Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy) (35 page)

“
How do you do, Ethel? Well, well, look who’s all spruced up.” Meredith couldn’t resist straightening Parnell’s bowtie. She and Ethel both tittered when he grunted and spun away to hide the fact that he’d become red as a beetroot. “Sorry, I’ll be good from now on, I promise,” Meredith said.

Ethel
had always been a good sport. She worked in her family’s shoe shop over on Victoria Road, and though she was a few years older than Meredith, they’d spent a fair bit of time together at the Southsea Fair over successive summers several years ago, becoming easy, if not exactly close, friends. “It’s all a bit...overwhelming,” she said, surveying the ballroom. “How the other half lives.”

“
Agreed,” replied Meredith.

“
But you’ve been to these sorts of functions a lot, haven’t you?”

Meredith ladled a generous serving of punch into a gl
ass for herself. Drank it in one swig. “Quite a few, yes, but I’ve never cared for them. It’s too much pontificating. People hardly ever say what they mean unless it’s to impress. And the small talk?” She motioned to stick a finger down her throat. “I’m glad you two are here, though. You’ve probably saved my bacon.”

“
Likewise.” Parnell poured a glass each for the three of them. “Say, did you ever get to the bottom of that pocket watch business?”

He can
’t be that stupid.

“
I don’t know what you mean.”

“
The Atlas case, you know, with the number engraved on the back, and the Latin inscription and...we couldn’t...get it open...if...you—” He stopped, mid blush, when she scowled inches from his face. “Teeth.”

“
That’s right. And you know what they’re going to bite off if you say any more on
that
subject, don’t you, Parnell?”

“
Sorry. I was just...sorry.”

“
What’s all that?” Ethel eased herself between them, backed Parnell away. “What are you two up to?”

“
Nothing.” He tried to hide his embarrassment with a charming laugh, with the emphasis on trying. The only charm Parnell possessed hung behind the counter at his bookstore, and was East African.

Before s
he’d finished playfully strangling the truth out of him, Ethel turned her attention across the ballroom. “I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with these men.” She hurriedly primmed her hair, then stood meek as a lamb at Parnell’s side. “They’re heading this way like angry scrum-halves.”

“
To us?” Instinct told Meredith to keep her back to them until she knew more, and in case she had to run for it—the element of surprise might give her an extra second’s start.

“
Yes.”

“
Describe them. Quickly.”

“
Youngish men, no more than their early twenties. Extremely well-dressed
.
Five, no, six of them. One or two really good-looking.”

Six? No more than their early twenties? It couldn
’t be—

“
Do we need to call for help or something?” Ethel asked.

Meredith wasn
’t sure how to answer that, even when she clocked who they were by deduction: the mysterious telephone caller from London, saying he was a friend of Meredith’s; their number, six; their age, appearance, attractiveness, their brashness.

“
Will it be scissors, paper, or stone?” one of them called out. She spun round.

Unbelievably, i
nsensibly, the Gambling Six from Pocock’s Party had followed her from London and were here to make her evening. Or were they? Thurston Kingsley, who led them across the ballroom, grinning like a maniac, had been there that night in the Atlas tunnel when she’d violated its sanctity with such murderous results.

But did he know?
Could
he know? No witnesses had been left alive...that she knew of. They had her blood from the trail she’d left, but so what? She—Meredith McEwan—was one of a million anonymous citizens they had no reason to suspect. It didn’t stop a thousand imagined mistakes
from pouring through the cracks in her resolve all at once.

“
Gentlemen. Where did
you
come from? Frank?” Her pet name for Kingsley she’d completely forgotten until now.

“
From limbo, of course—where you’ve left us all this time, Miss McEwan.” Alan Nickson, the Eurasian member of the group, had lost none of his spirit. Nor had his other mates, Fraser, Donzelot, Saunders and Mears, lost a whit of adoration for Meredith. They jostled into a tight semicircle around her, so tight that poor Ethel and Parnell snuck off to find a quieter niche.

T
he boys watched her every move with wide-eyed fascination. They shushed one another to catch her every word. If they had tails they’d be wagging. A pungent smell of lager had followed them in, and now enwrapped her.

“
So you tried to find out where I lived, but couldn’t?”

Saunders, the bear-like one whose black eye had fully healed, beat the others to the punc
h. “Well, Thurs had to stay on in London for a spell, so you could say it was him that tried. Tried and bloody well
failed
.” Hearty laughter ensued, and much rearranging of Kingsley’s attire.

“
There was nothing I could do,” he claimed, to a chorus of jeers. “I had no address, and no one knew how to get in touch with Lady Catarina.”

“
No, she’s...indisposed at present. So how did you find me?” She finished her second glass, poured herself another.

“
It was in all the papers,” Kingsley replied. “Your sister’s engagement, I mean. Old man Auric knows all those moguls personally, so you could say he knew how to splash the news around London. Never backward at coming forward, these media types. Anyhow, it was Nickson who spotted it first in the paper. He wired me last night, all put-out, thought it was you getting married.” The obligatory turning up of Nickson’s collar failed to amuse him this time.

“
I told him Sonja was your sister,” Kingsley added, “and we both decided it was our best chance to find you. So I telephoned ahead this morning and asked your sister’s permission to attend. Luckily she said yes. But if I’m being honest, we’d probably have crashed anyway. And the second these other reprobates found out where we were going, they became human limpets, wouldn’t let us alone—look, you can see the resemblance.”

“
You gentlemen came all this way just to see me?”

