Emma shook her head ruefully. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fulton,” she said. “I didn’t catch a word of that.”
“It will be easier to show you,” he said kindly, absolving her of inattention. His lip curled. “Apparently my powers of description leave something to be desired.”
Emma attempted to make up for her lapse with an excess of sympathy. “I am sorry your venture proved unfruitful.”
Fulton grimaced. “So am I. It’s been months in the planning, months of back and forth, a full demonstration in Boulogne, and now…He’s angry because I didn’t bring a full-size model with me! That silly little river behind the house isn’t deep enough.”
“It was deep enough for the steamship, wasn’t it?” Until Achille sank it. Only to be expected of a son of Caroline.
Fulton dismissed that. “Yes, but this isn’t a steamship. It’s a—well, it is what it is.” His face set in hard lines. “I’ve had enough of France anyway. I had a much better time of it in England. They, at least, knew how to appreciate the power of innovation. They didn’t string a man along from committee to committee and then tell him he has to add an extra torpedo.”
“I can see how that might be rather wearying.” Emma had no idea what he was on about, but the venting seemed to be doing him good.
“If Bonaparte doesn’t like my
“Of course,” said Emma soothingly. “I’m sure it’s a brilliant machine. But what is it?”
“It’s a submarine,” he said abruptly, and pushed open the door of the theatre. “A ship that sails under the water.”
Chapter 26
By stealth, they stole upon her tower,
At the very witching hour;
Using all their treacherous art
As rakes will steal a maiden’s heart.
Wasn’t the point of ships to stay above the water? A little thing about not drowning? Emma shook that aside. “Whatever it is, I’m sure you’ll be able to reach some accommodation with the Emperor.”
“Or not,” said Fulton. He straightened his shoulders and ostentatiously examined his surroundings, deliberately putting an end to the discussion. “Now, where have you put the wave machine?”
“It’s back here,” said Emma, leading him down the aisle between the seats. On the stage, a number of men in tights and red bandannas cowered in various stages of abject subjection as their fearless leader exhorted them on to bigger and better piracy.
“Remember!” shouted Miss Gwen. “Always pillage
Desmoulins toyed with his gold earring. “I just thought…”
“Don’t!” Miss Gwen snapped. “Less thinking, more plundering!”
“She does know that it’s all make-believe, doesn’t she?” whispered Fulton to Emma.
Emma looked at Miss Gwen decked out in a tunic-type costume, complete with purple sash and what Emma was fairly sure was a real rather than a pasteboard cutlass. The cutlass blade flashed dangerously close to the ropes holding up the scenery for Act II.
“I do hope so,” Emma said. She led Mr. Fulton through the door at the side of the stage, where a confusion of props littered two long tables, none of them in their proper places. The wave machine was still in pieces on the floor, although someone had moved the pieces to one side, jumbling them any which way in the process. “There’s your machine, all in bits still, I’m afraid.”
“I have the plans in my room,” said Mr. Fulton. He began rolling up his sleeves. “But I believe I can manage this from memory.”
“You’re very kind,” said Emma, and stepped back to let him pass.
The room looked very different in daylight. Dust motes danced in the sleepy sunlight, giving the space a hazy air. Last night, it had seemed endless, an Aladdin’s cave of treasures, filled with dark alleys and treacherous corners, a mysterious and slightly dangerous place. Now it was simply itself, a reasonably large storage room, blocked off into bits by tottering piles of old scenery.
In the corner, Mr. Fulton began sorting busily through bits and pieces of machinery, muttering to himself and wiping off stray parts on the tail of his coat. Emma left him to it and wandered in the direction of the painted backdrop of Venice behind which she and Augustus had sat last night. She felt uneasy and slightly sick, the way she had when that first letter had arrived from her parents after the elopement, knowing that steps had been taken that couldn’t be untaken, that there was no way to smooth everything over and make it all pleasant again.
What was said couldn’t be unsaid.
“Emma?”
Venice undulated, the houses collapsing in on themselves.
As Emma caught her breath, Jane ducked neatly beneath the canvas, Venice bunched up in one hand, a script in the other.
“You scared me,” Emma said. “I didn’t realize anyone was there.”
Jane indicated her script. “I was going over my lines while Miss Gwen puts her pirates through their paces. It’s much quieter in here than out there.”
Emma couldn’t argue with the wisdom of that. Through the partition, she could hear Miss Gwen’s voice, raised in harangue. Behind Jane, she could see the rowboat she and Augustus had shared last night, mundane now in the afternoon light, nothing but a rowboat.
Jane let Venice fall. It swung back into place, shrouding the boat once again in obscurity. The Campanile looked down its bell tower at Emma.
“Is something wrong?”
Emma made a face. “I had a row with Mr. Whittlesby.”
“About the masque?”
“What else?”
“He can be rather flighty, can’t he?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Not in so many words, at any rate. She thought back over their long association. “We met nearly every day for over a month and he was never once late. Not once.”
In fact, for a man who couldn’t be trusted to wear a waistcoat, he had been remarkably reliable. Reliable, patient, hardworking.…Oh, for heaven’s sake, Emma told herself. Enough. Just because she was feeling guilty was no reason to canonize the man.
“The poetry does get to one after a while,” said Jane in commiserating tones. “All that rhyme and metaphor and so forth. You’ve been very good to put up with him for as long as you have.”
Put up with him? She and Jane had happily mocked Augustus before, laughing over his exaggerated rhymes, his melodramatic airs. But he hadn’t been Augustus then. He had been Mr. Whittlesby. And it seemed, somehow, unkind for Jane to be standing there, serene in white muslin, casting judgment on Augustus when she had so recently crushed his hopes. Callous, even. Emma hadn’t thought her friend could be callous.
Emma wordlessly shook her head.
For a moment, Jane was silent too. She said, with unaccustomed hesitation, “Was it anything to do with me?”
“Why should it be about you? You don’t want him anyway.”
The horrible words came out before she could stop them. Emma pressed a hand to her lips. She could feel
