Monique’s lip curled. “How much of a fee?”
“Now, there, Miss Pelouse, a lady never discusses money outright.”
Monique, still holding the reticule with the prototype, began backing away.
A gentleman in a top hat wound with green ribbon emerged from the shadows before she could go very far. “Good evening, Miss Pelouse. I believe you have something that belongs to me?”
Monique whirled to face this new threat. “I believe not.”
“Ah, better to say that I believe you have something I want.” The Pickleman tipped his hat at the dandy. “Westminster is here? I should have guessed.”
The man tilted his head back. “Your grace.” In the same movement he pulled out a small gun, which he pointed in turn from Monique to the Pickleman. “Give it to me, Miss Pelouse. Now.”
Sophronia watched, wide-eyed. Her attention was focused on the prototype, which now dangled from Monique’s hand. The key is to try to sneak it away while the others are distracted and get it back into the safety of the crowded ballroom. Clearly no one wants a public scene—not the Pickleman, not Monique, and not the man from Westminster.
The Pickleman raised a whistle to his lips and blew it sharply. At Sophronia’s waist, Bumbersnoot the reticule woke up and began thrashing about, hissing steam, his little legs churning and catching in the skirt of her gown. As he was suspended from a lace strap, he could go nowhere, but he did make an awful noise and a terrible fuss.
Luckily, he wasn’t the only one. Something much bigger and much louder was causing even more of a racket. A hissing, clanking, crashing sound commenced as some large mechanical object made its way through the shrubs, destroying Mrs. Temminnick’s garden. It broke through the lilacs behind the Pickleman, careening into one side of the gazebo.
It was a huge mechanimal, shaped like a bulldog and as tall as man. It belched smoke out its ears; its four stubby legs were as big as birch trees; its mouth was a wide-open cavern of flame. Unlike Bumbersnoot, this mechanimal was not made to transport, only to destroy.
The Pickleman held a small object in one hand that he was threatening to throw at Monique. She now faced the mechanimal on one side and the dandy with the gun on the other.
Assuming her nemesis was well distracted, Sophronia edged her way around through the lilacs to get behind the girl. Bumbersnoot quieted once the noise from the whistle faded. Suddenly, the lilac bush in front of Sophronia rustled all on its own. She only just managed to swallow down a shriek of surprise.
Dimity popped up.
“Where’s Pillover?” Sophronia whispered, the noise of the massive mechanimal providing some cover.
“Dealing with Pistons. He said he would tie them up right and tidy as a cravat.” Dimity did not sound optimistic. “Oh, my, what’s that?”
“Monique, an angry Pickleman, a dandy from the government, I think, and a very big mechanimal.”
She could see Dimity pale, even though it was nighttime. “I thought they weren’t supposed to build them big. And it’s not on tracks. Is that legal?”
“I’m thinking very little of any of this is legal.” Sophronia considered their options. “We need a distraction. Could you and Pillover get the Pistons to come outside, cause a kerfuffle? It seems a particular speciality of theirs.”
Dimity wrinkled her nose. “Must we? I hate kerfuffles.”
“Best solution I’ve got on short notice. And please bring me one of those pies we saw the cheesemonger deliver this morning. You remember the ones, wrapped in brown paper? I know Mumsy didn’t allow all of them out for the party. She loves cheese pies and would have kept some in reserve.”
“If you think it best.” Without further argument, Dimity crept back to the house.
Sophronia turned back to the conversation before her.
“Instead, I offer you… your life,” the Pickleman was saying melodramatically to Monique.
Monique was not impressed, even trapped as she was between a gun and a mechanimal. “Throw in an engagement to your oldest son and we have a bargain.”
The dandy did not like that Monique was negotiating with the Pickleman. “Now, now, Miss Pelouse! We had an agreement.” He pulled back the hammer of his pistol.
The Pickleman laughed. “Not that you wouldn’t make an admirable wife to the boy—appropriately cunning, and well-trained, I’m sure, but no.” He rolled the object in his hand threateningly. Sophronia suspected it was like Professor Braithwope’s crossbow—whomever he threw it at, the mechanimal would attack.
“Come back here, you little worm!” There came a sharp yell and a series of yodels and cries. Pillover, flask in hand, came bumbling through the garden on chubby, rapidly churning legs and stumbled directly into the middle of the lilac dell that housed the Pickleman, Monique, the dandy, and the mechanimal.
Dimity reappeared at Sophronia’s elbow, panting, and handed her a cheese pie wrapped in brown paper.
“Thank you,” said Sophronia politely.
Dashing after Pillover came Lord Dingleproops, the dark-haired boy who’d danced the quadrille with Sophronia, and two other Pistons, all looking annoyed, yet thrilled by the chase. Lord Dingleproops grabbed Pillover and began pelting him about the chops. Pillover instantly dropped to the ground in the middle of the gazebo and curled into a ball around the flask, like a grub. The dandy swiveled his gun around to point it at them instead of Monique. The Pickleman looked like he wanted to turn the mechanimal loose on the boys.
Sophronia said, “On my mark, you get the flask from Pillover. Try to pour it onto that mechanimal. I’m going after the prototype.”
Dimity let out a little huff of anxiety, but nodded.
Sophronia kilted up her skirts. “Mark!”
Dimity dove for her brother, swirling out from the bushes with a trilling war cry. She went in and down, startling the attacking Pistons with the fluffy presence of a female.
Sophronia rushed Monique. “Oh, Monique, you poor thing, are these men behaving ungentlemanly toward you? Should you be out in the garden unchaperoned with all this roughhousing? Let me help you back inside. You’re missing the better part of the ball.”
Sophronia pretended to trip as she rounded the tussling boys. She lurched to one side, knocking the gun from the surprised dandy’s grasp. “Oh, dear, pardon me, sir. Whoop—oh!” In the same movement she spun, simulating a continued stumble—Lady Linette would have been proud.
She blundered against Monique. With one hand she reached out and tore down the front of the older girl’s dress, popping the decorative buttons and making certain to expose plenty of undergarments. “It is a certain truth,” Mademoiselle Geraldine had said, gesturing at her own heaving cleavage illustratively, “that a lady’s attention dwells overmuch upon the state, condition, and sanctity of her own assets.”
Monique shrieked, clapping both hands to her exposed corset, and dropped her reticule.
Sophronia continued to the ground, rolling both her upper body and the reticule underneath Monique’s full skirts. Under cover of those copious petticoats, she slipped the prototype out of the reticule. In almost the same movement, she replaced it with the wrapped cheese pie Dimity had handed her only moments before.
Monique kicked at her viciously, but Sophronia was already rolling away, her borrowed ball gown mitigating the force of the blow. She emerged in time to see Dimity wrest the flask free from Pillover and the Pistons and pour its contents over the head of the massive mechanimal bulldog.
Monique bent and retrieved her reticule triumphantly and turned to run, no doubt thinking to take advantage of the chaos. The Pickleman, not as distracted as the others, hurled his target blob at her fleeing form. The mechanimal roared to life and charged Monique. Acceleration required the creature to send new power to his limbs from the internal boiler. All it took was one excess spark for Sophronia’s plan to work. The contents of the flask were, as she had guessed, alcoholic, and thus highly flammable.