Steam & Stratagem Page 13

  Elizabeth smiled. “Where do I go tonight? The mansion will be hard put to house all the new arrivals, but I can sleep aboard if I have to.”

  “Yes, you are likely correct—I will not know until I speak to Aunt Nelly about the arrangements with the housekeeper. Come with me in the trap when I leave. You can dine with us and if there is no room for you, you can share mine tonight.”

  Clara Brad looked up from her money counting. “I can ask about a vacancy in Mrs. MacDonald’s rooming house—it is just next door to my digs.”

  “There,” Roberta said, “By tomorrow we can make such arrangements as necessary. How are we with the cash, Miss Brad?”

  “What large amounts do you need?”

  “Mr. MacRae will need to take his two month’s pay with him this evening—that’s nine pounds. What about you, Elizabeth? You will be in arrears the same.”

  “If I’m to stay in the mansion for the weekend, I’ll not need much pay until Monday—unless you expect to entertain the gentlemen with cards, tonight.”

  Roberta shook her head. “I didn’t arrange to entertain them. This is a working visit. And do not play cards against Mr. Holmes . . . I’m told he is unbeatable.”

  “Is he?” Elizabeth said with a sly grin. “I wondered who held your fancy and now I know. Unbeatable, you say?”

  “Oh, away with you! Don’t be so silly. I have no interest in any of our visitors.” Roberta felt irritation at her friend, who was usually so level-headed and reliable. She spoke the perfect truth, so why did her two companions exchange such furtive smiles?

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Popularity Contests

  Sunday morning the house party and most of the servants went to church in Old Kilpatrick, but instead of continuing the Sabbath ritual, Roberta took her leave in the afternoon to prepare to go to the works. All of the gentlemen offered to accompany her.

  “I thank you all, but I will be able to work better without the distraction. Elizabeth will come with me . . . if that is acceptable.”

  Elizabeth Grandin smiled and nodded. “It is. You need help with measurements?”

  “Yes. You will know what to do. I must check on the lines for the next spitefuls to lay down.”

  “Do you want the carriage?” Father asked.

  “No. I don’t want to disturb the coachmen’s day off. We will drive ourselves in the trap.”

  Lord Bond shook his head. “Such devotion to duty. You ladies surely do not need to work every day. When do you find the leisure to dance or attend entertainments?”

  Roberta frowned at him. “When work is done, My Lord. You are well acquainted with the urgency of our construction and I must work out the details of the new bulkhead join before the yard men can begin cutting metal tomorrow morning.”

  Lord Bond threw up his hands as if in surrender. “Fainites! Mea culpa. I will offer no more obstacle to your mission, but I must offer to help with the driving, if nothing else. I promise to make no sound nor interruption while you work.”

  Roberta smiled. “Again I thank you, My Lord, but I will feel more at liberty to work if I am not preventing you from more interesting pursuits. We may be late back for dinner.”

  They had not gone far in the trap before Roberta turned to look at Elizabeth beside her. “What so amused you and Clara yesterday? Do you suppose I am expecting a proposal from one of these gentlemen visitors? They are colleagues and associates—nothing more.”

  Elizabeth regarded her steadily. “Perhaps you think you are not becoming involved with any of them, ma Cherie, but they are very constant in their attentions to you. You had best be considering their merits and trying to gauge who would best satisfy your heart.”

  “Oh nonsense.” She did not need this distraction when she must have a clear head for her work. Elizabeth did not often lapse into French, a sign of her Émigré background and her closeness with her grandmother who spoke only French. Good Lord, perhaps she would have been better off with Lord Bond’s assistance this afternoon.

  “It is not nonsense, it is very much a matter of your good sense. Do you choose to be a lady engineer all your life or do you expect to marry one day . . . perhaps have children?”

  Roberta busied herself with guiding the horse while she strove to dismiss the arguments. “What of you, Elizabeth? You quiz me, but you are almost thirty and still a handsome woman. Do you see yourself as a steam engineer for the rest of your life?”

