For the first time that evening, Burleigh’s expression betrayed confusion and something else. Shock? Whatever it was, Haven thought she had glimpsed something of the real man beneath the veneer of aristocratic indifference. “Perhaps I misunderstand you, sir,” he suggested delicately, and his manner resumed its easy bonhomie.
“I do not think I could be any clearer on the subject. This science will be the death of us all.”
“Father,” said Lady Fayth, speaking up, “I think our guest has confused you with Sir Henry.”
“Oh? Is that so?” Lord Fayth turned to Burleigh once more. “Ah, yes, I see. Of course.”
“Sir Henry?” wondered Burleigh.
“My lunatic brother, Henry Fayth—he’s completely taken in by all this natural science tosh. A wicked waste of a man’s time, if you want my opinion.”
Before Burleigh could respond to this provocative sentiment, Lady Fayth challenged her father’s assertion. “He is not a lunatic, dear Father. Far from it. Uncle Henry is one of the wisest men I know.” She smiled at Burleigh, adding, “My uncle is a charming and gracious man—and one of the leading lights of the new sciences.”
“Mad as a March hare,” put in Edward. “Always has been. Lives alone in London like a monk in a cell—a miserable hermit. Never married. Claims it would interfere in his valuable work. Though what that is, God knows. Can’t make head or tail of his gibberish.”
“Father, really,” chided Haven. “You give our guest entirely the wrong impression.”
“Please, I assure you I have formed no impression whatsoever,” offered Burleigh. “I prefer to take things as I find them—a practice that has served me well all my life.”
“Good for you, sir,” affirmed Lord Fayth. He reached for the decanter. “More brandy, my lord earl?”
Conversation moved on to local matters—chiefly farming, horses, and hounds—and Lady Fayth, having endured enough of what she considered boorish blather, announced that it was time for her to retire. “I will leave you two to set the world to rights,” she said lightly. “Lord Burleigh, it was very nice making your acquaintance. I pray your stay in the southlands is entirely to your edification and profit.”
“I thank you, my lady,” he said. “Even in my short acquaintance I have found the folk hereabouts very much to my liking. Edification will surely follow in its course.” He rose from his chair and took her offered hand. “I wish you a good night and pleasant dreams.” He patted her hand, then kissed it. “Until we meet again.”
“I very much doubt that we shall,” replied Lady Fayth. “I am away to London in the morning and plan to be there for some time. But inasmuch as I expect you and my father will find all sorts of pursuits with which to occupy yourselves, you shan’t miss me in the least.”
CHAPTER 11
In Which Wilhelmina Learns the Ropes
Before Egypt, long before travelling to that time and place—or any other—became even a remote possibility, Mina had paid her dues. Haltingly, painstakingly, maddeningly. Transplanted entirely on her own and completely unexpectedly from her twenty-first-century London home to seventeenth-century Bohemia, and having no Cosimo or Sir Henry to guide her, she acquired her knowledge and skill through hard graft and a long and exhausting process of trial and error. It was an exacting apprenticeship, and it began back in the Grand Imperial Kaffeehaus in Prague on the day she took delivery of the device her friend Gustavus Rosenkreuz had made for her using the plans given him by Lord Burleigh. It began the moment the young alchemist placed the curious object in her hand.
Now, as she stood alone on a hilltop north of her adopted city, Wilhelmina studied the odd device; neatly rounded like a stone and of a similar size, shape, and heft. It reminded her of just that: a surf-tumbled cobble whose edges have been blunted and streamlined by the endless wash and worry of the waves. That, however, is where the similarities ended. Stones were not made of burnished brass; their surfaces were not chased with a lacy arabesque of filigreed lines; wave-tumbled rocks did not feature a curved row of tiny holes along one side, nor sport a knurled dial. Moreover, beach stones did not possess a central aperture that resembled a squinting eye from which radiated a gently pulsating indigo light—at least, not in Mina’s experience.
This last she had not seen herself, but had it on Gustavus’ authority that it was so. “The substance inside gives off light when it comes into contact with certain ethers,” the