Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order) (10 page)

“One thing, Meg,” Will added.

“What is it?”

Will’s brow knit into a starkly serious expression. “Should we find your grandfather, remind me to never make him cross.”

WILL AND I NEEDED TO
hurry. It was dangerously near morning, and Mrs. Pratt was known to be an early riser. Her constant scrutiny had been difficult enough when I had worked as a housemaid. I didn’t wish to face her wrath now, or worse, her disappointment in my moral character. The last thing we needed was for her to raise some sort of alarm with Peter’s parents. Then Oliver would have to step in to save my reputation, but by that point it would be well past repair.

Peter braved the cold in his dressing gown. “Take care, both of you. Let me know what you discover.” He opened the gate even as he looked back over his shoulder toward the house.

“We will,” I promised as Will slipped through the iron bars. I followed after him. At last we were free from the shadow of Rathford’s house.

Will and I maintained a brutal pace back to the toy shop. In spite of all I wished to say to Will about what we had discovered, I found I could barely speak, simply because I had no wind to do so. Instead I concentrated on placing one foot before the other as fast as I could bear.

At the threshold Will gave me a quick kiss to the cheek with the promise to return, then ushered me into the shop and continued on his way as quickly as we had come.

I took a minute to catch my breath, placing my palm on my counting desk to steady myself. If I weren’t careful, I’d faint dead to rights. Finally my exertion waned, leaving me with the lingering excitement from sneaking in and out of the Rathford house without getting caught.

Simon Pricket’s journals were waiting for me in my workshop, and I knew without a doubt they would hold the answer I was searching for. I reached for the hidden latch on the shelves.

“Oh, good morning, miss,” Molly’s cheerful voice greeted me as she came in through the door that led to the sitting room. “I see you are up bright and early, which is good
because the glaziers will be here first thing to repair the window. Then we have to open.” She gave me a bright and far too eager smile.

I was so thankful that Molly hadn’t come in a minute sooner to discover Will at the door. I paused.

“I beg your pardon?” I had no intention of opening the shop, even though it had finally been set right. The window was still boarded up. Once the glaziers fixed the window, things would be normal but I was too exhausted to open.

“Today is Christmas Eve.” Molly’s tone implied my sanity had cracked. “We can’t disappoint the children.”

I had never felt such an urge to be completely blasphemous.
Dear Lord, why did you choose this night of all nights for your birth?
It would be the busiest day for the shop all year, and I didn’t feel prepared. My mind was on too many other things.

“Yes, of course.” I’d have to make do as best I could.

The day passed by in a torturous blur. All I wanted was to slip through the secret door hidden behind the shelves. Instead I had to straighten the items on the shelves over and over as anxious customers accosted my merchandise, panicked that they would not find a suitable gift for their child.

If that weren’t horrible enough, I was so tired, my hands
kept trembling, and I nearly fell asleep in the middle of calculating a man’s order. I couldn’t concentrate on the numbers. Figures that should have been second nature to me were a struggle against my lack of sleep.

And the noise—oh, heavens, the noise.

By the time I finally ushered the last of the customers from the shop, my ears were ringing, my patience spent, my eyes burning, and my wits completely gone.

I told Molly that she could have Christmas Day off, and then promptly closed and locked the heavy doors and set the alarms. I looked with longing toward my workshop, but I could barely stand.

I needed to heed my limitations.

And so I let Pensée wait until morning.

As I fell into bed, the soft feather mattress embraced me, sinking me deep into the warmth and comfort of my small but cheerful room. Sleep like death took me, and I didn’t wake until I heard the church bells pealing.

I sat straight up, then fell back into my bed. Strands of my hair fell against my cheeks and eyes.

Christmas Day.

The old urge to leap from bed and run down the stair stirred deep within me. It was as if I couldn’t escape the
ephemeral joy that had marked my childhood—the gifts, the food, the songs I’d played on the pianoforte with awkward learning fingers alongside my mother’s. Her hands used to dance across the keys with merriment, deftly covering my enthusiastic mistakes.

