CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 4
"'Tis not the done thing," Lady Letty pronounced, "to go to a ball in a jingle."
"It was the cheapest conveyance they had," Jessalyn said, for what felt like the hundredth time. "You told me to rent the cheapest they had."
The small two-wheeled pony-drawn cart swayed and jolted down the lane. It carried Jessalyn, her grandmother, and the serving girl, Becka Poole, to Larkhaven for Cornwall's social event of the year—Henry Tiltwell's Midsummer's Day house party.
"One must arrive in style, gel," Lady Letty said, unwilling to let the matter drop. "In style. I cannot for the life of me imagine what you were thinking of to rent a jingle. A jingle! 'Tain't the done thing. Never has been, never will be—"
The cart gave a sudden, violent lurch. Lady Letty grunted, one hand grabbing for the seat, the other clutching her lace cap. She directed a fierce scowl at her granddaughter, who had charge of the ribbons. "Really, gel, must you search out every bump and rut in the road? My teeth are clacking together like a pair of Spanish castanets."
"I'm that sorry, Gram," Jessalyn said, trying hard not to laugh. "I shall endeavor to steer a smoother course."
Poor Becka Poole, who sat in the back with her legs dangling over the tail, was getting the worst of it. She moaned loudly, rubbing her bottom. "God's me life! I'll be sleepin' on me stomach this night, I tell ee. Sich bruises do I have on me dairy-air."
Jessalyn exchanged astonished glances with her grandmother.
"That be an eddicated word, Miss Jessalyn," Becka said, leaning backward to impart this information. "I learnt it from that mountebank what sold me the toothache powder. A furrin word. 'Tes what them Frenchies say when they have a need to speak of their arses, but tes more politelike, see? Dairy-air."
Lady Letty snorted loudly and took a pinch of snuff.
Sucking on her cheeks to hide a smile, Jessalyn looked at the passing countryside. Not that she was able to see much over the hedge of herringboned stone, which had moss growing along the top of it like close-cropped hair. She wanted to laugh aloud in her happiness. She was going to her first real house party. There would be music and dancing and... maybe him. Her stomach clenched around a strange knot of fear and excitement at the thought.
They turned onto a private road, and immediately the ruts disappeared, as if smoothed by a giant's palm. Through the elms and sycamores that lined the way, Jessalyn caught glimpses of the chimneys and gables of Larkhaven. They joined a serpentine of other carriages and coaches, Lady Letty fussing all the while about jingles, balls, and done things.
A broad green expanse of shaven turf and a neatly raked gravel drive led up to sweeping front steps. Larkhaven was an enormous square granite and slate mansion with columns made of purple stone flanking the entrance and a pavilion at each corner. It looked as though it ought to shelter at least a duke, but the man who owned it was the son of a tutworker. And all the world knew that no matter how much money Henry Tiltwell acquired, no matter how grand a house he built, blood told and birth would always matter.
Still, Henry Tiltwell had such financial power that few in Cornwall felt secure enough, or rich enough, to ignore a summons to Larkhaven. Even if it was couched in the form of an invitation to a party.
Jessalyn and her grandmother were met at the front door by a liveried servant and led up a white marble staircase with gilt-bronze balustrades. The house was said to have more than thirty bedrooms. To underscore Henry Tiltwell's opinion of where the Lettys stood in his social order— which was old name, but no money and even less influence —Jessalyn and her grandmother were given a pair of tiny adjoining rooms just under the eaves. Jessalyn's room smelled of camphor balls, but a velvet curtain had been hung over the door to keep out drafts. A truckle bed and a dressing table with an oval looking glass mounted on brass swivels constituted the only furnishings.
As soon as she was alone, Jessalyn removed a glass jar that she had secreted at the bottom of her reticule. She had purchased it at the apothecary's shop just that morning. The concoction, the man had assured her, was guaranteed to bleach away freckles. Humming a tinner's ditty, she sat at the dressing table and applied the gooey mixture to her face.
The paste, made of barley flour, crushed almonds, and honey, hardened as soon as it was exposed to the air. After a couple of minutes the mask began to itch. Mildly at first. Then almost unbearably. But the apothecary had told her to leave it on at least half an hour.
To take her mind off her itching face, Jessalyn went to the tiny dormer window. She had to get on her knees to look out, so low was the room's slanting ceiling. Through the glazed panes, she could hear the throb of a pump, like a heartbeat. She threw up the sash for a better view. If she leaned out, she could just see the top of the brick enginehouse and the round, smoke-belching chimney of the tin mine called Wheal Charlotte.
A bell began to clang, signaling the change of cores. A group of miners, their clothes stained with mud and clay, straggled over the top of the hill, meeting those going down for the next shift. Two men walked apart from the rest, following the rails of the tramroad that led from the mine down to Penzance Harbor. Clarence Tiltwell and his scapegrace Trelawny cousin. She wondered if they had been doing some sort of rough work, for both were in shirtsleeves and hatless. Clarence's close-cropped blond curls cupped his head like a gilded helmet. His cousin's dark brown hair, unfashionably long, blew in the wind.
They turned toward the house, and as they drew closer, she could hear the tone of their voices, though not the words. There was a sense of barely suppressed excitement between them, as if they shared a secret. Clarence slapped his cousin on the back, and the man threw back his head and laughed.
