? Darn clever, whatever it was.

Two sneaky drop-shots in a row left Sonja panting as she scrambled to the net and back in vain. Teacher outwitted student by hitting a lob right on the baseline. “
Advantage, server,” intoned the stoic umpire.

“
Witch,” muttered Sonja.

Wilhelmina
hit a deep serve into Sonja’s body, forcing her to adjust with quick footwork, which wasn’t her specialty. Caught in two minds, she failed to get out of the way and the heavy ball bounced up, striking her chin.

“
Game, set and match.”

“
Cack.”

Before Derek could commiserate her, Sonja ran up to the net
, said something to her opponent and then motioned to the crowd behind Wilhelmina. Her teacher shrugged and walked off the court.

Derek stood up straight, fidgeted with his gloves
behind his back. “Good effort,” he reassured Sonja as she ran back to him. She tossed a handful of loose white curls from her brow. “Tennis of the future, eh?” he said.

“
Would you like to play doubles with me?”

“
What? Now?” For some reason the idea went down about as well as a homebound ship under a wreckers’ night-light. The
last
thing he’d wanted today was an audience. Him and her alone together with a stolen declaration or two, yes, enough to find out how strongly she returned his affection; and if she was unsure of her feelings quite yet, to ask her permission to call on her another time, perhaps when she turned seventeen.

But
this—
this would gain him nothing and had the potential to lose him everything.

“
Consider it a rematch.” She pointed across the arena, to where Wilhelmina and her doubles partner—that shit-eater, Eustace Challender! no less—strutted onto court. The ass removed his bowler, jacket and tie, accepted a brand new racquet from the flustered organiser, and began limbering up with an annoying lack of irony, as though the prig really thought he was at Wimbledon.

“
I’m in.” Derek wove his way through the crowd to the gate on the other side, tipped his hat to Sonja’s sister as he stepped onto the court. “Miss McEwan.”

“
Mister Auric.” Muted. Still frosty.

A wave of apprehension
heaved over him. No, he’d never liked the limelight. No, it would not stop him now.

Eustace remonstrated, almost stormed off when he saw Derek. But he knew and his wife knew, just as Sonja and Derek knew, why he coul
dn’t chicken out of this match. Pride. Pride was at stake, and the settling of a score.

“
This wasn’t quite what I had in mind, McEwan, but I’m ready if you are.”

“
Sonja
.” She handed him his racquet. “From now on, I’m Sonja, you’re Derek, they’re going down. Okay?”

He laughed. “
Okay.”

“
Now I want two things from you, Derek. One, crush them to a pulp. And two, keep an eye on my father, if you’d be so kind. He’s inspecting that large portable drilling gadget over there.” She pointed to a row of tool benches some fifty yards behind her sister. “Now, we might be paranoid, but Meredith and I swore we saw someone following him, someone we know for a fact shouldn’t be here at all.”

“
Who, pray?”

“
We can’t be sure who he is exactly. He was caught taking photographs of Father in Norway, knocked himself unconscious when he fell out of a tree in the act. As far as we were aware, he never awakened from his coma. But he was armed. That he’s here now, watching us, can’t possibly be good news. Please keep your eyes skinned?”

“
You have my word. What does he look like?”

“
Five-ten-ish, slender build, about thirty-five years old, with piercing blue eyes, a dark beard and moustache, and a bowler hat.”

“
Not much to go on there. That could be any one from a thousand men. Anything else to identify him?”

She bounced the ball on the hard floor a few times.
It was clearly heavier than a normal tennis ball, no doubt containing a trace of some magnetic metal. “A tan overcoat. Oh, it’s probably nothing. Likely it’s not even the man we saw in Norway.”

“
I’ll keep a sharp eye nonetheless. Your father
is
a famous man, after all.”

“
Thank you, Derek. And for inviting me today. It was sweet.”

He had to look
twice to be sure this was a sixteen-year-old talking to him and not an accomplished woman of the world. Yet it was becoming increasingly clear that in Sonja McEwan’s case the two were one and the same. Decisive, articulate, frightened of nothing except her father’s safety, she left Derek tongue-tied.

“
You’re welcome,” was all he could manage. “Shall we?”

“
Your serve, McEwan,” Wilhelmina called across. “Best of three, so we don’t hog the court for too long.” The organiser checked his timepiece several times as he wound a crank in the small of the umpire’s back.

“
Who’s
she
calling hog? Look what she married,” Sonja whispered to Derek.

A part of him wanted to laugh along, another ha
d to chide her for her impertinence—Mrs. Challender was still her teacher. Yet still another part of him, the wisest perhaps, knew to stay quiet, to let this surreal scenario play out so he could review the madness later. For he was in uncharted regions, where magnets drew the lines of battle under his feet. And his compass had stopped spinning.

