The Earl of Brass (The Ingenious Mechanical Devices Book 1) (6 page)

The Anglo-Zulu War Market

That day it had taken Hadley an uncharacteristically long time to decide what to wear and how to do her hair. It was her first client consultation, and she was determined to be seen as capable. Before his death, George had always been the one to visit clients while she had only helped to create and assemble the finished products. In the morning, she awoke early and chose a dark blue walking-dress with a flattened bustle and a top that resembled a man’s suit jacket. To complete the mildly masculine ensemble, she added a matching silk tie and top hat. As she took the long steam-coach ride out of London and into the country, she reread the letter from her potential customer. All she could surmise was that Sir William Harbuckle had been a high ranking officer in the Anglo-Zulu War and had lost his left leg in Africa. From what she knew of the war, she assumed it had been removed due to gangrene after becoming infected.

Her mind filtered through the information she had on how injuries were treated in field hospitals and surmised that his leg would probably not end neatly at the knee or hip as an army doctor would amputate at the easiest point, which could make fitting a prosthesis more difficult. Then again, it could give her more flesh to anchor it to. No matter what, she would make something that worked. Sitting back with her eyes closed, she hoped the plaster she packed into her carpet bag was enough. She had so much to remember: the steps needed to make a cast, the script she had written about their prostheses, and all the dos and don’ts from the etiquette book she had perused the previous night. If everything went well, maybe she could keep the Fenice Brothers alive.

The steamer stopped at a large, Tudor-style home atop a hill that overlooked a picturesque old abbey village surrounded by rolling hills of green dotted with wild flowers. The driver helped her out before she walked purposefully but gracefully to the front door, clutching her carpet bag of supplies. With one pull of the bell, the butler appeared, solemnly towering over her.

“Welcome to Courtington House, madam. Lady Harbuckle is expecting you,” the butler said flatly as he led Hadley into the parlor and took her calling card on a small, silver serving tray before disappearing down the hall.

Standing in the parlor, she scoped out the objects in the room, hoping to discern something more about her potential patrons. She had not been in many manor houses herself, but their customers had to be wealthy enough to afford a prosthesis that was not only aesthetically pleasing but functional. What Hadley saw in the Harbuckle’s parlor was merely simulated wealth. The room was littered with so many pieces of furniture, trinkets, and swathes of draped fabric that it was hard to move around without bumping into or catching an elbow on something.
Wealthy people don’t need to display all they own in one room
, she thought between silent rehearsals of her speech on prosthetic lower limbs as she stood before the hearth. The clicking of heels marching down the hall awoke Hadley from her musings. Lady Harbuckle was only a few years older than Miss Fenice, yet she had prematurely aged into a matronly crone by being married off to a much older man. Her face was bloated and swollen, especially compared to her pinched, corseted waist that ballooned into a broad, bustled bottom.

“From your letter, I wasn’t expecting you until at least next week,” Lady Harbuckle greeted sourly as she scrutinized Hadley, running over her face but lingered on her torso as if she was a cow up for auction. “Please take a seat, Miss…?”

“Fenice.”

She offhandedly waved her thick wrist as the women sat across from each other. “Let us discuss the terms of your employment. What subjects do you intend to teach Billy and Juliet? They are six and nine respectively.”

“I beg your pardon, Lady Harbuckle, but I do believe there has been a misunderstanding. I’m not a governess,” Hadley respectfully interjected, shaking her head.

Lady Harbuckle squinted her bead-like eyes. “If you aren’t the governess, then what business do you have here?”

“I’m a representative of Fenice Brothers Prosthetics. Lord Harbuckle expressed an interest in having us create a new limb for him, and in the last letter he sent us,” she explained as she fished through her carpet bag for the letter, “he agreed on this date for a consultation.”

“But you are not a brother.”

“I’m well aware of my sex, Lady Harbuckle, but I’m a Fenice all the same. Is Lord Harbuckle at home or shall I come back at another time?”

The lady of the house pursed her lips until they nearly disappeared before snapping her fingers for the butler. “Jacobs, fetch Lord Harbuckle.”

After several minutes of incredibly uncomfortable silence, a heavy-set man efficiently hobbled in using a thick, wooden cane that matched his peg leg. Hadley sprung to her feet and greeted Lord Harbuckle with a curtsey, but no introduction was made. He eyed her suspiciously before sitting near his wife, a safe distance from the woman with the tenacious blue eyes.

