The Eidolon Read online

  Lady Veronica pulled the blanket back up to her chin. “You can tell him I’m ill.”

  Matilda huffed. “Really, my Lady. If I tell that to His Grace, you know he’ll insist on his personal physician examining you. And the doctor will surely have questions about those cuts.” She lifted each bandage and examined the wounds. “They’re closing nicely, but it will be many weeks before the evidence is gone, if ever.”

  With a shake of her head, Veronica muttered, “Just tell him I have food poisoning.”

  “You used that excuse last week.” Matilda paused, an unwilling smile tugging at her mouth. “Come. After you’ve spoken with His Grace, we can pay a visit to Bridges and meet the new children! Here, drink some more of the tea.”

  Veronica took it gratefully and began to drink. After a few moments, she smelled something burning and swung her gaze around the room, searching for the source.

  “It’s just the gas lamp, my Lady,” Matilda said softly. She reached over and turned it off.

  Veronica leaned her forehead against the bedpost. She needed to compose herself if a mere smell was enough to send her scrambling. After so many successes, one lapse in judgment couldn’t defeat her. One. The life of an Enforcer in exchange for twenty children. A good bargain, no matter the affect on Veronica’s mind.

  Matilda helped Veronica wash and dress. She wrapped the long corset around her and tugged.

  “Mercy! Not too tight,” Veronica gasped. Since she spent her days fencing and her nights in the slums fighting off thugs, her body revealed much more muscle than was fashionable. Veronica felt sorry for her companion—it took all of Matilda’s creativity to make Veronica appear soft and feminine. Today every part of it hurt, ached, burned. Even with the aid of the tisane.

  Veronica waved away most of the petticoats and settled on a pale pink muslin dress with puffed sleeves to cover the higher cut on her right arm. Layered with rosettes, it was fluffy and girly and perfect for her affected society persona. After securing a matching bonnet, she pinned a decorative watch on her chest. She looked utterly ridiculous and rather like a frosted pink cake.

  This outfit was sure to make this week’s Ladies of High Society. Veronica often appeared in the Defunct Debutants section, causing her papá endless embarrassment. Veronica delighted in choosing unsuitable colors and unflattering dresses that looked like lace factories had exploded in the close vicinity. It hadn’t taken much to convince her papá that she failed at yet one more valued accomplishment—looking the part of a fashionable lady.

  Veronica pulled out the chain she always wore around her neck and fingered the butterfly made of small gears and cogs. It was the only thing she wore that she considered truly a part of herself. “Did my papá tell you exactly why he wanted this audience?”

  Matilda motioned toward the door, her impatience plain. “Maybe if you’d at least try and mix a bit when you’re at Almacks—”

  “You know I can’t talk to those kinds of people.” Veronica dabbed rose water on her neck and made a face at her reflection. She knew she couldn’t stall much longer. “They’re hopelessly self-absorbed, male and female.”

  “Your papá might relent if you at least try to find a suitor.” Matilda said, as she took Veronica’s mirror. “They cannot all smell as revolting as you say.”

  “But they do. It is mostly their breath.”

  Matilda tossed her hands into the air. “You cannot go on like this forever, you know. He has expectations for you.”

  Veronica tugged on pink leather gloves and winced as her arm burned. She arched one fine brow. “I will not consent to place myself under another male’s rule, no matter how appealing the packaging. There is too much else at stake. You know that. I have to continue with my work as long as I can.”

  Matilda sighed. “I know. I hope that some day you’ll find a man who will understand.” She shooed Veronica out the door. “I’ll have some breakfast, er lunch, waiting for you in the dining room when you’re finished.”

  With both arms still aching, Veronica took her time descending the grand staircase and making her way to her papá’s library. She’d had this discussion so many times that she could surely give the lecture herself and save her esteemed papá the wasted breath. But Veronica would listen. She always did. She’d learned that lesson years ago.

