Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

would get the ingredients they needed for the gaseous devices. They would retrieve the landau tonight, and she would not have to walk anywhere henceforth. But in the meantime, she had miles to go, she was ravenously hungry, and her strictures against stealing were beginning to seem foolish.
    No wonder Maggie wanted to stay behind to ensure the safety of the egg.
    Claire felt dangerously out of place as she pushed and dodged her way along the streets. The markets might be closing up for the day, but the desperate crowds jostled her, men looked at her askance, and bands of thin, ragged children tugged at her skirts, begging. Little did they know she was as penniless and homeless as they. In fact, the only difference between them was that she possessed an education and a clean waist, and they did not. Her boot heel slipped in a mash of rotten fruit, and she fetched up against the side of a cart, whose owner shouted at her. Blushing, furious at her circumstances, she stumbled away and hurried up the street as fast as she was able, clutching her hat.
    Half an hour’s sweating walk brought her back to the Embankment, and the sweep of another hour saw her at last in the quieter confines of Mayfair, where at least the air she breathed was free of stink and the invective of angry stall-keepers. Of course, she looked as though she had been dragged through a row of market stalls willy-nilly. Her skirt was stained in two places, her half-boots were filthy, and her navy straw hat had been knocked askew so many times she was sure her hair looked like a mares’ nest.
    Wilton Crescent. Thank You, Lord . If she could only reach—
    She stopped on the pavement as though she had run into a sheet of glass.
    Broken windows. Charred walls. In the middle of the street, a huge black smear littered with coals of burned wood told her that Peony had been chillingly correct in her predictions. But what of Gorse and Mrs. Morven? Where had they gone? And was there anything left within?
    She picked her way up the sidewalk. There was no hope of restoring the herringbone pattern of the brick—it had been crushed and broken beyond repair. The front door swung open with a creak that told her it had withstood severe strain, but would never lock again. The front hall was utterly empty. The drawing room a shambles—the velvet drapes pulled down and stolen, their rings kicked into the corners, all the furniture gone. The music room ... Claire gulped and steeled herself. Her harp had gone down to Cornwall on the dray, so at least she would not have the heartbreak of looking at its ruin. Then she blinked. The piano was still here. She touched a key. Its weight must have defeated the mob—and they must have forgotten to bring axes along to demolish it inside. But it stood in a room that was empty save for the broken glass on the parquet floor.
    “Mrs. Morven?” she called on the stairs to the kitchen. “Gorse? Are you here?”
    Silence answered her—the most profound she had ever heard in the house.
    The kitchen had, of course, been looted of everything Mrs. Morven had so carefully inventoried. A few pots remained, sundry bits of cutlery, even a basket. But she had to admit this was more than they had in her current bolt-hole, where the sole cooking implements were a spirit lamp, a cast-iron fry-pan, and a dented copper pot, all lifted from various refuse heaps after having been tossed as unusable.
    An idea whisked through her brain like a rat disturbed in a dark room. This was still her home—and even in its broken state it was better shelter than the slant-roofed squat. Could she bring Snouts and his gang here until the terms of her bargain were fulfilled?
    She climbed the stairs, noting that several of the oak spindles in the banister had been kicked out, likely to serve as kindling for the bonfire outside. The bedrooms had been looted, too, and most of the linens carried away. But for a miracle, the mattress remained on her bed, askew in its mahogany frame. The combination of the four-poster’s weight and the pitch of the staircase had probably saved it. And look, the linens in the closet, set discreetly into the wall, were still here. But the books had been tumbled from the bookcase and scattered from one end of the third floor to the other. Half of them appeared to have been used for kindling as well.
    With a sigh, her heart like a boat-anchor in her chest, she proceeded to the fourth floor. For a miracle, nothing seemed to have been broken