Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

outfitted. Never again would she allow the likes of the chemist in the Haymarket to look at her charges in that manner. And once the salesladies had removed the children’s old clothes to the dustbin, their mouths pruned in disgust, and dressed them from the skin out in clean linen, cotton, and lace for the girls, and practical navy wool for the boys, Claire beamed at them proudly.
    “You look as though you were visiting from Buckingham Palace itself.” She smoothed Willie’s sailor collar so that it lay flat across his shoulders. “Even Her Majesty’s grandchildren don’t look as fine.”
    “The Princess Alice chose that very dress for her youngest,” the saleslady confided, nodding in Lizzie’s direction. “She took the blue hair ribbons, though, instead of the coral.”
    Lizzie wavered visibly.
    “Have the blue as well, if you like,” Claire told her. “Snou—I mean, Mr. McTavish would approve.”
    Upon their return to the river cottage Claire discovered that Lizzie was in unrepentant possession of the saleslady’s purse, having picked her pocket as the lady was dressing her.
    The chill of disappointment warred with the heat of anger as Claire fought to keep her voice steady. “This is unacceptable.” Her tone was deadly quiet—so quiet, in fact, that Lizzie made the mistake of believing Claire was not serious.
    “’Twere easy,” she said, swinging the pitifully small purse back and forth. “She leaned over to tie me sash and there it was, in front of me nose.”
    “You will return it immediately.”
    Lizzie gave her a look of disgusted disbelief. “Shan’t.”
    Before the girl could do more than whip the purse back into her own pocket, Claire had snatched her off her feet and again applied the laws of physics in vigorous fashion. In the resulting uproar, the chemists reached protectively for their vials of liquids, and the card players froze with their cards pressed to their chests.
    Unfortunately for Lizzie, her fine new underclothes were no match for the force of Claire’s temper, and when the girl was reduced to a sniveling, just barely repentant huddle on the floor, Claire said in a tone not one note removed from the one she’d used previously, “We shall leave immediately for Fortnum’s, where you shall return that purse.”
    Mumble.
    “I beg your pardon, Miss Elizabeth?”
    “What’m I to tell ’er?”
    “The truth, of course.”
    “She’ll call t’bobbies for sure and it’ll be your fault if I land up in the clink.”
    “You could say you found it on t’ground,” Maggie put in helpfully.
    “And add lying to thievery?” Maggie quailed at the control in Claire’s voice. Claire would never have believed that of all the things her mother had taught her, how to infuse deadly force into one’s voice without raising it was the last she would have expected to find so useful.
    “No, Lady.” Maggie’s lips trembled, both from shame and from fear for her sister’s liberty.
    “You are young ladies now,” Claire said, allowing a touch of gentleness to creep in. “You make your way through the application of intelligence, grace, and consideration for others. You do the right thing, not the easy thing. I suggest you use the time it takes to drive back into town to compose an appropriately humble and truthful address to the purse’s owner.”
    When they had located the young lady in question, it was clear she had just discovered the absence of her purse. “I beg your pardon, miss, but I’m all of a flutter. I—I seem to have—that is, I’ve lost—and I was just paid, too.” Her enormous brown eyes filled with tears before she got herself under control. “Is there something else you wished me to help you with?”
    “My young charge has something to tell you.” With an inexorable hand between her shoulder blades, Claire pressed Lizzie forward.
    The girl held up the little leather purse and the sales lady gasped as she took it. “Oh, thank you! What a precious child! You have given me such relief!” She swept Lizzie into her arms and hugged her so hard that Lizzie’s cheeks turned bright pink.
    “Miss, I—” she tried to speak, but the saleslady covered her face in kisses. With a final “Thank you!” she bustled through a door in the back, leaving Lizzie with her fine speech trembling on her tongue, unsaid. She turned a beseeching face to Claire. “I tried, Lady, but she wouldn’t let me.”
    “You have received thanks you did not deserve, and