career collapsed? Imogen would never make her brilliant match. His youngest sister—scholarly, awkward Poppy, happier in the country than enduring the London social whirl—would suffer, too.
If his father fell from grace, so would his mother. How long would she last in genteel poverty, forced to manage her husband’s thwarted ambitions, before the shadows finally blotted her out altogether?
How much depended on Tobias keeping his suspicions to himself? Bile burned in his gut. He didn’t want this much responsibility. “I have to find out what happened to Grace,” he said quietly. “Until I do, I can’t know where my duty lies.”
“Duty?” his mother asked in a stiff voice, finally turning to look at him. “To whom? To what?”
“Honor, then.”
“There is no such thing,” she said hoarsely. “It’s time you grew up and learned at least that much.”
“Mother?”
Her face twisted. “Honor is what people use when they can’t bring themselves to face their own weakness. Then they grasp their honor like Michael picking up his holy sword and cut their loved ones off at the knees in the name of the greater good.”
Tobias sat, numb and silent. His mother worked her tiny handkerchief, kneading it into a tight ball. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t bear this conversation a moment longer.”
She stood up, waving him down when he scrambled to his feet. “Sit.”
“Mother—”
“Sit and think about the calamity you’re going to cause before you do a single thing.”
“But what if he is guilty? What am I supposed to do then?”
She turned to look down on him, her face taut with misery. “Guilty he may be, but am I? Are your sisters? If you punish him, you punish us. That’s the way of the world. Does his guilt matter that much?”
The worst part was she thought her husband capable of murder. He could see it in her eyes. He could hold his tongue, but he couldn’t protect her from her own suspicions. “It matters to you,” he said.
“Only so far.” She held up her finger and thumb, a scant inch apart. “I have children. That makes me blind to everything else.”
Tobias could find no words to say. His mother left the room.
He stared at his hands, lying idle in his lap. All he wanted in his life was to build interesting machines. Instead …
Outrage crept over him. He wished he wasn’t part of his family anymore, but there was nothing he could do to change his blood.
Chapter Thirty-one
SPIE HQ
The clubhouse was silent as the proverbial … well, Tobias was depressed enough without the comparison. The conversations with his mother and father had left him raw.
The bottle of brandy he had taken from his father’s private reserve at first tasted like hot, smooth ambrosia. Then rank as poison, as he drank past the point of pleasure. Finally, he tasted nothing at all.
The remains of the iron squid looked lonely in the yard. He and Edgerton had quietly retrieved them from the scrap heap behind the Royal Charlotte, where old sets went to die. The scavengers had been at it, picking the metal like a carrion bird cleaned a corpse. He had mourned the thing with all the intensity of a bereaved parent. It had been his one real triumph.
Now it lay on its back, the remaining three legs stuck in the air, a fly carcass from a giant’s windowsill. Tobias sat on its steel belly, bottle in hand, and fondly patted one of its knees. “That was some night.”
He had barely escaped. And then that wretched girl had died. Tobias raised the bottle to his lips again, accidentally banging it against his teeth.
He squinted up at the sky. Coal smoke dimmed the stars, but he had the impression of a vast, awe-inspiring heaven. It seemed like a good moment to wax philosophical, but tilting his head back reminded him how much brandy he’d consumed.
What options did he have now? He could fall into line with his parents. Take up a profession his father approved of. Abandon his talents. Protect his family. Use Evelina’s affection to trick her. Most important, bury any uncomfortable truths she and her uncle might uncover. As options went, they all sounded disgusting.
In truth, he thought he might love Evelina. It wasn’t because she was pretty or clever, though that didn’t hurt, but because she actually cared who he was. That was worth fighting for, taking risks for. He hadn’t lied when he’d said she made him a better man. He needed her if he meant to keep his soul. No, there would be no betraying the woman he loved.
He could help Evelina find Grace Child’s murderer and whatever other horrors might be hiding in the Roth family closets. But that way led ruin for not only for his father, but also for the innocent women of the family.
The first alternative—dishonor—was unthinkable and the second—utter ruin—unbearable.
He rose, desperation giving him a second wind. The dark swirled around him, the shadows unpleasantly intimate. With a final affectionate caress to the squid, he walked with careful steps toward the clubhouse, where a gentle pool of light spilled through the door.
He had left a candle burning in the lantern that hung from an overhead beam. Tobias half sat, half fell into the ragged chair. There was an inch of brandy left in the bottle, but he set it aside. He was at that state where the world tilted if he closed his eyes. Instead, he stared at the floor, focusing very hard on the cracks between the boards to keep the room from spinning.
Tobias needed a mentor. Someone who knew who he was and could help him turn that to practical ends. To be perfectly honest, Magnus’s intensity was daunting. But, with knowledge, money, and ideas, he was a lifeline. Tobias’s best option was to surpass the foreigner’s expectations at every turn and hope somehow to make a name for himself with his talent. That might lead to an independent income, which meant the freedom to make his own choices.
Feeling slightly steadier, he rose and crossed to the worktable. Serafina still lay there, naked. Edgerton must have come by, because her legs were properly attached, the issue with the hip joints solved in record time. Again, Tobias had the irrational urge to cover her.
Tobias picked up the drawings, shuffling through them. There must have been more reasons why the doll had been disassembled. Oh, yes, something with the logic system. Magnus had said he’d fixed that, hadn’t he? She was ready for a new trial.
If he had doubts about his inebriation, those moments quashed them. He could feel Serafina’s eyes watching his every move. It had to be his imagination, because in his own mind those eyes belonged to one of his many mistresses, and then another, and then Evelina.
When he looked up, the doll’s eyes were peacefully closed. He made a disgusted noise, fed up with his own weakness. He needed to work. If he could turn his hands and mind to a practical problem, everything wrong with the world would fade away. It was the only time he was truly at peace.
He peeled off his coat and settled to work on Magnus’s doll. At first his fingers were clumsy, drink-addled, but concentration pushed past the fog, sending him into a state that was almost hyperalert. The arms attached easily, only needing an hour’s effort. The head was another matter. It was missing a pin that slid from ear to ear, unlocking the spring-driven programming mechanism that served as Serafina’s brain. That had to be one of the bits and pieces at the bottom of the trunk.
It was too dark to see inside the box, so he knelt and searched the bottom by touch. He didn’t find the pin right away, but instead found the trunk was lined with thick black card. Wedged halfway beneath the card were papers that looked like they’d escaped the portfolio of sketches.
Tobias pulled them out, finding the pin stuck between sheets of paper. He carried the lot back to the