  It reflects poorly on me, a man so favored of her Majesty, for my daughter to appear in society dull and frumpy. Yet in spite of your looks, you have a sizeable dowry and a title—any man would gladly offer for you.

  For her father, Veronica’s marriage would be one of his boldest moves in the political chess game he played. The candidates he chose, ordered her to engage in conversation, to flirt with, held titles no less than his own.

  All of them, without exception, had no more spine than a jellyfish. Quite a few were enslaved to the gaming tables, some to gurney racing, and others to their own vanity. How could she be shackled so? Their lives held no meaning beyond their own pleasure.

  “I wouldn’t go in there, Peanut. The bear is suspiciously calm this morning,” Veronica’s older brother, Alec, said. He approached her and flicked her bonnet.

  She swatted him away. “You know I hate that nickname. Why couldn’t you think of something flattering like—”

  “Chicken legs? Buttercup?”

  “Perhaps you’ve heard of Athena or even Circe—”

  He grinned and swept a bow. “You wouldn’t respect me if I did that, Peanut.” He replaced his top hat and goggles and grasped both her shoulders. “Now, I mean it. Be careful with dear old papá. In his current state, he’s likely to punish you should you give him one wrong look.”

  Veronica tried to shrug him off. “I promise not to bait him.”

  Alec’s interference never failed to annoy her. He’d lost the right to care about her when he deserted her, leaving her alone with the Duke. He’d gone to Eton, then on to Cambridge. Alec never returned home, not once. Never wrote. He vanished from her life, like the late snow in spring that is here one day and gone the next.

  Until last year when her papá ordered him either home or into service. Alec chose the former, swaggering back into her life a stranger, full of charm and confidence—nothing like his brittle, dormant younger sister. They managed a stiff, polite kind of peace. But he didn’t ask for forgiveness nor did she offer it. They both knew, without the spoken words, that such a thing was impossible.

  Alec now released her with a squeeze and then used his walking stick to tap their butler on the shoulder. Her brother ambled through the front door on a cheerful breeze, most likely headed to the track. His tastes ran much simpler than hers—the scent of burning oil and the harmony of a strong gurney engine and he was lost for hours in a simple enjoyment Veronica could never understand. Rather than dealing with their papá’s expectations, he avoided them altogether.

  Veronica could no more avoid them than she could the memory of the charred Enforcer.

  She turned toward the tall, ornately carved wooden doors and knocked sharply once.

  “Enter,” the Duke said in a mild voice.

  Veronica instantly recognized her papá’s irritated tone. She was its ungrateful recipient daily.

  She swung open the door and approached the Duke. He stood behind a large, expensive, oriental desk, its legs carved with the narrow airships of the Far East. With his hands clasped behind his back, his broad chest looked all the more imposing—rather like a brick wall. His brown velvet town coat, matching vest and cravat were scarcely wrinkled, though Veronica knew he’d been up for hours. For the past year or so, since her Majesty placed him in command of her airfleet, he’d slept little, preferring to pour over airship plans, tactical journals, and maps.

  “Sit,” her papá ordered.

  She spread out her skirts and alighted in the only other chair in the room, directly across from him. “You called?” she asked serenely.

  Her father’s bushy eyebrows furrowed. “You’ve been out three seasons now.”


  Here it comes….

  “You’ve failed in every single instance to ensnare the few men worthy of a Richmond. Your utter lack of charm is incomprehensible.”

  Yes, it wasn’t hard to convince them they wouldn’t want to be married to a girl so dull and awkward, she would embarrass them at every turn.

  The Duke smiled then. He did so rarely, and never at her. Veronica knew it wasn’t a sign of pleasure, quite the contrary. She refused to shrink in her chair. Instead, she sat up straighter and clasped her arms in her lap. Veronica couldn’t predict what he might punish her with. It was never the same. The one thing she knew for certain about her papá was that he would strike at her in a way that only he could.

  “So, instead, I’ve arranged it myself. The contracts have already been signed. You will be presented to him at the ball tomorrow evening. Prince Durad Jurinic of Sombor.”

