“You’re not technically nobility? What does that mean?”
“My father is a baron, but I won’t be a baroness until I inherit his title. And before you interrupt with the question you Americans always seem to ask, Mr. Ennock, there are no men in my family to inherit the title. In such a case, the daughter inherits. But until that happens, I’m not nobility, and I must pay taxes.”
Gavin stared. Alice was the daughter of a baron? “Incredible,” he whispered.
“What all of this means,” Alice continued, “is that I may have to pay an enormous inheritance tax on this estate, and Aunt Edwina’s solicitor was extremely lax in failing to mention it.”
“Uh, sorry I brought it up,” Gavin said, still impressed. “Anyway, your aunt disappears, leaving you an estate full of traps. Which brings us to the first question-why would she leave you a house that tried to kill you?”
“I said before that I don’t think she was trying to kill me,” Alice said. “I think she was trying to keep someone else out. It worked, but only for a while-someone got down here. The traps didn’t keep me out, either, but they weren’t intended to. Aunt Edwina knew I would outsmart them.”
“She must have a lot of confidence in you,” Gavin said.
“Presumably.”
“In the meantime, she also had me kidnapped and put in that tower. Why?”
Alice unwound a coil of copper wire and snipped off a length. “I think she wanted me to let you out so you could help defeat the traps and help me take the house. It’s certainly what happened.”
“But why?”
“That I don’t know. Clockworkers do go mad. Now, where did I put that piston lubricant?”
Gavin watched her work, her movements confident and quick. She looked a little older than he was-somewhere in her early twenties-and he wanted to ask her exact age, but that would have been really rude, and he didn’t want to offend her. Hell, more than anything he wanted to impress her, but what would impress this woman?
“Uh… Miss Michaels?”
Alice had stuck her head into the automaton’s chest cavity. She withdrew and blinked at him. A bit of grease smudged her cheek. “Yes?”
“Er…” His entire face felt hot, and he realized he was blushing. Cursing himself for an idiot, he plunged ahead anyway. “Would you like some music while you work?”
She blinked at him again, and he looked away, scuffing the stone floor with one foot. What kind of fool would-
“I would love some music, Mr. Ennock. Do you know any Mozart? I find his music focuses my mind on mathematics.”
“Uh.. ”
“Something from The Marriage of Figaro, perhaps.” She hummed a few bars of a familiar tune.
“Oh, yeah-I know those songs. I didn’t know Mozart was the composer.” He set bow to strings and played. Despite the pain in his fingers, every note came out sweet and quick, like flavored ice on a summer day. Maybe it was the time he had spent in the tower with nothing to do but practice, but his playing seemed to have improved lately. He didn’t think he could have played that hellish song the automatons had laid out before he’d been captured.
Alice went back to work, and she seemed to be going even more quickly now. Gavin slipped from one song to the next, always keeping with Mozart, the famous clockworker composer, while Click watched. Their work melded, music and science melting together with every twist of Alice’s wrenches and every slide of Gavin’s bow. In what felt like very little time, Alice was tightening a final bolt on the automaton’s chest plate. She straightened, and Gavin heard her back pop even over “Open Your Eyes.” He stopped playing.
“Finished,” Alice said unnecessarily. “His Babbage engine is fully functional; his power sources are wound and charged. And your playing helped, Mr. Ennock. Really, you should play professionally.”
He thought about his time in Hyde Park. “I guess I have, in a way.” Then he realized she was praising him and that he had just possibly impressed her, and that made him flush again.
“Now we just switch him on.” Alice inserted a tool into the automaton’s left ear and twisted. The automaton twitched. Its eyes flickered, went out, then glowed steadily. Gavin felt an insane desire to shout, “Live!”
The automaton turned its head with a creak, apparently taking in its surroundings. It looked at Alice and said in a quiet, reedy voice, “Good evening, miss. My name is Kemp. What service do you require?”
“It works!” Gavin exclaimed.
“Of course it works,” Alice said. “Hello, Kemp. Do you know where you are?”
“I appear to be in Madam’s laboratory. And it is a frightful mess.”
“What is your function in this house?” Alice asked.
“I am Madam’s valet.”
“Isn’t a valet a manservant?”
“Madam has her own ideas about the way the world should run, miss. Might I ask who you are?”
“My name is Alice Michaels, daughter of Arthur, Baron Michaels. I am your mistress’s niece.”
“I see,” Kemp said. “There is extensive information about you in my memory wheels. But why are you here? Where is Madam?”
“What’s the last thing you remember, Kemp?”Alice asked.
Kemp’s eyes flickered. “Madam called me down to the laboratory. She ordered me to remain still. Then you were standing before me.”
“How long ago was this?”
“What is the date, miss?”
“May twenty-fourth,” she said, then added, “1857.”
Kemp’s eyes flickered again. “Oh my. I have been inactive for more than a year!”
“I’m sorry, Kemp,” Alice said. “Aunt Edwina vanished sometime ago. She left me this house and its contents in her will. This is Gavin Ennock. Did Aunt Edwina say anything about him before she deactivated you?”
“Code forty-seven delta,” Kemp said. “Code forty-seven delta. Active. Active.”
“What?” Gavin said.
Kemp swiveled his head left and right several times, then refocused on Alice. “According to the terms of Madam Edwina’s last will and testament and code forty-seven delta, everything in the house belongs to you, which means I am now your valet, Madam.”
“Oh!” Alice put a hand to her mouth. “Well. I suppose you are.”
“Love, Aunt Edwina,” Gavin put in.
“Tell me, then,” Alice said, “did Aunt Edwina say anything about capturing Mr. Ennock here or about her upcoming disappearance?”
“That information is not in my memory wheels, Madam. I am sorry.”
“Do you know who might have broken in here and destroyed the laboratory?”
“That information is not in my memory wheels, Madam. I am sorry. Would Madam care for something to eat or drink?”
Gavin’s stomach growled at that moment. “I would. What time is it?”
“After three in the morning,” Alice said, checking a watch in her handbag. “Good heavens, no wonder I’m so hungry. I didn’t even have supper.”
“Madam!” Kemp said. “You mustn’t neglect yourself so. I will return in moments.”
“I don’t know what you’ll find in the kitchen after a year, Kemp,” Alice said doubtfully as Kemp headed toward the stairs with stiff steps.
“Tins keep.” Kemp put his foot on the bottom step. “I regret that it won’t be the best meal, but I daresay it will-code one seventeen omega. Code one seventeen omega.”
“What was that one for?” Gavin demanded.
“Sixty seconds,” boomed Edwina’s voice. “Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight.”
“Oh dear,” Kemp said. “My attempt to leave the laboratory appears to have activated a destruction code.”
Gavin gave Alice a wild look. “I thought the traps in the house were all deactivated.”
“This one must have been separated from the rest. I don’t know everything.”