Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

“The work goes slowly.” Tobias had washed and changed, but didn’t feel refreshed. Keating’s presence made it impossible to relax.

“Have you found any clues as to who made the craft?”

Whitford entered with a drink on a tray, and Tobias accepted it gratefully. “I’m not sure. All makers have a signature—a way of approaching things that marks a work as theirs. But an effort was made to disguise that here. Many of the parts are salvaged from other ships.”

“But surely something stands out?”

“The steering system is clearly drawn from the one used by underground postal carts.”

Keating set down his glass, his expression incredulous. “From the underground? Are you telling me that the Black Kingdom attacked the clock?”

Even the notion made Tobias stiffen. The Black Kingdom was one of the enduring mysteries of the age. No one—not even Keating—knew who ruled it or exactly what powers it controlled, only that it claimed everything under the streets as its territory.

Tobias shook his head, fighting off a frisson of superstitious dread. “No, no one has ever seen any machines created by those that dwell underground. The steering system originally came from the Scarlet King’s foundries and was adopted by several others. Green uses it on the carts that run the post from one part of London to the other on the underground rail lines.”

And they paid for the privilege of using Black’s tunnels. The postal system was exclusively Green’s enterprise, as were most of the counting houses, law offices, and many of the banks. “Of course,” Tobias concluded, “that’s not enough evidence to prove who built the ship.”

Keating grunted his agreement, albeit reluctantly. “I want to see progress.”

Tobias bit his tongue, calling on long training as a diplomat’s son. “Of course, sir. I’ll return to the problem first thing tomorrow.”

Alice arrived to herd them to the table. The dining room was a modest size but showed off her taste. The colors had been chosen for a sense of light and air, and the ornate plaster of the ceiling had been painted a plain white. Alice herself was the brightest thing there, the deep green of her dress like the first leaves against the snow.

They sat, the soup was served, and they began to eat with the determination of people obliged to be polite to one another. Normally, dinnertime conversation between husband and wife was pleasant and of late had become comfortable. But tonight, Keating’s impatience hung like a pall in the room.

Alice cast a glance at her father, speculation in her wide blue eyes. “How goes the development of the battery-powered generators?”

Keating cast his daughter a cool glance. “You have a good memory. It’s been a year since I worked on them.”

“I have an interest in that project.”

Tobias looked up from breaking apart his dinner roll. This was the first he’d heard of it. “How so?”

Her face took on a sharpness that said she was engaged by the topic. “Small generators have so many uses, especially in rural settings, or where people cannot afford a constant power supply. It could ease a great deal of hardship if the poor could pay for only the fire or warmth they needed as opposed to an ongoing charge.”

“And what about revenue?” Keating said, his tone slick with contempt.

Tobias set down his butter knife. “There are many who can only pay now and again.” The cost of power was an ongoing grievance against the Steam Council. It wasn’t hard to see why the rebels had gained a foothold.

Keating flicked a hand, consigning the subject to the dustbin. “Unpredictability is the enemy of sound business. Besides, I have more pressing affairs, as do you.” He turned to his daughter. “Raising Jeremy must fill up your days. I’m sure you don’t have time to ponder what goes on in your old father’s factories.”

She flushed at the rebuke. “I will never grow weary of hearing what you do, Papa.”

The next course arrived, and Tobias exchanged a look with Alice, whose heightened color said she was fuming. He raised an eyebrow, doing his best to take the sting out of the moment. She rewarded him with a small, tight smile. And then she tried again. “So what are you engaged with, Father?”

Keating dusted salt over his potatoes. “There are always a number of projects in hand.”

“It seems odd for me not to know each and every one,” Alice said with the slightest suggestion of an edge. “There was a time I think I was as informed as your foremen.”

But she was no longer part of Keating’s plans. By marrying and producing an heir, she had served her function. Unfortunately, Alice refused to accept her irrelevance. Tobias wondered if the meal would ever end. He cast a sidelong glance at his father-in-law, who was chewing as if his dinner had done something to offend him.

“When Jeremy is old enough, why don’t you bring him to the London factory for a tour? You can see it then,” Keating said.

“I’ll look forward to it,” she said, her eyes downcast as she abandoned her plate.

Tobias guessed what she was thinking. She would only need to wait a decade or so to see the business she could have run as capably as any man. Whether they meant it or not, parents had the power to wound as no others could.

Frustration burned and he set down his cutlery before he was tempted to use it on his guest. If so many people hadn’t been counting on Tobias to keep Jasper Keating on good terms, he would have slammed the man’s face into his veal roulade. Restraining himself took a special kind of fortitude.

He turned to Keating, a smile fixed on his lips. “Would you like to try the pinot?”

“Please,” said the Gold King, pushing his glass forward.

The servants were out of the room, so Tobias poured, his mind churning with useless resentment. Keating lifted the glass to his lips, his nostrils flaring as he tasted the wine.

Tobias watched the man the way he would a deadly spider. Others might have daydreamed of poison in the wine, or a knife to the throat, but Tobias just wanted his household to be left in peace.

Unfortunately, the price for such freedom would be far more complicated than simple murder.

London, September 25, 1889

THE GOLD KING’S WORKSHOP

1:15 p.m. Wednesday

HEAT WAS A PALPABLE FORCE INSIDE THE BUILDING, SO thick it might have been sliced and shipped for shillings a pound. Sweat trickled between Tobias’s shoulder blades, adding an extra layer of irritation to his foul mood. He’d been hard at work investigating the brass bug, but this was the third time he’d been called away. Nothing was working right.

He was in his shirtsleeves, his coat and vest tossed over a reasonably clean crate. All around him, the vast warehouse pulsed with the noise of engines, a rusty light shimmering from the coal-powered furnaces. Workers swarmed like jungle insects, hands and minds busy with one project or another, turning plans into prototypes. Tobias had designed most of the machines there, but every unit built was for the greater glory of Keating Industries. Here, the Gold King ruled all.

Sadly, Tobias’s latest invention wasn’t about to be ruled by anyone. At eight feet in height, it stared down at him with that insouciance peculiar to malfunctioning machines. Go on, make me work , it seemed to say. I have all the time in the world to watch you try .

Tobias wasn’t impressed. Bloody fart bucket . By now there had to be enough steam inside to send it rocketing to Mars. Why wouldn’t it run?

“We checked the pressure, guv,” said the man standing beside him, whose name was McColl. “And there’s not a leak anywhere. I looked myself, every inch.”