  Veronica couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

  Marry. A stranger. A foreign stranger. A man she’d never heard of.

  She wanted to leap from her chair and shout at him that he could not make her marry a man she’d never met. She wanted to retrieve her Tesla-ray and stun that horrible smile off his face.

  But she wouldn’t. Veronica knew better. She stilled her shaking hands and dropped her gaze to the floor.

  “Her Majesty needs an alliance with Sombor and the prince’s unmarried state provides the perfect opportunity. Sombor is a country newly independent of the Ottoman Empire and has rich natural resources.” He rapped his walking stick on the desk. “You will meet him and charm him, my daughter, because your papá and your Queen demand it.”

  She didn’t respond, afraid of what she might say.

  The Duke sat, his expression unaffected. “I take it by your silence you do not like my plan. You were ever an ungrateful, horrible thing. I’m your father, child, and though I’ve gone to every length to provide for you and teach you, yet you still think me a monster. You think you know better.” His voice rose higher in pitch as he spoke.

  “I’m sorry, papá, it’s just that this announcement surprised me,” she said. “Might I have time to consider?” Veronica hated how meek and pleading her voice sounded as she made the request. One she should’ve known better to make, but the words left her mouth before she could stop them.

  “Consider?” His tone was soft, dark.

  She wanted to retrieve her words, snatch them from his memory. Of course, she’d never be given a choice.

  He leaned forward and said softly, “Do you wish to continue funding Bridges?”

  She shrank in her chair.

  “Her Majesty approves of the endeavor, one that keeps those rats off of the streets, or I would’ve long ago stopped payments. Still, I don’t believe Victoria will mind anything I chose to do, now that I’ve arranged this profitable new alliance.”

  Her children. She should’ve known he would threaten Bridges eventually, but with the Queen’s constant praise of the place, Veronica thought it safe. She felt dizzy. “I apologize for my question, it was impertinent. You know what’s best for me, of course. Who’s this prince? Why haven’t I heard of him?”

  He began writing a letter and did not look up as he replied impatiently. “He’s former landed gentry in Sombor and the man who fought his way to the throne. He was crowned last year. You’re to treat him with the respect due a solider of his caliber.”

  She swallowed against the bile rising in her throat and thought of all the men she’d met at court. Her papá was forcing her to marry one like them—privileged, entitled, narcissistic. And obviously underhanded and violent, if he’d just staged a coup d’état. She knew this day might come. Veronica couldn’t, after all, scare off every single man her father tossed her way. But she hadn’t expected marriage to a complete stranger, a foreigner. She should know better by now to expect the very worst when called in to speak to the Duke. He was always several moves ahead of her, always plotting, always strategizing. He never lost ground, least of all to his own daughter.

  “Tonight. Almacks. The queen and I will be there. Have that ridiculous gearman take you and don’t be late.”

  “You? You’re going to a ball?” She’d never heard of such a thing. Her papá did not care to deal with the public and found balls in particular to be a hideous waste of time.

  He began flipping through the journal again, his shuttered face declaring the conversation finished. She rose from her chair with measured grace and left the room.

  Once she shut the study doors, Veronica lifted her skirts and ran. She didn’t stop until she’d reached her room and locked herself in. She wrapped a blanket around her entire body and shivered.

  The time had come. Instead of a domestic alliance, her papá made an international one. What could she do now? The contracts were signed, and Bridges was at stake. She loved her orphans with an unmatched ferocity. The slight, desperate little girls who clung to her each time she read them a story; the bony, scrapping boys who begged her to tell them of the heroics of the Eidolon. If Bridges closed, they’d be turned out on the street again only to be collected back to the factories by Grillet’s men. Most of them wouldn’t survive such torture for a second time—it would crush the tender spirits she’d worked tirelessly to repair.

  She dropped the blanket, too restless to sit. She clasped her hands behind her back and paced erratically. Her papá couldn’t mean to ship her off to Sombor with the Prince right away. They’d most likely be here tied up posting banns and planning the wedding for several months.