  They negotiated a crossroads in silence before Elizabeth responded. “I could perhaps refuse to answer your very direct question, Roberta, on the grounds that it is most unfair to throw a perfectly sensible and pertinent question back at the questioner. But I will answer it to this degree—I have received two very great disappointments in my earlier life. The young man I thought I might marry was carried off by consumption at the age of nineteen . . . then another man jilted me for another, mere weeks before our planned marriage. Do not think ill of me for deciding that the bowels of a steamship offered me a more prosperous and happy life than would any representative of the male gender.”

  “But if one offered you marriage now—what would you say?”

  Elizabeth regarded her coolly. “It would depend upon his income and his reputation. I should regard his favours as I would any other offer of employment.”

  “Surely not. Is your heart quite resigned to not finding love?”

  “It did, twice, and then lost it. I do not think the man exists who might kindle such hope in it again.”

  Roberta reflected quickly. “I was once offered a marriage, but it was very much a matter of business interest, and so turned it down. I became my Father’s manager here precisely in order to avoid being married off to any ambitious engineer who thought my greatest charms lay in the factory I might bring him.”

  “Then perhaps you should be looking very favourably on Lord Bond. Doubtless he is worth much more than even the prosperous Stephenson enterprises, and does not need to marry an heiress.”

  “And you suppose he would marry a commoner?”

  “It has happened before.”

  “In fairy tales, perhaps. I think him quite charming and very handsome, but fear he is accustomed to using his title as a means of getting his way.”

  “You think he has a bad reputation?”

  Roberta hesitated. “I do not like to repeat false rumours, but there are stories about him being told in some of the best London households. I will merely say that the stories involve more than one engagement, neither resulting in a marriage union . . . and the more reliable evidence of a breach of promise suit brought before the Lords.”

  “If these are not false rumours, they are indeed a very grave indictment. So, what about Mr. Holmes?”

  “Oh, really, Elizabeth, must we investigate them all?” Roberta flicked the pony’s reins in irritation. “Very little is known about him.”

  “But you have investigated?”

  Roberta shrugged. “I did ask some questions of people . . . friends of the Stephenson business and other connected trades-people in London when I was there. Of his family, only a mother is known . . . perhaps a widow . . . who lives in Kent. It is assumed that a wealthy patron paid his way at Cambridge.”

  “But he is a brilliant mathematician. That much is true?”

  “Oh, I have no doubt about his brilliance, but it is perhaps the product of eccentricity. His only interest seems to be playing at cards, when he can find opponents, since he never loses. He spends nothing on his comforts or his dress . . . that odd hat he wore as we came up the Clyde yesterday. His Admiralty pay is believed to be sufficient to keep a good house in town, but he lives in a few rooms in an unfashionable part of London.”

  “Perhaps he sends the money to his mother.”

  “Very dutiful, I am sure, but no recommendation to a potential spouse.”

  They turned into the street leading to the shipyard gate. “So that leaves the stalwart lieutenant. He is to receive a good promotion, I hear.”

 
; “Ah, Mister Worthington. He seems to have only one fault, and that is his overpowering modesty. I do not know what upbringing might have produced that—except perhaps extreme poverty and an overbearing parent.”

  “Your father finds him very acceptable. He is the visitor he converses with most of all.”

  “Yes, I noticed. But I am not likely to accept a suitor upon my father’s recommendation. Not again.”

  Lord Bond sat in the drawing room reading a newspaper for less than half of an hour before his pride urged him to trump Miss Stephenson’s devotion to her duties with one of his own. Did he not have plans to put into motion? Did he not have people to speak with? Even on a Sunday, he might make a preliminary call.

  Within the half of another hour he sat in the saddle of a riding mount he had borrowed from Mr. Stephenson’s neighbour and galloped down the road toward Glasgow. The animal was of a rather inferior quality, but would serve his purpose. No doubt the rural squire found it suitable for expeditions around his estate but Lord Bond decided that he would make all arrangements necessary to hire a better mount while he resided in Scotland.

