“Do you have guncotton in here?”
“Oh, I do apologize. Such a shame about the smell. But I’m finished with the production process, at least for now. The barrels behind you there are full of the stuff. Quite watered down,” he said, “so not to worry. Unless you fire a rifle into it, of course. But you demonstrated the danger of that rather well, didn’t you, Miss Tulman?”
I saw the six large barrels behind me. If the tiny amount from before had blown Ben’s boat to smithereens, and if the empty chamber before me held enough to destroy a ship, then what would six barrels do to the shops, streets, and houses above us? Ben smiled as he ran his hand along the spine of the enormous fish. “She’s a beauty, don’t you think?”
I had no response. My uncle moved, reaching for a spool of wire, and then a
“I think my father will be more than pleased with his surprise. How shall he honor the son that hands him victory in the Crimea? And that should make you happy, too, Miss Tulman. You’d like to see Britain win this war, wouldn’t you? But it will be the Bonapartes that dominate the seas, in the end. And who will stand against them then?” He patted the fish. “Your Uncle Tully really is a marvel. Aren’t you, Mr. Tulman?” His voice rose on this last question, as if my uncle were hard of hearing. “Thank goodness I didn’t let you lock him away. All the trouble I’ve gone to, more than a year of work in the strictest of secrecy, all without making any headway at all, and Mr. Tully had the dashed thing fixed in less than five minutes.”
My eyes darted to the fish, and then back to my obliviously working uncle, the burning, flaming knot inside of me growing heavy with dread.
“A pendulum, Miss Tulman. A pendulum! Of all things. Creating perfect balance. Just like a clock. So simple, childlike simplicity, and yet sheer, unadulterated brilliance. Yes, I think my father is going to be very pleased indeed.”
I was breathing, trying to stay calm, trying not to think of ironclad ships exploding into ragged bits and the thousands of bodies that would be the result, like the bones I’d just walked through. Trying not to think of the disgusting shackle around my uncle’s ankle. But the most immediate danger was that my uncle was working, and I was not needed, and Ben was telling me everything. I needed to live for at least fifteen more minutes, until Lane came.
“Miss Tulman,” said Ben, smiling hugely, “you’ve had a trying time in Paris, and you seem … rather distressed. Do sit with me a moment. I’ve some things I’d like to discuss.”
He indicated a wooden box behind me as if it were a brocaded chair, waiting politely for me to sit first. My uncle chattered on, incoherent. I stayed where I was.
“I desire that you would sit,” Ben said, his voice gone cold. I sat, and when he had done the same, he said, “Miss Tulman, this enmity between us accomplishes little, don’t you think? Have you ever considered that there is much to be gained with our understanding?”
My lips parted in disbelief.
“Katharine,” he said gently. It made me shudder. “Have you ever considered that I can give you everything you have ever wanted?”
“You know nothing of what I want.”
“Don’t I? What if I told you that your uncle could have a workshop like this, a much better one than this, better than anything he’s ever had, that he could live out his days making every brilliant thing that pops into his head?” He leaned forward, boyish face serious. “What if I told you that I could make sure that Mr. Tully never sees the inside of an asylum?”
I stared.
“I can make that happen, Miss Tulman. And you can be with him, no thought of separation. I can set you up in Paris, in luxury you’ve never known. Infamy is of no concern when there is power behind it, and the emperor likes you. You would be perfectly independent, doing exactly as you wished. Bring Lane Moreau with you, if you can find him. I care not. Or if Paris is truly not to your taste, then by all means take your uncle to Stranwyne and we will build his workshop there. Have you thought of a proper hospital for the village, with the newest treatments, or teachers that are not the outcasts of society? The place would be the model of England, and how life would be improved for those who live there! Perhaps you would like to repair the house, to bring it back to its glory days in the time of your grandmother? A steward to run it for you?”
I sat on my crate, hair in braids and wearing absurd trousers, my uncle murmuring nonsense behind me, a man spewing nonsense in front of me, and a weapon of incredible destruction to my side, all in an underground cavern that would defy common belief. And for one moment, sitting there, I tasted the sweetness of what was offered me. Respect, independence, the freedom to do and even marry as I pleased. A complete and lifelong protection of my uncle, who would live in a world of unblemished happiness. It was utterly charming. Ben smiled.
“I would do it all, Miss Tulman, every bit. Happily, and all I would need is the result of your uncle’s work. Can you imagine what other wonders reside in his head? He has already won a war for two countries. What might he do next for mankind?”
My uncle muttered on about clocks and their turnings, the chain on his ankle clinked, and I was back in my reality. These lies were mirrors and bright light, honey and ambrosia, pretty words whispered in a glittering, gilded, velvet cage. I rejected them. I would not live like Mrs. Hardcastle. And then, just on the edge of hearing, I thought I heard an echo from the tunnel. “Did I tell you that I met your mother the other day?” I said quickly.
The smile on Ben’s face froze. “Then I’m sure you heard many interesting things.”
“Oh, yes. She told me all about her Louis. She said he never came to see you, though you were such a handsome child.”
“He sees me now, Miss Tulman. Do we have an agreement?”
“But what about the empress? I am still rather concerned about what she will —”
“That woman has nothing to do with me. Nothing!”
He was getting agitated now, but words were the only weapons of distraction at my disposal. “But will she stand aside, do you think, while Napoleon makes another woman’s child his heir to —”
“You think he will not?” Ben yelled, leaping to his feet. I felt my uncle jump a bit behind me, but he kept on working. “You think the emperor will ignore me? He will have no need to look further than me! There will only be him and me!”
He went still, breathing hard, and I thought for a moment he was calming until he hit me hard across the face with the back of his hand, spinning me around and down behind the wooden crates that surrounded my uncle.
And that was when a shot rang out in the tunnel.
28
Lights danced behind my eyes, the gas jets above my head sparkling. There was wood beneath my hands, and I heard the grunting, crashing noise of men fighting. I blinked, tasted blood in my mouth, and pushed myself upward in a daze. Beneath the table, I saw a jumble of thrashing legs, then the legs seemed to sort themselves and the bodies stilled.
“Bloody fool!” Ben was screaming.
I heard Lane say my name.
“Shut him up,” Ben yelled.
“Katharine?”
I stood shakily and saw Lane, disheveled but unhurt, his hands up, palms out, and then Henri with rumpled hair and a bloodied nose, tense and still, a pistol pressed to the back of his head. The man at the trigger was Robert, Mary’s Robert from the courtyard. My heart skipped and sank. Not Mrs. DuPont, then, but Mary. No wonder
