Лиза Клейпас - Chasing Cassandra

Unexpectedly, a stranger had broken into the private conversation. “You should be congratulating him,” came a cool, assured voice from a nearby table, “not raking him over the coals.”

Devon had glanced over to a dark-haired fellow sitting at a table of jug-bitten buffoons who were all crooning a popular drinking song. The young man had been lanky and broomstick-thin, with high cheekbones and piercing eyes.

“Congratulating him for what?” Devon had snapped. “Two years of wasted tuition?”

“Better than four years of wasted tuition.” Deciding to abandon his companions, the man had dragged his chair to the Ravenels’ table without asking to be invited. “Here’s the truth no one wants to admit: At least eighty percent of what they teach at university is thoroughly useless. The remaining twenty percent is helpful if you’re studying a particular scientific or technological discipline. However, since your brother will obviously never be a doctor or mathematician, he’s just saved himself a great deal of time and money.”

West had stared at the stranger owlishly. “Either you have two different colored eyes,” he’d commented, “or I’m drunker than I thought.”

“Oh, you’re as drunk as a fiddler,” the man assured him pleasantly. “But yes, they’re two different colors: I have heterochromia.”

“Is it catching?” West had asked.

The stranger had grinned. “No, it was from a sock in the eye when I was twelve.”

The man had been Tom Severin, of course, who had voluntarily left the University of Cambridge out of disdain for having to take courses he had decided were irrelevant. He only cared to learn things that would help him make money. No one—least of all Tom—had doubted that he would someday become an extraordinarily successful businessman.

Whether he was successful as a human being, however, was still open to question.

There was something different about Severin today, Devon thought. A look of being stranded in some foreign place without a map. “How are you, Tom?” he asked with a touch of concern. “Why are you really here?”

Severin’s usual response would have been something flippant and amusing. Instead, he said distractedly, “I don’t know.”

“Is there a problem with one of your businesses?”

“No, no,” Severin said with a touch of impatience. “All that’s fine.”

“Your health, then?”

“No. It’s only that lately . . . I seem to want something I don’t have. But I don’t know what it is. And that’s impossible. I have everything .”

Devon bit back a wry smile. The conversation always became somewhat tortured whenever Severin, who was habitually detached from his emotions, tried to identify one of them. “Do you think it could be loneliness?” he suggested.

“No, it’s not that.” Severin looked pensive. “What do you call it when everything seems boring and pointless, and even the people you know well are like strangers?”

“Loneliness,” Devon said flatly.

“ Damn it. That makes six.”

“Six what?” Devon asked in bewilderment.

“Feelings. I’ve never had more than five feelings, and they’re hard enough to manage as it is. I’ll be damned if I’ll add another.”

Shaking his head, Devon went to retrieve his glass of brandy. “I don’t want to know what your five feelings are,” he said. “I’m sure the answer would worry me.”

The conversation was interrupted by a discreet knock at the partially open study door.

“What is it?” Devon asked.

The estate’s elderly butler, Sims, came to stand just inside the threshold. His expression was as imperturbable as ever, but he was blinking at a faster rate than usual, and his elbows were pulled in tightly at his sides. Since Sims wouldn’t turn a hair even if a Viking horde were battering down the front door, these subtle signs indicated nothing less than catastrophe.

“I beg your pardon, my lord, but I find it necessary to inquire whether you might know Mr. Ravenel’s whereabouts.”

“He said something about plowing stubble on the turnip fields,” Devon said. “But I don’t know if he meant at the home farms or at a tenant leasehold.”

“With your permission, my lord, I shall dispatch a footman to find him. We need his counsel regarding a predicament in the kitchen.”

“What kind of predicament?”

“According to Cook, the kitchen boiler began to make a fearful clanging and knocking, approximately one hour ago. A metal part burst through the air as if it had been shot from a cannon.”

Devon’s eyes widened, and he let out a curse.

“Indeed, my lord,” Sims said.

Problems with a kitchen boiler were nothing to take lightly. Fatal explosions resulting from faulty installation or mishandling were routinely reported in the newspapers.

“Was anyone hurt?” Devon asked.

“Fortunately not, sir. The range fire has been put out, and the pipe valve has been closed. Regrettably, the master plumber is on holiday, and the nearest one is in Alton. Shall I send a footman to—”

“Wait,” Severin interrupted brusquely. “ Which valve? The one to the cold water supply pipe or the one to the water-back?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, sir.”

Devon looked at Severin sharply.

Severin’s mouth curved with grim amusement. “If something were going to blow up,” he said in answer to the unvoiced question, “it would have by now. But you’d better let me take a look at it.”

Grateful that his friend was an expert in steam engine mechanics and could probably build a boiler while blindfolded, Devon led the way downstairs.

The kitchen was a ferment of activity, with servants rushing to and fro with baskets from the gardens, and crates from the icehouse and cellar.

“We’ll make German potato salad,” the grim-faced cook was saying to the housekeeper, who took notes. “We’ll serve it with cuts of beef, ham, tongue, and galantine of veal. On the side, relish trays with caviar, radishes, olives, and celery on ice—” Catching sight of Devon, the cook turned and curtsied. “My lord,” she exclaimed, visibly fighting back tears, “it’s a disaster. Of all times to lose the cooking range! We’ll have to change the dinner menu to a cold buffet.”

“As the weather has been so warm,” Devon replied, “the guests would probably prefer that. Do your best, Mrs. Bixby. I’m sure the results will be excellent.”

The housekeeper, Mrs. Church, looked harried as she spoke to him. “Lord Trenear, the kitchen boiler supplies hot water to some of the first- and second-floor bathrooms. Soon the guests will want to bathe and change before dinner. We’ve set up pots to boil on the old kitchen hearth, and the servants will carry up cans of hot water, but with such a large crowd and so many extra chores, they’ll be pushed to their limit.”

Severin had already gone to inspect the boiler, which still radiated heat even though the fire had been put out. The cylindrical copper tank was set on a stand beside the range and connected by copper pipes.

“The part that shot through the air was the safety valve,” Severin said over his shoulder. “It did exactly what it was supposed to do: relieve built-up pressure before the boiler ruptured.” Picking up a rag from the long kitchen worktable, he used it to open a range door, and lowered to his haunches to look inside. “I see two issues. First, the water tank inside the range is producing too much heat for a boiler this size to handle. It’s straining the copper shell. You’ll need to install a larger boiler—eighty gallons or more. Until then, you’ll have to keep the oven fire lower than usual.” He examined a pipe connected to the boiler. “This is the more serious problem—the supply pipe leading into the boiler is too narrow. If hot water is drawn out of the boiler faster than it’s refilled, steam will build until it eventually causes a rip-roaring explosion. I can replace the pipe right away if you have the supplies.”