Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

of glass-fronted eyes stared at her with alien blankness. The rest of it was covered in a leather apron of the sort butchers wore, and the hands reaching for her were encased in leather gloves.
    With a squeak, she stumbled backward, bumping hard against the post that supported the staircase. How far was the landau? Could she get inside and get it fired up before the thing caught her?
    “Miss Trevelyan? Don’t—what are—oh, blast it all!” The monster tore its head off and tucked it under its arm. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I forgot that—Miss Trevelyan? Are you quite all right?” A young man with hazel eyes and tousled hair the color of Brazil nuts took off his glove and extended a hand to her. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. It would serve me right if you turned and left this moment.”
    Slowly, she extended her hand. “Is—what is that, sir?”
    “It’s a gas mask. I devised it myself, you see—so that I could enter a large compression chamber without breathing in the gases. Look, these tubes attach to a flask of air at the back.”
    “Ah.” She craned her neck to see. “Air, you said? Not compressed oxygen?”
    A smile dawned, reaching all the way to his eyes. “Been reading the scientific journals, I see. Last month’s Illustrated Science article on Dr. Weathering’s undersea bell?”
    “Yes, as a matter of fact.” She tilted her chin. “Not all of us find our entertainment in Lady’s Home and Garden .”
    “You’ll find neither home nor garden here, I’m afraid. Do come in. Watch your step. These boards are uneven.”
    She followed him across a huge warehouse containing what appeared to be pallets of various metals and glass, along with an enormous heap of lumber, to an interior staircase that brought them up to a spacious loft. “Am I to assume you are Mr. Malvern?”
    He stopped in the act of clearing a stack of diagrams off the chair in front of the desk, and smacked his forehead. “Good grief. You will think me an ill-mannered ass. Yes, I am Andrew Malvern, A.B.D. Member of the Royal Society of Engineers. Part owner of this warehouse and in dire need of someone to keep me organized.”
    “A.B.D., Mr. Malvern? Is that a new scientific society? The Association of Biological Diversity or some such?”
    “No, no. It means all but dissertation . I would have a Ph.D. to add to my string of initials if I could only get this da—er, excuse me, this wretched theory of mine to work.”
    Claire opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong with his theory, and closed it again. He might not appreciate her nose in his business. And anyway, if she got the job, she would find out eventually, wouldn’t she? She seated herself in the chair he had emptied, and regarded the blizzard of papers and drawings on the desk. Oak filing cabinets stood against the wall, papers sticking out of the drawers as though they were trying to escape the crowded conditions within. Here and there, instruments and devices held down stacks of drawings and columns of figures on the floor, and the woodbox next to the cast-iron stove was full of still sealed mailing tubes instead of kindling.
    He followed her gaze around the room. “You see why I’m in need of an assistant.”
    “I do, sir. Were I to be your choice, I should start with the mailing tubes and then work in concentric circles in a clockwise direction, from filing cabinets to loose papers.”
    “Would you?” His chair swiveled as he followed this thought. “I supposed it’s as good a method as any.”
    “What is your field of research, sir?”
    His circumnavigation of the loft completed, he folded his hands on the desk and regarded her. He had very nice eyes, with long lashes and a twinkle that was most distracting. “You make it sound so formal. My interests are in the railroad industry at present. I’m working on a way to make coal go further more cleanly, reducing costs and increasing the engines’ ability to use it more completely. As it is, there’s too much waste without enough return in speed and efficiency.”
    “Ah.”
    “Are you familiar with the workings of engines? Was that your landau I saw out there?”
    She may not know the first thing about locomotive engines, but the landau she knew inside and out. “Yes, it’s a two-piston Henley Dart, with a five-gallon boiler and a top speed of forty-five miles per hour.”
    “Did you drive it here at that speed? If so, I salute you.”
    He was teasing her, the rascal. “No,