  His afternoon project met with more fortune than he might have hoped. The headquarters of the regiment he wanted was easier to find than he had feared, and the Officer’s Mess a hive of activity over the preparations for an entertainment that evening. General Auchtermuchty, whom he had purposed to meet, was kind enough to give him an hour of his time. All in all, a very satisfying turn of events.

  Sitting in the General’s private rooms in the Officers’ Mess, they first discussed the war and its unfortunate turn over their brandies. The General looked at him keenly. “Am I to understand that you are on official business these days, young man?”

  Lord Bond inclined his head slightly. “I am, Sir, but I fear I am at liberty to say very little about those duties. I may tell you that I am currently a servant of the Admiralty, who are desirous of information gained beyond the shorelines of Europe.”

  “The invasion preparations?” the General suggested, raising his eyebrows.

  Lord Bond shrugged. “As a consequence, my purpose here is to ask for the loan of an infantry company for a week or two. I would like them to be assigned to guard duties at the steamship yards on the Clyde.”

  The General’s eyes opened wide. “Good Lord, man. You think the French will strike here?”

  Lord Bond shook his head. “No, General. My purpose is not to defend against the French but to teach some of our people how a shipyard should be protected. There are vital secrets in both ours and their shipyards—and the Admiralty charges me with the task of ensuring theirs are more likely to be revealed.”

  General Auchtermuchty regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Your words have veiled meaning, but I understand . . . you are hinting at something you cannot discuss. Verra good, laddie.”

  “I assure you that the time of your infantry company will not be wasted . . . and hopefully they too will derive new skills from the experience.”

  After dinner at the Mess, Lord Bond urged his borrowed mount into a gallop and left the streets of Glasgow crowded with churchgoers on their ways to Mass and to Evensong. His mind turned again to his deliberations of the afternoon. Those persons who might be called upon to travel secretly to Antwerp to spy on the French steamships, particularly Symington and Miss Stephenson, needed some practical experience in entering forbidden locations safely. Luckily his interlocutor of the afternoon, General Auchtermuchty, had wholeheartedly acceded with his request for a military detachment for the shipyards.

  The decision of the Admiralty to promote Worthington to the command of the Spiteful and station the vessel at Chatham to train naval crews to man the other vessels of the class had not sat well with his plans at all. He had intended to pair the lieutenant with Symington under the identities provided by the French spies’ documentation; while he and Miss Stephenson travelled under the cover of the American passport. Now he needed another engineer . . . or at least a useful spy, to use the French identities. He must write to Their Lordships at the Admiralty this very evening.

  With luck, very few days would elapse before the general came up with a suitable military force to carry out the guarding of the shipyards. Ostensibly guarding the yards against French spying, but in reality providing the venue for training his very amateur spies.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  One Embarrassed; One Lies

  Her Monday started with a visit to the bank in Glasgow to cash the Admiralty draft. When she returned at noon, Roberta went immediately to her design office at the shipyard to begin some drafts for the proposed larger warship. Mr. Holmes accompanied her and proved most helpful in arriving at calculated numbers for the progressively larger ship designs that would be required to sink the French leviathan.

  She looked up from her sketches to watch him filling pages of foolscap with notations and formulae. The recognition crept into her mind that Mr. Holmes would make a valuable helpmate in the Stephenson yards—perhaps enough to outweigh her concern of his more phlegmatic moods and manner in more social matters. She picked up a pencil. Better she keep herself upon the proper course to satisfy the needs of Admiralty and Britain and leave the unknown possibilities and destinations of herself to more suitable occasions.

  He looked up from his figuring. “The ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces must be maintained in each enlarged design,” he pointed out. “That way the performance characteristics may be kept constant and the engine power needed more easily determined.”