“
Well, I don’t see any
gentlemen
who made the trip, but the six of us wouldn’t have missed it,” said Nickson, at which they all bowed to Meredith.

“
I’m...I’m flattered, truly.” And so relieved it had nothing to do with her Atlas infiltration that she dropped her glass of punch on its way to her lips. Saunders caught it but spilled the contents onto his trousers—fortunately not much.

“
Good catch,” a few of them said in unison.

“
I’ll hazard a guess you’re the wicket keeper, Saunders,” she said.

“
Yes, ma’am. Nothing gets by me.”

“
Except the world and its cousin.” Mears held up the big man’s wallet that had fallen from his pocket when he’d crouched to catch the glass.

“
Gimme that.”

“
What’s it worth?”

“
Well, I don’t know what to say, gentlemen. You may have just transformed the most stressful function of the calendar year into one I’ll cherish forever.” Overdone and coquettish, perhaps, but on some level even that sentiment undersold the gratitude she felt toward them. She’d secretly dreaded everything about today: meeting the Aurics, watching Sonja take one more step to a new life away from Meredith, meeting the Aurics, seeing the palace they lived in, having to pretend she was happy about the whole thing, meeting the Aurics. And now this—learning that Kingsley, and therefore (likely) the Atlas institution itself really knew nothing about her role in the murders the other week. She could kiss all six of them and do a whole lot more.

Kiss
es would have to suffice, one for each of them, and nothing less than on the lips. It happened before she had chance to consider who might be watching. From first to last, she lavished each with several prolonged moments of thrilling passion, holding nothing back. None said a word. Each participated wholeheartedly, taking his turn as though he was auditioning for the romantic role of a lifetime. When it was over, she looked back across their stunned faces and quirked an eyebrow in satisfaction. “Who’ll have a drink with me?”

So taken aback
were the university men that they simply gawped at her as she refilled her glass. One shared look between them did the trick, sparking a free-for-all at the punch bowl, the ladle becoming as prized an item as the bow of Odysseus. To Meredith’s amusement, at least three of them dipped their glasses straight into the punch.

With a
ll six men arrayed in front of her, glasses at the ready, she gave a toast, “To my little sister, Sonja—may she find an appropriate nautical phrase to describe this happy occasion, and may she be unconscionably happy from here on.”

“
Hear! Hear!”

“
But what does unconscionably mean?” asked Donzelot, the half-French member of the group, at which Meredith laughed along with the others. “What is so funny?”

“
You are, Garlic-Breath,” replied Saunders.

“
It means greatly exceeding the bounds of reason, and not necessarily in a good way,” Nickson explained.

“
Ah, in that case...” Donzelot held up his glass and, seeing Meredith down her drink in one go, promptly followed suit. His fellows did the same.

Over the next hour or so
, Meredith played merry host to the Gambling Six in their own private retreat in the corner. She listened to all their university anecdotes, their tales of adolescent adventures in foreign lands, most of them either embellished beyond all recognition or plain hogwash. The more absurd, the more she chuckled, like she hadn’t with anyone except Sonja. They may have been yarn-spinning for her sake, or it could be the drink responsible, but she couldn’t get enough of it.

Meanwhile, Sonja
and Derek were given the first official dance. The orchestra played waltz after waltz, all seemingly by Strauss.

When the boys
ran out of jokes, and Meredith refused their pleas for a dance, Donzelot, Mears, Nickson and Fraser went off in search of willing partners. They all succeeded, while Meredith watched on, blissfully tipsy, linking arms with Kingsley and Saunders.

“
Do you boys know I’ve not met me a blessed one of these Aurics since I got here? They promised me’d find they, friend me, at least talk to me, for Christ’s sake. But nooooo. Not a peep from the peeps at Auricville. I think,” and she slung her arm over Kingsley’s shoulder, “they think they’re too good for me. What do you think?”

“
I think you’re the belch of this ball. Um, hang on...”

“
What?”

“
I mean you’re a peach, the belle of this ball.”

“
Aww, you’re sweet, Thursday...I mean Thurston. Hey, why did your parents call you Thursday?”

“
Because I was conceived on Weddingday. You smoke it?”

“
Um, not entirely. I’m immune to puns, you know, ever since your pal Slocombe belched one to many into my face at Pocock’s, the oaf.”

“
Slo—hey, how did you know I knew Slowcoach?”

An alarm bell rang through the fog in her brain. She gathered herself
. “I saw you leave together.”

“
Oh.”

“
Say, who’s that haranguing Nickson?” Despite his finger’s wonky aim, Saunders managed to point out two men reprimanding his Eurasian friend on the opposite side of the floor. One of them grabbed Nickson’s shoulder. Nickson threw it off. Now Saunders jerked up and stood hunched, bear-like, ready for action. “If they touch him again, I’ll deck ‘em both.”

As sobering a sentence as Meredith h
ad heard all evening. It flooded in—the importance of this party for Sonja’s future. Her new family. Her social standing. Somehow, Meredith’s own selfish issues had exiled her to this tipsy sideshow with her new best friends. But it was now up to her, inasmuch as she could think straight, let alone talk straight, to prevent her boisterous friends from causing irreparable damage to Sonja’s big day. “Stand back, Saunders. There’s a good boy. Everything’s fine. See, Nickson’s on his way over here to tell us everything’s fine.”

“
Bloody well better be,” Saunders muttered.

“
Well?” Kingsley asked Nickson as the Eurasian man approached, on none too steady a heading, it had to be said.

“
That was Brunnie Auric and his toady. They’ve asked the six of us to leave. The cheek, eh?”