“Bloody hell, is there anyone there? Speak
up, or get the blazes away from my door.”
The angry voice shocked her back to her
senses and Prudence gasped in a quick draught of the damp air. Gripping her
shawl tighter she took a deep, steadying breath and quickly, before the man
inside lost patience, licked her dry lips and said, “My name is—”
“What? I can’t hear you. Stop mumbling and
tell me what it is you want.”
Rude,
disgusting…
Prudence felt annoyance rise within and
welcomed it as being far more effective than fear. Stepping close to the door,
she bellowed into the hole, “I’m here to see Mr. William Foreman.”
“Dammit, no need to deafen me.” There was
the sound of shuffling and a muted, stronger, curse. When he next spoke his
tone was even more irritated, bordering on accusatory. “You’re early. An entire
day early to be exact. I distinctly told them Thursday, and this is only
Wednesday. Why can’t people understand the need for precision? The AS isn’t
ready for testing. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“Mr. Foreman—”
“Oh for God’s sake, what more is there to
say?” At the interruption, Prudence snapped her mouth shut before she said
something she shouldn’t and further antagonized the surly brute. “I told Brumblie
Thursday.”
There was another scuffing sound, tinny and
magnified by the door’s device, and Prudence imagined the old man already
turning back to his papers, getting ready to dismiss her from his mind. At
least she now knew he was expecting his test subject the following day. She’d
return then.
Perhaps.
She was smiling with relief as she said,
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience—”
“I could, I suppose, test the GSS tonight
and the AS tomorrow.” Prudence gritted her teeth at being once more cut off as
she spoke. Insufferable, ill mannered…
“As long as you realize you’ll have to come back tomorrow night too you might
as well come in. Oliver will show you the way.”
Before she could even formulate a reply,
the little aperture slammed shut and the front door swung soundlessly open.
Instinctively stepping inside, Prudence found herself in darkness until, with a
click and a hiss, a massive chandelier high above her head came on. Blinking
against the sudden, almost blinding brightness, she looked around and caught
her breath.
The entryway of Mr. Foreman’s house was
sheer magnificence. Gleaming black-and-white marble tiles, set in a Harlequin
pattern, marched across the floor, and a pair of intricate staircases swooped
and soared to the floor above. The walls flanking the staircases on either side
bore a series of arches, each capped with keystones carved with a variety of
exotic animals.
Enchanted by the beauty of her surroundings,
it took a moment to realize the room was entirely bare, without chairs or
benches, pictures or tables to welcome guests or add interest and color. The
only adornments, if one could stretch the meaning of the word to its uttermost
limit, were a strange wooden stand on one side and a haphazard pile of
envelopes and cards in the corner nearest to the door. Walking a few steps
closer to the teetering tower of paper, Prudence recognized her own handwriting
amongst the other envelopes and shook her head in annoyance.
No
wonder he never replied to my missives. I wonder if he ever reads his mail.
A strange whirring and whooshing drew her
attention to one of the passages leading farther into the house. Fighting back
a scream she spun around in time to see a white-and-gold form come barreling
through the air into the entranceway. It circled the chandelier once then came
in for a somewhat ungraceful landing on the wooden stand beside the door. With
a rattling of feathers, the large mechanical owl settled itself more firmly,
great talons gripping the crossbar, and turned its golden eyes on her.
“How do you do? My name is Oliver, although
you may call me Ollie if you like. All lovely ladies are welcome to do so.” It
winked and clicked its beak as though laughing. “Just don’t tell the master I
said so. Stuffy fellow, he is. Wouldn’t like to hear I’m flirting with the
guests.”
Charmed despite her dislike for automatons
and mechanical beings, Prudence found herself replying, “Your secret is quite
safe with me, Ollie. I do so adore a charming rogue.”
Ollie dipped his head, for all the world as
though embarrassed, but Prudence saw him looking up at her from beneath
feathery brows, still chuckling and clicking. “Too kind, too kind,” he said. “And
just the diversion this moldy pile needs on a foggy night, eh what?”
Before she could reply, a bellow rang
through the house.
“Oliver, where the blazes are you? Do you
think I have all night to wait while you test your charms on that young woman?”
“Coming, Master,” Ollie called back, but
Prudence saw the unrepentant look in the golden eyes and couldn’t help
chuckling. Something about the owl eased some of the tension coiled in her belly.
The bird winked again and said, “Off we go then. Follow me, please.”
Launching itself off the perch and banking
into a sharp turn, Ollie led her deeper, and deeper yet into the house, flying
ahead and coming back to make sure she was still with him along the way.
Fascinated, Prudence noted how the lights ahead came on with Ollie’s passing
and went off as she moved farther along whichever corridor they were in. It
seemed she walked through miles of passageways, each one as bare as the last
save for one door after another. She lost count of the turns and staircases
they traversed, but it seemed to her they were constantly, subtly, going down.
Finally Ollie landed on another perch
outside an impressive wooden door, thickly banded with steel but possessing no
visible handle. Shaking his ruffled feathers, the owl winked at her and clicked
his beak, but when he spoke it was with all the solemnity of an undertaker.
“We have arrived, Master.”
He winked again and Prudence suppressed the
nervous giggle rising in her throat. If all mechanical beings were as fun as
Ollie, perhaps she wouldn’t be so set against them.
The inventor didn’t bother to reply but,
with a whisper of sound, the door opened, emitting a widening slice of bright
light. Putting aside her mirth at the owl’s antics, Prudence tried to prepare
herself for whatever lay ahead. Lifting her chin, she marched into the room and
came to a gaping, incredulous halt.
Surely he
couldn’t be William Foreman?
The figure bent over one of the many
machines in the laboratory bore no resemblance to the stooped, white-haired old
man she’d envisioned. It didn’t even approach her second guess, loosely based
on Uncle Harry, of an elderly, bald, slightly rotund and vaguely elf-like
figure.
William Foreman, if that truly was him, was
neither elderly nor elfin. He was, indeed, indecently gorgeous. Looking at him
in three-quarter profile, Prudence immediately thought of her favorite painting
of Lord Byron. Mr. Foreman had the same strong jaw, handsome nose and deep-set
eyes, but where Byron’s lips had a tendency to appear sulky or hint at
debauchery, the inventor’s were firm, masculine…
Delicious…
Realizing her mouth was agape like an
urchin’s in a ballroom, Prudence tried to pull her suddenly scattered, and far
from businesslike, thoughts together. Thank goodness he’d ignored her entrance,
and she had time to compose herself before he looked up from whatever he was
tinkering with. It also gave her a few more moments to admire the way the light
gleamed on his brown curls and shadowed the strong planes of his face. She
would paint him in oils—the bold lines of the subject demanding an equally
strong medium—or sculpt him in bronze. It had been forever since she’d had the
urge to capture the human form in her art and this sudden, driving need caused
excitement to gather and swell inside.
Then William Foreman glanced up with a
disinterested flick of his eyes and said, “Well, don’t just stand there. Take
off your clothes.”
Buy Beyond Prudence here
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