  Roberta moved closer to scan the last page of his figures and saw that they indeed did produce the characteristics she looked for. “Why, I thank you, Sir. I do believe you have saved me from many hours of trial and error calculations.” She hesitated as Mr. Holmes turned enough so that his face came much closer to hers—close enough that she could feel his breath on her cheek. He seemed quite intense in his expression . . . almost as if he had the intention of . . . Surely not. Not in this manner. “Mr. Holmes, what are you doing?”

  He jerked back. “Why nothing . . . nothing at all.” His wide opened eyes gave him an expression of profound surprise—as if he had hardly been aware that he had come so close. “I . . . I was contemplating—er—some mathematical transformations.”

  Roberta pressed her hand to her breast. “Oh, I felt quite concerned that you had entertained an intention . . . an intention . . . Oh. Never mind, let me continue what I had intended to say.” The words rushed out. “The Admiralty letter requesting the Stephenson Yard to submit proposals for their consideration suggest three designs should be submitted, of two thousand, two thousand three hundred, and two thousand six hundred tons, but leave it up to the tenderers . . . ourselves . . . to determine the proportions of the hulls as long as the vessel can maintain thirteen knots in a seaway.”

  Mr. Holmes took a deep breath and moved a few inches farther away. “And your enlarged spiteful design will do that?”

  Roberta still felt the heat in her cheeks but thought to try to ignore it. “I think so,” she said in a businesslike voice. “The engine designs are quite flexible at this stage. My father suggests using locomotive boilers from the Tyneside works to provide the required steam. The vessel’s speed will be a factor of the steam supply, and so I merely need to provide accommodation in the hulls for the required number of boilers.”

  “They will all be of the same locomotive pattern?”

  “Yes, and they have been proven over a number of years. I believe we have an advantage there over the Laird Shipyard at Birkenhead, who have also been asked to tender for the contract.”

  “Yes, I was surprised at that,” Holmes said. “I thought the First Lord to be very confident of your abilities, but perhaps the full Admiralty committee decided on the more cautious approach of spreading the responsibility.”

  “And you will be one of the experts asked to pronounce upon the designs?”

  “Yes,” Holmes said with a smile. “I must admit it will tax my impartiality
to the extreme, since I see many of my ideas could be included in your design, but I will not be alone in my pronouncements and am confident that the results will speak for themselves.”

  Roberta regarded his absorbed concentration as he looked down at the pages she returned to him and raised his quill to add some numbers. He really was a most agreeable man . . . as long as he was given a problem to occupy his restless brain.

  The door to the office opened and Father and Lieutenant Worthington entered. “Making progress, my dear?” Father asked.

  “Indeed we are. I believe that with Mr. Holmes’ mathematical assistance we have arrived at some relationships that will allow me to determine the lines for the Admiralty’s submissions before the afternoon is done.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful,” Father answered. “And I have come to inform you of Lieutenant Worthington’s generous offer—or would you prefer to tell her yourself, my good fellow?”

  She and Mr. Holmes set down their quills and turned to face him.

  “It is ’pparent that the yard is almost overwhelmed with the needs laid upon it, Miss Stephenson. Your father is occupied to the fullness of his time with supervisin’ the buildin’ of the contracted spiteful ships, both here and in they other yards. You are simil’ly engrossed in preparin’ the submission of the Yard to the Admiralty tender . . . but amid all this activity the Spiteful itself is in dry dock and in need of supervision as the required mod’fications an’ improvements are added.”

  “Indeed, Lieutenant. I must agree that I hardly know how we will be able to accomplish all our tasks within the time allowed.”

  “I have spoken with Miss Grandin an’ with Mr. MacRae, an’ offered to provide the supervisory inspections needed if they will act as the shipyard’s assistants to organise the men at their work. They have assented. It seems a most satisfactory ’rrangement—since I also have the responsibility of accepting the delivery o’ the vessel into the hands of the Royal Navy as its intended commander. Any defect would be mine own, an’ I am sure that we will be able to avoid such as might escape a less involved supervisor.”