  She would stall as long as she could. There had to be a way to save Bridges. Get it out from under papá’s thumb. She needed funds.

  Think, Veronica.

  Her chest burned with each breath. Veronica had spent a lifetime enacting a farce, playing the dutiful daughter. She could do it again as a fiancé. In the meantime, she’d find the means to save the only good thing she’d ever done. Even if she had to beg, borrow or steal from those too blind to see the price of their way of life.

  Chapter Three

  Two days before

  “Emil, why in heavens name are we speeding toward London, and therefore my impending demise? Can’t we take a few moments to enjoy the … open air?” Prince Durad spread his arms in a wide gesture from his stance on the deck, encompassing the enormous storm cloud bearing down on the lightweight frigate. They were high above the open plains of Sombor in Emil’s own vessel, The Hırsız.

  Emil smiled beneath his scarf. It was endearing to see that even after so long, Durad still hadn’t overcome his fear of flying. Though Durad hadn’t ever confided to Emil the reason for his fear, Emil suspected it had something to do with their time in the factories.

  Now, however, Emil thought the recurrence of this “fear” might have more to do with his friend’s upcoming nuptials.

  “If you want to spend the night being tossed about like the Vizier’s name in a house of ill repute, then of course, your Highness, I’ll do precisely as you wish. Stall, take the low skies.” He tossed a small coin up into the air, one of no value any longer in Sombor, and caught it behind his back. “But don’t forget, the sooner you bag the biddy, the sooner we get paid.”

  “Bag the biddy? Get paid? I’m the one who has to…”

  “Careful, Highness, you wouldn’t want to speak badly of the woman you chose to love, honor and cherish.”

  “I did no such thing.” Durad stalked toward Emil. “And you are not getting a single coin from my—”

  “Dowry?” Emil said. “Now I could never accept such a generous offer, even when I am obviously providing you with such an invaluable service. Not to mention the country I stole for you.” He stepped up to the helm of the ship, waiving away one of his officers.

  “S … stole!” Durad sputtered.

  “More speed!” Emil said into the compiece, his voice carrying through his scarf and the winds that now wrapped the frigate on all sides as though they meant to surround her at once and fling her to the earth. The crew was calml
y securing the loose items on deck and tying up the smaller sails. They were used to their mad captain’s orders—few would sail into such a gale. Of course, that was one of the first tests all of them faced. Emil couldn’t have weak-minded sissies in his employ. He quite liked his crew at the moment. They were all ragtag, rough looking and insane.

  Emil turned to Durad and shouted. “It’s time for the pretty fiancé to take himself down below. Get to my quarters and latch the door. Move!” He couldn’t be risking his friend’s royal neck, now could he? Even if Emil had complete confidence in his ability, and that of his crew, to navigate the riskiest of weather.

  Durad reached out and wrapped one of the safety lines around his waist, securing it with an expert hand. In spite of the color bleaching out of his face, he grinned. “If it’s all the same to you, Emil, I’d like to have one last adventure before I’m wed. Carry on.”

  Emil let go of the helm with one hand and yanked on the prince’s line. This impractical soul, one always game for adventure, was the friend he’d missed. A year had passed since Emil left Durad, left Sombor. A year since the prince had broken his promise to Emil to fan the embers of change through the industrial world.

  Gads but Durad had been castrated. What happened to the feckless youth who’d charged the Ottoman’s line with a handful of men? He became captain, then general as he challenged the old, frightened regime. He led an insignificant country to win its independence from an empire barreling its way through Europe like a juggernaut.

  Yet once the crown set securely atop his head, it pulled him, dragged at him like an anchor. He hesitated, worried that he couldn’t be what his people needed. Abandoned the cause that fired Emil and Durad from their youth. He’d betrayed Emil, their shared past, all they stood for.

  Now, Emil returned to a Durad he barely knew. One who paled and sweated at the idea of an arranged marriage. He-who-once-inspired-thousands. It was preposterous.