***

The front door flew open, sending a rush of cold air across Adam’s desk. His papers fluttered and the latest order for porcelain dolls nearly floated into the fireplace. He looked up just in time to see a red and blue blur stomp past his office door and toss a carpet bag onto the bench in the hall. With a slam, she locked herself into the workshop. Adam flinched, not only at the sound but at the thought of how angry his sister must have been to be able to make it to the workshop without ranting about what happened. From his experience, silence was the scariest sound. He waited near the door until he heard her moving around on the other side. As he inched open the door, he watched as two cowboy automatons walked ten miniature paces before spinning around and shooting at each other. The moment the gunslingers snapped back into position, Hadley pushed the button again, sending the cowboys into a slightly different routine where the damsel they were dueling over shoots one of the men. This diorama of a town from the American West, complete with cowboys and chorus girls, was a prototype of the automatons she created and sold to wealthy patrons for their children or merely for a source of party entertainment. Hadley’s eyes stayed fixed on the toy guns that never fired but still knocked over the opponent as she replayed the staged scene over and over.

“Something wrong, Had?” Adam asked, ready to dodge in case a tool came flying at his head.

“We didn’t get the sale,” she grumbled into her palms as she rested her chin on her hands, “and I’m pretty sure the Harbuckles are going right to our competitors.”

He shrugged, he didn’t like the Harbuckles anyway. “There will be new customers. Your automatons and toys are bringing in enough money that you can wait for prosthesis orders. I received three big orders from different toy stores, and if we get them filled, we will easily have enough money to live off even if we don’t get any new orders for three months.”

She finally took her eyes off the automatons and let them rest on the handsome dandy in the doorway. “I’m so tired of making toys for spoiled, rich brats. Young ones
and
old ones. I
like
making prosthetic limbs. I like making something that actually improves someone’s life. These toys are beautiful, but they don’t help anyone. You can say they bring a smile to a child’s face, but for how long? A leg or arm will improve their lives forever, but a toy is only meaningful until they get another one.”

“So what drove them away? I guess it wasn’t the price if they are going to our competitors.”

Hadley sighed, tinkering with the damsel’s dress and hair before she continued. “The whole consultation started out on the wrong foot. Lady Harbuckle thought I was the governess she was interviewing, and God help that governess because I wasn’t even offered a cup of tea or a morsel of food after traveling over two hours for nothing.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Anyway, I think they I assumed I was the wife of the craftsman, so when I said I needed to take measurements and possibly make a plaster cast, they both got this horror-stricken look. Then, he asked if I could send the craftsman to do it instead. Of course, I had to tell them that
I
was the craftsman. Well that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. After that, I was told that they would be calling on Lester McDonald to make the prosthesis. Then, they promptly turned me out of doors and sent me on my merry way. Now those rude people are going to tell all their rich friends not to buy prostheses from us. We have probably lost the entire Zulu War market!”

Adam chuckled despite the dirty look from his sister, his pencil mustache wiggling in time. “They may have money, but they have no sway over the upper class. Most of our clients would not even invite those horrid people to a party. If they had any class, they would have let you finish the consultation without the casting or made their servants do it for you, and if they still felt it improper, you would have received a letter cancelling the project. They wouldn’t have made such an awful fuss like that. You know, you could have had me come with you.”

“You can’t even make a cast, and you would have complained all day about having plaster under your nails.”

He stared down at his pristine fingers before glancing at his sister’s chapped and cracked cuticles. “Why not bring on a male apprentice?”

“I don’t think many fathers want their sons training under a woman.”

“The poor are not exactly picky.”

“I can’t take advantage like that. I
will
think about finding a helper though, at least for these situations.” She pushed back her stool and elbowed past her twin. “Give me a moment to change my clothes, and I will start working on the new orders.”

Adam gently squeezed his sister’s shoulder as she left the room and mounted the steps to her bedroom. She slipped out of the outfit she had so painstakingly selected to ensure society saw her as she saw herself: moral, chic, and professional. Somehow in her dust-stained trousers she felt more like herself. Without any skirts to encumber her, she trotted down to the office to grab the invoices before locking herself back in the workshop. She stared down at the order slips. Most were automata for children ordered by their titled parents from all over England and even an order from a rich American, but mixed in were toy store orders for fairly simple, porcelain ball-jointed dolls. Despite the intricate artistry of the automata and the sum they fetched, she much preferred the simple toys that nearly every family could afford.

