Magnificent Devices 01 - Lady of Devices

permission to walk out with you. What do you think about that?”
    I dropped an egg into the soapy water and heard the sickening sound of a crack. “Me?!”
    “Sophie Dupont, watch yourself!”
    “Sorry.” I pulled the plug and let the broken yolk wash down the drain, then picked the shell fragments out of the trap. “Are you sure? David Martin? This isn’t Papa’s idea of a joke, is it? Who asks the parents’ permission anymore?”
    Maman allowed herself a smile. “When it comes to the subject of courtship, your father does not make jokes. Just ask me. And there’s nothing wrong with asking his permission. I think it was a fine way to show respect and have everything above board. After all, it’s David. Why should that surprise you?”
    My mouth opened and closed like a fish on a riverbank. Surprised didn’t even begin to cover it. Astonished might be a start. Me and David? That was crazy. We’d known each other since we were babies and I thought of him as another of my brothers—when I thought of him at all. There was no room in my brain for David when Gabriel haunted it. Oh, if only he were a Brother! Every girl in Minuit over the age of twelve would give her eyeteeth to walk out with him.
    “Gabriel has to be planning to join the Brethren,” Katie had said after that very same meeting. No wonder I hadn’t seen David, if he’d been lying in wait for Papa by the hitching rail in the Moulins’ lane. “No one would devote so much of himself to work and worship if he didn’t.”
    I couldn’t think of any other reason, either. Converts were rare in Minuit, and good-looking single male converts were . . . well, there had never been one in my lifetime. But even if that was God’s will for Gabriel, I didn’t dare let hope blossom in my chest and warm me with possibility. The simple fact was that there were lots more girls in our district than ordinary brown-haired, gray-eyed me. Girls like merry, laughing Katie or Ellie Duvalle, whose parents had left her a bed-and-breakfast when they died, even though her aunt ran it. Or Valerie LeBrun, who was tall, beautiful, and eighteen and lived right there where Gabriel was boarding. The fact that she had run through every boy under twenty-one within a twelve-mile radius just made it seem more inevitable that she’d settle on him . . . when he joined our church.
    “Sophie? I asked you what you thought of David Martin.”
    What did I think? With Gabriel in the neighborhood, did anyone think about David? “I . . . I don’t know.”
    “Well, if he offered you a ride home from chanson , would you go?”
    I stopped pretending to clean the sink and turned away to dry my hands on a dishtowel. “I don’t know.”
    “Sophie.”
    “I’m telling true, Maman. I don’t know what I’d say. I—I’ve never thought of David like that. He may as well be my brother.”
    “He is your Brother in God.” She took the towel from me and dried her own hands. “He’s worth ten of Gabriel Langford.”
    How fair was this? “You just finished saying what a hard worker Gabriel is. You don’t really know him.”
    “My point exactly. None of us know him, except maybe Jean-Baptiste LeBrun. Oui , he is a hard worker and seems to be committed to the church, but I’ve seen it before. People get romantical notions about living as we do—until they actually have to do it. Then they’re running for their modern cars and electrical appliances and radios.”
    “He’s been here since November and hasn’t run yet.”
    “Maybe not, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Meantime, aren’t you going to ask me what else your father said to David?”
    I could see where this was going. “What did he say?”
    “He said it was up to you. That you were old enough to make up your own mind.” Again the narrow look, but it held no displeasure this time. Instead, I saw concern in my mother’s face. “Is it too soon, cherie ? Would you rather Papa told the boys to go away and come again in a year?”
    I had to smile at that. “You know no one would listen to him. All of us see each other all the time. It was nice of David to ask, though. Even though it embarrasses me.”
    “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Maman said firmly, and lifted the stove lid to check the coals. “Your father asked my Papa if he could court me, and he never regretted it.” The smile fought its way free again, and I had to laugh at how she didn’t say which he she meant. My parents adored each