Lady of Devices - By Shelley Adina Page 0,12

a lady doesn’t come to a lecture or take a stroll through the exhibitions at the Crystal Palace, you wouldn’t know she existed.” Andrew acknowledged the truth of this with an inclination of his head. “Miss Claire Trevelyan could be something to look at if she grew a spine and possessed some decent conversation,” James went on. “Fortunately, both faults can be easily rectified. In fact, I believe she hides the latter out of fear of her redoubtable mother. But what really drew my attention was the fact that she beat me at poker.”

Andrew raised his eyebrows. “Did she, now? How unladylike of her.”

“The young lady is a regular card shark. And on her first attempt, too. This leads me to believe there must be a mind lurking behind those big gray eyes.”

“If you are noticing the color of her eyes, my dear friend, there is no hope for you.” Andrew put down his empty glass. “Allow me to be the first to offer you my congratulations.”

Lord James Selwyn knocked back the last of his whiskey and grinned. “All in good time, Andrew. Like a perfect peach ripening upon an espalier, these things cannot be rushed.”

Andrew thought of his compression chamber, cold and thwarted, behind him in the laboratory. As always, James was right. But time was as precious a commodity as money, these days. In fact, as far as he was concerned, they were one and the same.

Chapter 6

The sun beamed down upon Claire’s face like a benediction—one that would cause an unfortunate outbreak of freckles if she did not get off this stage in the next five minutes.

“The Honorable Claire Trevelyan, firsts in mathematics and languages, and the winner of Her Royal Highness the Princess Alice’s medal for best essay in German!”

Claire stepped forward to shake the hand of the dean of St. Cecelia’s, and took the leather-bound folder that held her diploma. At last, the precious sheet of vellum was hers, with its red wax seal bearing the school’s crest. Around her neck, the dean hung a gold medal the size of a guinea on a purple ribbon. It settled against her chest, heavy as validation. She doubted that Princess Alice had actually read her essay, which was an examination of Herr Emil Brucker’s new design for a four-piston steam landau. But it was most gratifying to have won, and to see the pride on her mother’s face as she and young Nicholas’s nanny watched her descend the stairs and make her way back to her seat in the front rows of chairs arranged on the school lawn.

Her father was supposed to be here. Half the reason she had written about the steam landau was so that he would be tempted to read her prizewinning essay, be astonished at the depth of her knowledge, and allow her to drive his landau with his full permission. She had trodden a long and difficult road of umlauts and consonants and polysyllabic compounds, all for nothing.

But no. A lady of spirit did not despair. There was always tomorrow, when surely she could prevail upon him to take a moment to read the essay, even if he hadn’t seen her receive the medal. She could always wear it down to breakfast.

When the ceremony finally ended—Lady Julia having taken the seniors’ prize for congeniality and Emilie having captured the overall academics trophy—she joined her mother and was enveloped in a perfumed hug.

“I am so proud of you, dearest,” she said, pulling back to look at Claire as though she hadn’t seen her in years and was surprised at how much she’d grown. “I had no idea you’d written an essay in German.”

“You can read it if you like. It’s about—”

“Heavens, dear. French was enough for me. German was insurmountable. I congratulate you.”

“I hope Papa will read it. I had hoped he would be here.”

A shadow passed across her mother’s face. “Your papa is detained in the Lords. He has been spending many long hours there, working for the good of the country, for which you should be proud of him and not wishing him here for your own selfish reasons.”

Claire did not think that wishing one’s parents to see one’s graduation was so very selfish. Well, perhaps only a little. “I hope when I graduate from the university he will be able to come.”

“I’m sure he—what?”

“The university, Mama. I would like to attend Oxford in the fall and study one of the sciences.” That was a very vague way of putting it.