As she readied the kiln and quietly filled the molds, she wondered why she was allowed to design toys but not prostheses. The toy company was her own brand, Hadley’s Hobbies and Novelties, but no one seemed to care that a woman painted and dressed dolls. She loaded the first round of casts into the kiln before drifting into thought. She wasn’t even allowed to act as if it was her own company. At deals with stores or in arranging large orders, Adam had to pretend it was his to get them to even consider working with her. It all belonged to her, yet it was never truly hers. With a sigh, Hadley finally became resigned to the idea that one day she would be passed from her brother’s care to a husband who may not be as liberal, never letting her have a chance at true independence. It would all be his then. Anything she had would be stripped from her: her property, her name, her identity. It would all be his.

No wonder I can make toys, I’m just a child to them. I’m a pretty child who whiles away the hours sewing and painting, and who knows children better than those whose sole purpose is to make children and raise them
. The thought of dashing all the molds to the floor came into her mind but instantly disappeared as she thought of George. He had taught her how to make molds and sculpt as well as craft the complex mechanisms that made her toys so desirable. She couldn’t bring herself to destroy something they had worked so hard on over something she knew she could not change.

As she dipped her muddy hands into the wash basin, she suddenly snapped out of her daze. Staring back at her from the water was a younger George. There were his dark blue eyes and freckled cheeks. She scrutinized the face and realized it was merely her own, covered in powder from the molds. With her hair pulled back and dulled by dust, her features appeared less delicate, and when she tightened her jaw, it looked square like George’s did when he was healthy. Abandoning the basin, she rushed to the sheet of glass that lay amongst her supplies. Standing over it, she locked eyes with the figure staring back at her with serious brows.

We can do this
, he seemed to say as Hadley ran her eyes over his face and clothes. Looking around her work room at the needles, fabric, and boning laying on the table that used to be his workstation, she realized she had all she needed to build what society wanted.

An Awkward Family Reunion

The cherry-red steamer popped and chugged its way down the cobblestone street, startling the horses stationed at the edge of the park and nearly clipping passersby as it went. With a final death-rattle, the carriage stopped before a red and white bricked home across from Grosvenor Square. Patrick Sinclair hopped out of the driver’s seat and began to pull his master’s trunk from the back seat when the front door opened and Millicent Sorrell burst forth as quickly as her skirts and mutton sleeves would allow.

“Oh, my boy, I am so happy to see—” Eilian’s mother stood before the steamer with open arms, looking back and forth for her eldest son. “Sinclair, where is Eilian?”

Patrick craned his neck down the street. “Here he is now, Lady Dorset. He was taking a ride through the park.”

“Taking a ride?”

Rounding the corner of the Grosvenor Square lawn was the future Earl of Dorset on a bicycle. His open tweed Norfolk jacket fluttered as he leisurely rode down the pavement toward the house. As he spotted his mother’s rapidly widening green eyes, he rang the trilling brass bell on the handlebars and smiled at her maternal apprehension. Eilian had been happy to find that no one in the park seemed to notice that the right sleeve of his jacket had been pinned beneath his armpit, never reaching the handle, yet the moment he was within eye-shot, his mother’s eyes locked onto his tweed stump. He smoothly dismounted, resting his bicycle against the steamer before wrapping his arm around her.

“Mother, you look beautiful as always,” he said with a wide grin.

He stared down into his mother’s face, which mirrored his own but with slightly upturned features. Since he had seen her several months before, it seemed to him that she had a few more creases around her eyes and white strands in her once brown hair. Unlike his mother and brother who were both petite and delicate, he shared his father’s burly physique and grey eyes. His love of the outdoors and lands outside of England on the other hand were still a mystery to his family.

“You are too kind, but you are the one who looks so well again.” She stepped back to take him in, nimbly avoiding his deformity as her eyes ran discriminately from his wool cap down to his Wellington boots. “But, dear, what are you wearing? Do young people go hunting on bicycles now? Leave the bicycle to Sinclair and come inside before someone sees you.”

As she guided him through the door and into the foyer, he recognized the same floral tapestries and classical paintings that had hung on the walls since his childhood. Despite his love for the city, the house was a constant reminder of seasons filled with perpetual balls and parties. Every piece of furniture recalled hours spent hiding from the young ladies his mother would force him to dance with in hopes of tying the two families together. At the same time, his fondest memories were of food plentifully piled high and sitting in the drawing room talking with gentlemen who had journeyed to the far corners of the earth. As an adolescent, he gluttonously devoured their tales of savages, exotic creatures, and ancient wonders. Did his father realize that his after-dinner discussions were what inspired him to abandon his duties to the earldom and travel as a common man?