H
e had found his own magnetic north. She had a heck of a first serve.

***

“Fifteen-thirty.” Two senseless double faults in a row had gifted the Challenders an early lead, and only Derek Auric’s reassuring wink as he hunched ready to attack his opponents’ next return, shirt sleeves flaring out of his tight-fitting purple waistcoat, kept Sonja from smashing her racquet into the ground in frustration. She’d lured him into this grudge match after fortuitously spotting the Challenders because it had seemed a clever way to break the ice, a less scandalous way for her and Derek to spend some time together.

Merry wasn
’t for leaving her alone today, had shadowed her every move since they’d left the airship; but if there was one thing her older sister disliked more than being second best in a man’s eyes, it was the game of tennis. Yet Sonja’s only self-caveat, that she must under no circumstances let Derek
lose
this match
,
began to bite at her sense of satisfaction. What would he think of her if she let his bitter enemy waddle away triumphant?

She might never see him again.

Her next serve landed in but at a fraction of the pace of which she was capable. Mrs. Challender returned with a cross-court backhand beyond Derek’s lunge—it hit the tramline and skidded away off court. At full speed and reach, Sonja barely clawed it back over the net. Immediately Mr. Challender smacked the helpless ball straight at Derek, who was standing inches from the net, shielding his face with his racquet. The ball rebounded off Derek’s strings with such force it bounced once, and only once, in the Challenders’ court before clearing the fence behind them.

“
Thirty all,” the automaton umpire announced.

“
What the hell was that?” Derek raged at his opponent. “This is an exhibition game, not a cock-fight.”

“
Oh? Why don’t you go cry to your little peahen then.” Mr. Challender nodded at Sonja. “She’s clearly the one wearing the trousers on that side of the net.”

“
Just you and I, Eustace...after the match. You name the place.”

“
No need, seeing as I’m going to pulverize you right here on court. Or can’t you handle being beaten fair and square?”

Derek thrust his racquet out to arm
’s length over the net, pointed straight at Mr. Challender. “You’re on. And once we’re done here,
then
I decide if I’m satisfied or not.”

“
Ha! Hot air from a hot-head. Your kind always goes down in flames, Auric, always will. The School Board has your number.”

“
And I’ve got yours. Two tonnes of horse-shit, fertilizing the court. No wonder the ball jumped the fence. It couldn’t stand the reek.”

By this time the audience had swelled to three or four times its size, and smatterings of laughter
emerged. Both men glanced around, muttered under their breaths, then sheepishly returned to their positions.

“
Everything all right, Derek?” Sonja asked.

“
Your serve.”

Oh God.
She’d made a huge mistake setting up this match. Even if she and Derek did win, he wouldn’t want to wait around afterward, fuming like this, or say the things he wanted to say to her. Heck, she’d taken away his very reason for inviting her here in the first place. She’d turned his planned tender moments into the Trojan War—not the most historically successful way to win a woman.

“
Fault.”

Bugger.

Mr. Challender returned her second serve with interest, so she lobbed the ball to his wife, knowing the overhead smash was her weakest stroke. Not this time! Mrs. Challender went cross-court with relish, and Sonja had to scoop an improvised half-volley from the hem of her skirt as she rushed forward. Mr. Challender caught it on the volley, again lashing a shot straight at Derek. But Derek anticipated and, with the deftest defensive block she’d ever seen, took all the pace off the ball, dropping it just over the net. The Challenders had no chance of reaching it.

It w
on huge applause from the crowd.

Sonja jammed her next serve into
Mr. Challender’s body, giving him no wiggle room whatsoever. He fumbled the return.

“
Game.”

“
Yes!” Relief spilled out as she jumped up and down and danced an un-ladylike jig along the copper baseline. The crowd laughed hard but she didn’t care. Derek kissed her hand. She patted his perfect bottom with her racquet. Cheers erupted from the audience, combined with a smell of combusted magnesium from a nearby exhibit, igniting the on-court atmosphere to a fever. Tears welled in her eyes.

The next game proved a struggle.
Mr. Challender constantly—and with a distinct lack of chivalry, according to Derek—hammered away at Sonja’s backhand, her weaker side. It yielded no less than five points for the Challenders, who had clearly colluded to exploit that frailty. But she’d always been a quick study. Their tactic was unvarying and relentless, and therefore easy to anticipate. She ran around Mrs. Challender’s softer slices and let fly with several thunderous forehands, squaring the game to deuce over and over again. Derek weighed in at the net once or twice at full stretch, almost tossing himself to ground in the attempt. He was extremely athletic, if a little erratic in his shot placement.