Beth Ciotta - His Clockwork Canary

Or a boy.

As long as she maintained her slouching posture, blunt vocabulary, and lowered pitch, she could maintain the ruse. She’d fooled thousands of people over ten long years. She could fool one ancient lover.

Breathing somewhat easier, Willie tugged off her cap and sleeved sweat from her brow. Looking over her shoulder, it appeared as though Simon had indeed drifted. She heaped her coats upon the rack, although she laid her cap nearby and kept her long purple scarf looped around her slender neck. She did not, under any circumstances, want to fall prey again to staring at Simon’s person and fantasizing.

Distraction was vital.

Carefully, quietly, Willie dipped into her carpetbag and procured her cherished Book of Mods. She’d painstakingly re-covered the journal and its treasured contents so that it appeared to be a novel written by Mary Shelley.

“ Frankenstein ?”

Willie started as Simon shifted to her side and snatched the book from her hands. Her heart thudded due to his close proximity and the delectable smell of soap. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“Resting.” He flipped through the pages. “Biological and nuclear weapons? Civil rights riots? Antiwar protests?” He cut her a glance. “Monstrous indeed, but not Shelley. Where did you get this?”

“I own it.” She snatched back the one thing her mother had bequeathed her and hugged it to her chest.

“The reprinting and selling of that book was outlawed long ago.”

“It’s a first edition and I did not buy it. Nor did I pinch it,” she added, striving not to squirm under his intense regard.

“The content is considered dangerous.”

“Old Worlder propaganda,” Willie said with a snort. “Considering the progressive nature of Project Monorail and your family’s fascination with futuristic marvels, I’m surprised you don’t own a copy of the Book of Mods.”

“I did. Until someone pinched it.” He nodded to the book. “Pleasure? Research?”

“I was looking for a mention of the Houdinians.”

“You won’t find it.” He thumped a finger to the spine. “This was the source of my restless night.”

He’d spent the night with a book, not a woman? She shouldn’t care, but she did. She almost smiled. “You said your copy was stolen.”

“I borrowed one from a friend.”

Still clutching the book and the hidden keepsake inside, Willie unleashed her curiosity. “What do you know about the Houdinians?”

“That there were three. That one is dead, another missing, and”—his lip twitched—“the last one underground.”

“Where did you get the list?”

“Classified.”

“I know the third name, the man we’re looking for in Edinburgh. Jefferson Filmore. I learned that much from Thimblethumper.” She learned much more, but, for now, chose to withhold the information. Instead, she sought to pick Simon’s brain in hopes of filling some mysterious gaps. “What are the other two names?”

“Classified.”

Willie snorted. “Top secret? Do you moonlight as a spy, Darcy?”

“No. But I know someone who does.” He angled and leaned back, his arms folded over his chest. Apparently he would not be returning to his own bench seat any time soon. “What else did you learn from Thimblethumper?”

“That the Houdinians protect an engine. The engine that catapulted the Briscoe Bus through time. Although of course that can’t be true.”

“Because according to legend—”

“And the Book of Mods.”

“—the Peace Rebels destroyed the bus soon after arriving in this century.”

“In order to prevent anyone from using it to hop into yet another dimension and creating further havoc.” Willie had heard the story a million times.

“What if they destroyed the bus, but not the engine?” Simon asked.

“But they did. They blew up the entire time-traveling vehicle, including the clockwork propulsion engine.”

“How can you know that for sure unless you were there?”

Because her mother had witnessed the detonation and explosion firsthand.

When the fire died out, the Briscoe Bus was nothing more than a burned-out, melted mass of charred metal.

Willie shook off the memory of her mother’s voice, her face. “Why would they salvage the engine?”

Simon shrugged. “Insurance? In case they wanted to return home? The bus was but a shell, easily re-created by many a skilled Vic or Mod. But the engine . . .”

“Was as unique as the one built and utilized by your distant cousin Briscoe Darcy. A significant invention indeed,” Willie said. “But the original time-traveling engine is trapped in the twentieth century and therefore unattainable.”

“It would take a miracle,” Simon said.

Willie narrowed her eyes. “I have never heard of the Houdinians.” And her mother had told her and Wesley many a tale about the 1960s, as well as the Peace Rebels’ mission. “Thimblethumper mentioned an agency. What agency? And he mentioned your brother, Jules. As if he was somehow connected.” She frowned, considered. “The spy you spoke of. Is it your brother? A decorated war hero would no doubt qualify. Although one would think his injured leg a hindrance.”

“Fascinating.”

“What?”

“The way your mind works. You’re quite clever, Canary. Undoubtedly gifted in finessing people to talk about themselves or to perhaps unintentionally share information.”

She averted her gaze, returned her BOM to her carpetbag. “It’s a gift.”

“What else did you learn from Thimblethumper? Something specific to Filmore’s whereabouts?”

Indeed she did. She eyed the outer door and the scenery whizzing by as the train chugged north.

“I’m not going to toss your bloody hide once you tell me,” Simon said, losing patience. “Who would write my dazzling tales of risqué romance, high drama, and nail-biting intrigue?”

She smirked. Just then the train lurched, and off-balance, Willie toppled into Simon’s lap.

He steadied her by her forearms, his strong hands searing her skin through the thin fabric of her shirt. He searched her face, her eyes. “Who are you?”

Willie blinked into his mesmerizing gaze. “Don’t be daft. You know who I am.”

“Do I?”

“The Clockwork Canary.”

His gaze slid to her mouth. “I venture you are more than you seem.”

Willie’s heart fairly burst through her ribs. He suspected her true gender. He would not hold another man this close for so long. At least he did not know her true identity. Instead of shielding her kaleidoscope eyes with green corneatacts, she’d switched to brown. Her hair was chopped short and now black, not cherry red. And she’d darkened her pale skin, at least all visible skin, using a Mod-enhanced lotion that she’d bought on the black market, a tanning agent called QT.

“Ever kiss a man before, Canary?” Simon asked in a low, dangerous tone.

“No,” she lied, deciding to brazen it out. “You?”

“No.” He righted her then and pushed to his feet, looking down at her as though he couldn’t decide whether to ravage or throttle her. “But there’s always a first time.”

With that, he nabbed his frock coat and exited the compartment, leaving Willie alone with her traitorous yearnings and sizzling blood. “Cheese and crackers,” she whispered in her own higher-pitched voice, lowering the window and pressing her face into the icy fierce wind.

Tales of risqué romance, indeed.

WICKFORD MANOR KENT, ENGLAND

Strangelove.

The name echoed in his ears along with the tinny grunts emitting from Renee, his voluptuous robotic domestic who doubled as his housekeeper and sex servant. Taking the lifelike automaton from behind, he envisioned two very human women—both vexing in nature, both whetting his sordid appetite. Miss Amelia Darcy and Miss Wilhelmina Goodenough. The latter more easily manipulated and most fresh in his devious mind.