“Once you get settled in your old room, dear, you should change for dinner. It will be served at six.” Lady Dorset began to walk down the hall when she turned. “Oh, Eilian dear, can you wear your prosthetic arm? Your father and I would like to see it.”

Eilian smiled stiffly. “Of course. Mother, will Dylan be at dinner as well?”

“Yes, and Constance. Dylan was so pleased to hear that you were coming home. I didn’t realize he had not seen you since before your accident.”

As he mounted the steps, following the carpet runner to his old room, a grin crept across his face. It had been years since his brother had actually looked forward to seeing him.
Maybe he realized what it would be like if I was gone
. While outsiders regarded their relationship as sibling rivalry, Eilian knew there was no reason for animosity when they both knew who the winner was. It wasn’t Dylan’s fault that their father loved him best and wished he had been the first born. Eilian had chosen to stray from the path of peerage and had lost what little paternal favor he had to begin with while Dylan remained dutifully obedient. He tried very hard not to resent his younger brother, but when he began to receive criticism from both men, he decided being thousands of miles away and happy was far better than being home and miserable. In his room, which had been converted into a guest room after his move to Greenwich, was Patrick already neatly folding and hanging his clothing.

“Tails tonight, Lord Sorrell?” Patrick asked without taking his eyes off his task.

“I guess my family will expect us all to dress for dinner. I hope that jacket still fits, I haven’t wore it in months.”

“Will you be wearing your arm tonight, sir?”

He sighed softly. “I wasn’t planning to until tomorrow’s soiree, but my mother requested that I wear it. It’s such a bother. I’m always afraid of knocking things off the table if it should swing wildly.”

“Sir, maybe you could think of it as practicing for the party.”

“Quite right. Well, let’s get this over with, Pat.”

***

By the time dinner was ready, Patrick had transformed Eilian into a proper English dinner guest, at least visually. The moment he entered the dining room, all eyes fell upon him as he apologized for his tardiness and scooted into his seat, far from the dark-haired patriarch at the head of the table. Staring at him from across the centerpiece were Dylan and his young wife, Constance. To Eilian, the couple could have been twins separated at birth. Both had fair complexions, petite frames, and a nature fixated on the proper way of doing things. The pair had been married for over a year and a half. As the youngest daughter of five belonging to a well-to-do baron, Constance Sorrell had been cared for by the most pretentious governesses, educated at the finest finishing school, danced at the most exclusive balls, and still couldn’t carry a conversation of substance, but lucky for her, conversations of substance were never meant to be spoken at the dinner table.

Constance and his mother prattled on about the finery needed for the next day’s events as the food was efficiently doled out by the servants. Eilian raised his gaze to admire the vase of fruit and flowers at the center of the table, but when he met his father’s dark eyes, both men stared down at their plates. When the entrees came and it was time for them to portion out their own food, Millicent Sorrell’s eyes locked onto her eldest son.

“Dear, what are we going to do with you during dinner tomorrow?” she questioned with a sigh and a shake of her head as he struggled to stab a piece of meat with any semblance of grace.

“What do you mean?”

Dylan piped up, “She means that you cannot eat like those savages you are always working with.”

She flashed her youngest son a warning glare before continuing delicately, “What I mean is, we need to find a way to work around your
condition
to keep the guests from feeling uncomfortable. We can’t serve the party à la russe, there are not enough people, and we can’t have the servants portion out food like a hotel. The guests will think we don’t have enough food for them to have seconds, and we don’t want that. Service à la française is simply the only choice. Maybe Sinclair can make you a plate and cut your meat ahead of time.”

Despite the nagging feeling that he should have turned down this invitation, he replied as gently and as confidently as possible, “Mother, I can manage for myself. I can serve myself, but for the sake of you and your guests’ sensibilities, I will allow one of the servants to take my plate and cut my meat after everything has been offered. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of your company.”

Before his mother could acquiesce, his father’s thundering voice rolled down the table, “If you hadn’t been off gallivanting all over the empire, you wouldn’t need someone to cut your food for you.”

“Father, it could have happened to anyone. People take airship rides to see the English countryside. It— it was a freak accident,” he responded meekly as he stabbed at his food with no intention of eating it now that his stomach was in knots.