And the scent of such a morning! Succulent roasting bird, breads, puddings, crumbling biscuits, and spiced cider; sometimes I felt I could sustain myself for a year on the smell alone.

My papa and my father would both be dressed perfectly for church, and I would come down in my finest with my hair done up, and they would treat me as if the young queen had entered the room.

As I rested my head on my pillow, the air around me smelled cool and vaguely like the dust and dying smoke that still clung to my hair. No laughter drifted up from the house below, only the distant ringing of bells calling London to rejoice and sing.

With a sigh I sat up once more, and washed in the cold water left in the basin from the night before. It didn’t matter. I had a task to do. I had to find Pensée.

I was running out of time. I only had six days left before the start of the New Year, when the man in the clockwork mask sailed beyond my grasp.

My hair was still damp as I finished tying it into a braid while descending the stair. The hearth would be cold, and I needed my tea. I had not yet shaken my sluggishness from not sleeping at all the previous night.

I had my head tucked as I entered the sitting room, so I could tie my braids into a knot and pin them at the base of my neck.

“Merry Christmas, Meg.” Will’s clear voice greeted me.

My heart leapt into my throat as I looked up. The fire burned cheerfully in the hearth, and a steaming pot of tea sat like a fat partridge beside sliced apple cake and fresh cream.

I brought my hand to my chest, for I felt my heart would either stop or burst. I wasn’t sure which.

“I made the cake myself, so it might be a bit dry.” Will looked up at me from under his heavy lashes as he twisted his cap in his hands.

“Oh, Will.” My heart fluttered. It truly did. I had always assumed that was only a turn of phrase. “This is the best present anyone has ever given me,” I whispered.

He held my hand as we sat and enjoyed the tea and cake. We were taking terrible risks. He was visiting the shop far too freely, and . . . “How did you get in here?”

Will had the decency to look sheepish. “Lucinda was
worried about your being alone, so she sent me to watch over the house. She lent me a key.”

I furrowed my brow at him, and he held up his hands. “It was not my idea. I was following orders.”

“Lucinda should know better,” I said. Oliver suspected David was plotting to ruin me. His wife would actually manage the task one of these days if I weren’t careful.

“Lucinda has always done things in her own fashion.” Will smiled at me, a wicked grin.

“She also tends to act from her heart and not her head.” My position demanded more temperance. Will didn’t respond to the slight rebuke toward my dearest friend.

“What have you discovered of Pensée?” he asked.

“Nothing yet. We can look in the workshop.” I opened the secret panel, and we went inside. Will lit the lamps as I pulled down several of the journals I had neatly organized on three tall bookshelves. The books I had chosen had been written by Simon Pricket when he had been in training to maintain the archives for the Amusementists. His personal writings were often both thorough and enlightening when it came to the history of the Order.

Will sat in the chair at the desk, leaving the softer armchair in the corner by the bookshelves for me. I was able to
skim most of the pages. I had read them all at various points during my lessons over the summer, and Simon Pricket’s handwriting was as familiar to me as my own.

Will’s pages turned much more slowly as his brow crinkled in concentration. Simon’s tight and slanted hand must have been difficult for him to read, but he kept on diligently.

“You have learned so much in such a short time,” I commented as I closed the book I was currently looking over.

“All thanks to you. If you hadn’t come to the carriage house, I would still be there, serving Peter as his groom now, and I wouldn’t be able to read this at all.” His gaze locked to mine, as serious as the hand of death. “I can never repay you for that.”

“If you hadn’t helped me that day, I would still be there trapped as a housemaid,” I said. “You had your own part to play in all of this.” I didn’t know if Will really understood what he had done for me. If I were ever brave or bold, it was only my attempt to live up to his regard.

Will shook his head as he turned another page and inspected the writing there. “That’s not true. You came to that house like a firebrand. It wouldn’t have taken long, but you would have opened the key yourself. You discovered
Rathford’s letter on your own, and you would have found a way with or without me. No cage can ever hold you.”

