The accent was back, thicker than ever. He was definitely faking it. “You won’t find anything of value in my skirts,” I replied, and tried not to think about where his hands had been . . . or could go . . . if indeed he tried to feel around my clothing in search of valuables. My cheeks heated there in the dark.
“Not even this?” he asked, and suddenly there was my dratted pistol, right there between us, in his hand. The moon glinted off the engraved barrel as if magneted to it, being the only light in a dark corner. “A nice piece o’ iron, luv. Though I would’ve expected somethin’ a bit more fancy from the likes of a fang rozzer.”
Blast! I hadn’t even felt his hand moving about. “Who are you?” I needed to at least know the name of this man, who smelled like wood smoke and something else that was fresh and spicy.
Our pivot into the corner had resulted in his soft cap being jolted to the back of his head, and I caught a full look at his face. I saw sharp eyes and a few waves of hair curling about his temples, but couldn’t tell its color. He had a slender, elegant nose and dark slashing brows, and looked about twenty years old.
He turned away, as if realizing I could see him clearly. “I’m called Pix,” he replied, adjusting his cap low. To my surprise, he handed back my pistol.
“Picks?” I repeated, slipping the pistol back into my pocket. There was no sense in letting him think I felt threatened and in need of a weapon. “As in . . . what you do to pockets? How appropriate.”
“Nay, luv. Just Pix. Like the dangerous little sprites of legend that canna be caught.” His grin came again, but a bit lopsided this time.
I smothered a snort. He was about as far from being like a little pixie fairy as I was from being a properly demure lady-in-waiting to Princess Alexandra. Although . . . I might have agreed with him on the dangerous part.
“If ye ever get into trouble in the stews, ye just say you know Pix.” His voice had dropped to that low rumble again, and he captured my hand in his. Before I could pull it away, he lifted it between us, watching me . . . and then as my breath caught and my insides fluttered, he pressed his lips to the back of my hand.
They were warm and soft, and left just the faintest bit of damp when he lifted his face.
I couldn’t believe his boldness, and I yanked my hand away, giving him a good, solid shove in the process. The back of my hand felt as if it were alive, burning from some searing mark, and my pulse pounded as if horses galloped through my veins. “Why would I need to invoke anyone’s name for help?” I told him haughtily, resisting the urge to rub the imprint of his lips from my skin. “I am a Stoker, after all.”
“Aye, ye are . . . every bit o’ you,” Pix replied, his voice low and smooth. He began to ease back, into the shadows cast by a row of hedge. “Which is why I’ll leave ye to your own devices wit’ nary a twinge o’ my conscience.”
“Wait,” I said, remembering what he’d said earlier about seeing someone near the musuem. I stepped toward him, but he slid into darkness. The moon had gone behind a heavy cloud, and the lights that should have dotted the perimeter of the museum were dark. The bushes shifted.
He didn’t stop, but his voice floated in the night air, “If you need me, Miss Stoker, ye can find me through Old Cap Mago.”
“Why would I need you?”
“To tell ye what I saw tonight.” Now his voice was even farther away. “Before the razzers arrived. Big crate, bein’ moved out. Guilty-lookin’ flimpers, four o’ ’em.”
“A crate? How big?”
He’d stopped, and although I had only an impression of where he was, I stared into the darkness. Why couldn’t I see him? I had excellent night vision.
“Bigger’n me. ’Eavy, from the looks o’ it,” Pix called from the shadows. “Put it in th’back o’ a wagon. One of ’em ’ad another thin’ too—long and slender. Like a cane. Went off southwise.”
“When? When did you see this? And what were you doing here?”
Silence. Drat. “Pix?”
There was no response from the darkness but a faint chuckle and the rustle of leaves.
In the distance, St. Paul’s tolled four, and I gave in to the urge to rub his kiss from my skin.
I hoped he was watching from the bushes.
Miss Holmes
Miss Holmes Has an Unexpected Visitor
I was exhausted when I climbed into the horseless cab outside the museum. Miss Stoker had somehow excused herself from being escorted home and disappeared on foot into the shadow of the colonnaded building. I had given my official statement to Luckworth, leaving out the minor detail of the museum intruder. I felt certain I’d see the foreigner again soon.
The cab had traveled a mere block from the museum when my suspicions were proved right.
A black shape across from me in the vehicle shifted and became a face, followed by two hands shining pale in the gray light of near dawn.
I froze, realizing that what I’d assumed was a pile of cushions and blankets—granted, not the usual accoutrements of a hackney cab in London—had been the foreign intruder, hiding in the darkest corner of the carriage. I’d been too tired and distracted to look closely.
I fumbled the Steam-Stream gun out and into my grip. It took me longer than it should have, yet the intruder held up his hands and said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Of course you aren’t,” I said, juggling the gun into position, pointing at him from my seat. My fingers were a trifle shaky, but in the dark, he wouldn’t be able to tell. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” It occurred to me that I could have screamed and drawn the cabbie’s attention, but I’m by nature a curious person, and after all, I was the one who was armed.
“My name is Dylan Eckhert. And I . . . uh . . . I wanted to talk to you.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be waxing the museum floors?” I asked.
“I didn’t really expect you to believe me.” He gave a little laugh. “Um . . . could I put my hands down now? I promise I’m not going to do anything but talk to you.”
“Very well. I want to talk to you too. But any movements on your part, and I pull the trigger and you’ll be blasted with steam.”
His first question surprised me. “Are you really Sherlock Holmes’s niece?”
“Of course I am.” I realized he must have been hovering about listening to the conversations with Grayling and Luckworth.
“But I thought Sherlock Holmes was a fictitious character,” Mr. Eckhert said. His expression was bewildered and perhaps a little frightened. “Am I in London? What year is this?”
Clearly, the stranger was suffering from a case of amnesia. Or he was utterly mad. And here I was, closed up in a carriage with him. I gripped the Steam-Stream gun more tightly. “My uncle is as real as you and I. And yes, you’re in London. The year is 1889. Who are you and where are you from? I want some answers.”
“I’d like some too, to be honest,” he said. “Actually, what I really want is my—that thing back. You picked it up off the floor.”
I pulled the device from my pocket. It looked like a small, dark mirror, but its window or face was black and shiny and reflected a bit of light and no clear image. About as big as my hand, it was slender and elegant, made of glass and encased in silver metal. I turned it over and noticed the faint image of an apple with a bite out of it. “This? I thought you’d given it to us. After all, you threw it across the room.”
“Yeah, right. You’re too smart to believe that.”
I couldn’t disagree, so I changed tactics. “What is it?”
“It’s . . . a . . . phone. A telephone,” he said hesitantly. “A special kind of telephone.”
It didn’t look like any sort of telephone I’d ever seen. There was nowhere to listen, and nowhere to speak. And it had no wires. I smoothed my fingers over the device, amazed at how light and sleek it was. I must have activated it somehow, because all at once, it lit up and there were multicolored little pictures on its face. At least it didn’t start screeching. “I might give it back to you if you answer my questions.”
“What do you want to know? And by the way, why didn’t you tell those detectives about me?”