“Luckily, Eilian’s travelling days are over, Father. Now, he can devote his time to proper pursuits, like tending to the tenants on our land.”

“Good point, Dylan. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise for you, Son. Now, you can get your head on straight and do what you were born to do.”

Eilian’s jaw clenched and his teeth ground against each other. His ribcage tightened against his lungs as he suppressed the urge to bolt from the room. Staring at his father’s bearded, bisontine head as he loomed over his plate like a barbarian chieftain in a dinner jacket, he blurted out, “I’m going to the Negev Desert in autumn with Sir Joshua, and you can’t stop me.”

Harland Sorrell’s iron eyes bulged. “I forbid it!”

“You cannot forbid me to do anything. It is already settled.”

“I will disin—”

“Harland! Eilian! I will not have discord in my house the day before our party!” his mother seethed. “We will discuss this at an appropriate time!”

Eilian knew the appropriate time would never come, but he didn’t want to hear what his father had to say. He already knew. Forget archaeology, forget who you are, be who I want you to be. It had been the same for twenty years. With the tip of his fork, he pushed the pieces of beef around his plate as the table lapsed into the clanking of silverware against china. As if nothing had occurred, Constance Sorrell gingerly placed her fork down, which hadn’t left her hand or mouth during the entire squabble, daintily wiped her mouth, and turned toward the head of the table with a bat of her filigree lashes.

“Lady Dorset, who is coming to the party tomorrow? I had planned to ask when we first arrived, but you seemed so dreadfully busy with the menu this morning.”

“It will be a small affair, not a party by any standard, just an intimate dinner. I invited the Earl of Bedford and his wife as well as their two daughters. I also invited the Viscount of Lisle, but he is dreadfully ill. His daughter, Lady Virtiline, will be coming with her brother Cecil instead.”

“Have I met the Earl of Bedford?” Constance asked Dylan in her nasally little voice.

“No, I don’t believe so. His daughter Maxine favored Eilian when we attended the same balls. She would always place herself near him, hoping he would ask her to dance, but he always ignored her. I think it only made her like him more.”

“Eilian, I’m having you accompany her into the dining room tomorrow. You two should have a lot to talk to about. She recently returned from India. I believe, her uncle has some diplomatic post there. Do you remember Lady Virtiline, dear?”

He thought for a moment. He clearly remembered Maxine as having large, blue eyes and sericeous, chestnut hair, but he only remembered her because he made it a habit of ignoring her. “I don’t think so. Should I?”

She sighed. “I didn’t think you would. She was always hiding in the library at parties. Her mother would have to pry the books from her fingers and drag her back out to socialize. Oh, what a scene she could have caused, to be found in the library alone or if a young gentleman had been in there. Her mother was lucky that girl did not cause a scandal. I was only planning on inviting Cecil, as I thought he would be a good match for Lord Bedford’s youngest daughter, but when the viscount wrote back, he said Virtiline
and
Cecil would be coming. I thought it was quite impertinent for him to include her when she was not on the invitation. Maybe he thought she would be a good match for you, dear. Maybe she is. You both are quite bookish.”

“Mother, while I appreciate that you would like to see me settled and have a family to pass the earldom down to, I would prefer it if I was allowed to find a wife on my own without having to put on airs just to impress her.”

“If Mother let you find someone on your own, you would probably bring home a maharaja’s daughter like Sir Joshua’s father.”

“At this point, I wouldn’t care whom he brought home as long as he
stayed
home,” his father retorted as they retired to the drawing room.

Eilian positioned himself near the fire, letting his mind drift in its mesmeric light. An all too familiar pain burned as it travelled down his arm, growing exponentially warmer as he attempted to focus on Constance’s detailed account of her and Dylan’s trip to Bath. The pain swelled and bloomed in his elbow before rising up again like bolts of lightning.
Every time I wear this arm, my nerves act up
, he thought as she chattered on about the unsightly Roman ruins that should have been torn down to make room for more teashops and millineries. He stared at his feet, swallowing down the pain as beads of perspiration dampened his forehead and back. Grabbing his amputated arm, he squeezed the muscle, but the pain refused to relinquish its hold.

“Dylan, have you told your brother how well he looks?” Millicent Sorrell asked as one of the plain-faced servants handed her a teacup and saucer.

He turned to Eilian blankly, but his light eyes widened upon seeing his brother nearly doubled over. “You— Are you all right?”