I could feel the heat in my face as his words worked their way into my heart. “And I would have died five times over in the attempt.” I stood and returned my book to the shelf, then joined him at the desk. I placed my hand on his forearm, drawing his attention back to me. “I still owe you my life.”

He covered my hand with his and gave it a squeeze. “You owe me nothing. It seems you have quite the pedigree,” he commented. I looked down at the page he had been inspecting. It was a list of members of the Order alongside the personal marks they used in correspondence and as a stamp on the Amusements they’d had a hand in creating.

I recognized many more names from the list than I had the first time I’d looked at it, but it was still out of date. When I became a full member of the Order, I’d have my own mark, a design of my own creation. I didn’t know what it should be.

My eye was drawn to the inked-out smudge at the bottom of the list. I suspected the name Richard Haddock lurked beneath it.

The spiral motif that served as Haddock’s mark lingered next to the blacked-out name on the page. I had seen
Haddock’s mark once, on the bomb the man in the mask had left for me.

I still did not know the full extent to which my grandfather was involved with the Haddock scandal or how the man in the clockwork mask may have been involved.

The black mark on the page filled me with frustration and I turned back to my chair in the corner.

Will continued to peer at the page, then leaned in as his eyes pinched with focus. “Does
pensée
mean anything in French?” Will asked.

“It means ‘thought,’ ” I answered automatically. “Or it could mean ‘pansy.’ ”

“Are pansies the little flowers with the dark masks in the center?” Will asked, lifting the book from the desk and holding it in his hands. I joined him at his side.

There, deep in the list of marks, was a clear and unmistakable pansy. I took the book from Will’s hands and drew my trembling finger across to the name that accompanied the mark.

Maurice Durant.

“Durant. I haven’t heard of this name in the Order, have you?” I handed the book back to Will. He shook his head.

“No. His name comes well before the names of either of
your grandfathers. He must be from the generation before theirs. Did Simon Pricket do any genealogy?”

“He did.” I turned back to the bookshelves and found the correct journals on the bottom shelf. “He spent some time tracing family connections and how they affected the political power structure in the Order. I suspect it was part of the reason Strompton murdered him. I think Simon may have discovered that Strompton had been playing Macbeth.”

“What does clan Macbeth have to do with this?” Will looked at me, baffled.

“Never mind. It’s a play. The answer to your question is, yes. Pricket has some elaborate family trees. . . . Here.”

I pulled the books out onto the floor, and Will joined me there. We opened the journals containing pages and pages of branching family trees.

“If Rathford believed your grandfather would seek out Durant, they had to be connected somehow. Check your own family tree,” Will said.

I found it and traced the branching roots up through the family I had known. It was sad to me that so few births had left me the last lingering twig on the dying tree. However, as I traced it up past my grandfather, I found the name I was looking for.

“Maurice Durant was my grandfather’s mother’s cousin.” I felt the swell of hope.

“If he’s not already dead, he must be ancient,” Will said as he stacked up some of the books.

“During the argument, Rathford didn’t sound as if he were talking about a person. It sounded as if he were talking about a place.” It still wasn’t making sense.

“Could it be a family home?” Will ran his finger over the spines of the other journals on the shelf.

“Yes, Pensée could be the name of an estate. But how are we going to find a single house that could be anywhere in France?” Or Belgium for that matter, or parts of Switzerland. Dear Lord.

“If Pensée is an Amusementist estate from an old family, then chances are likely it has some sort of Amusement on the grounds like so many of the estates here. If we can find any mention of Durant in Simon Pricket’s histories, perhaps there will be a clue to where he lived.” Will selected one of the journals and pulled it down into his lap. He opened it to a sketch of the inner workings of the clockwork Minotaur we’d discovered on the abandoned Tavingshall estate.

“Will, you’re brilliant.” I pulled more and more books down into the pile between us, and we set to work.

As the hours wore on, Will brought the tea in and we snacked on the apple cake as we continued with our task. Right about noon I discovered what we were looking for.