Trying to hear what they were saying, she leaned over as they passed beneath her. Her elbow nudged loose a slate. She lunged to catch the slate and fell forward onto her chest, sliding out the window with a loud rip of corded muslin. Out the corner of her eye she saw something projecting from the roof, and she made a wild grab for it.
Several slates landed with a splintering crash on the brick walk below. Two masculine heads, one fair and one dark, looked up. Jessalyn lay, half in, half out the window, clinging for dear life to the snout of a gargoyle.
For a moment they simply stared at her, and Jessalyn couldn't decide whether she wanted to laugh or to die. She glanced down, hoping at least that some bosom might be spilling provocatively out of her modest tucker.
The Trelawny man's face broke into that dimpled, boyish smile. "I say, cousin," he drawled, "you certainly have big larks here at Larkhaven."
Jessalyn laughed... and felt her face crack.
Downstairs the party had begun. The hum of distant music vibrated the floorboards beneath her feet. Laughing, Jessalyn spun around on her toes, making her skirt bell out.
Her one and only good dress was, the mantua-maker had assured her, quite the latest thing. It had a waist so high it ended just beneath her breasts and tiny puffed sleeves. It was made of the palest green tulle over a slip of jade-colored satin and had lace-trimmed flounces going halfway up the skirt. She twisted her neck, trying to see all of herself in the dressing table's small looking glass. She only hoped so much green didn't make her look like a stalk of asparagus.
The dress had been made for the occasion of her birthday four months ago, and already it was a little short. She sighed. If only she would stop growing. Or at least start growing in more appropriate places.
With some of the saddle horse money Jessalyn had, at her grandmother's urging, purchased a pair of white satin slippers that fastened with ribbons around her ankles and evening gloves of soft limerick. In a chest in End Cottage's attic, she had found a fan made of white crepe and a silver beaded reticule. Gram had forbidden her to use carmine powder, so she had rouged her cheeks and lips with red tea leaves instead and had darkened her brows with a bit of burned cork. She brushed her hair until it had a gloss like japanned leather. Now, standing in the middle of her room, she felt almost breathless with anticipation and excitement.
She went next door to fetch her grandmother, only to be told by Becka that Lady Letty had already gone down. Jessalyn took the narrow wooden stairs to the next landing, where the more important guests were sleeping. She glided along the Oriental runner that graced the wide hall, feeling like a countess.
At a jog in the hall she came upon a looking glass above a pier table that supported a tulip-shaped pink and white Wedgwood vase. Caught by her own reflection, she paused.
She unfurled her fan, covering half her face with the white crepe leaves. The effect, she thought, made her look exotic and mysterious.
Lady Letty had told her that there was an etiquette, almost an art, to handling a fan. There was, for instance, the Refusal Look. Jessalyn narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, screwing her face into the way she imagined such a look would be. Then there was the Lingering Look—calculated to invite but not embolden. She wriggled her brows and blinked her lashes. No, that didn't seem quite right. She opened her eyes wide and tilted her head, first to the left, then to the right.
A harsh face with dark, flaring brows appeared in the looking glass over her shoulder. She let out a tiny shriek and whirled, and her elbow sent the pink and white Wedgwood vase tumbling.
He caught it within inches of its smashing on the floor. He straightened slowly and, his gaze locking with hers, set the vase back on its perch. He looked dashing in his regimentals—a cherry red coat with gold cuffs and collar and full, lacy cravat. Dull gold epaulets enhanced the broadness of his shoulders. His cream-colored pantaloons were so tight she wondered how he sat ahorse in them.
"Are you ill, Miss Letty?"
Jessalyn was still lost in staring at his splendid magnificence "Ill?"
"You were making such horrid faces I thought you might be in pain."
She sucked in a deep breath, recovering her wits. "It was quite rude of you to sneak up on me like that."
He performed a mocking half bow. "I humbly beg your pardon. Next time I'll have a fife and drum announce me."
He looked her over, not bothering to hide the fact that he was judging her as a man was wont to judge a woman. She waited, in spite of herself, for his compliment.
Instead he leaned toward her and sniffed at the air. "What is that smell?"
"What?"
"Almonds." He dipped his head toward her neck. "Almonds and honey."
Her hands flew up to cover her cheeks. "Oh, blast. It's that odious paste I put on my face. Do I stink?"
"On the contrary, Miss Letty. You smell quite edible." Somehow her arm had become linked through his, and he was leading her down the hall toward the white marble staircase. "Although I must confess when I saw you falling out the window earlier, I thought you were a mummer hired to give us entertainment after supper. But tell me, why do you smear almonds and honey on your face—unless it's to attract bees? Aren't you afraid of getting stung?"
There seemed to be a current beneath his words, a deeper meaning she couldn't fathom. He sounded almost angry. "I was trying to rid myself of these wretched freckles," she said.
He pulled her to a stop on one of the steps. Cupping her chin, he tilted her face up. He rubbed his thumb along the length of her cheekbone, stroking, back and forth. "They're still there," he said, his voice low and soft.
She felt his touch all the way down to her toes. Somewhere in another world the band was playing a quadrille; somewhere in another world people were laughing and talking. But in her world there was only the incredible sensation of his silk-gloved thumb caressing her skin.
"Leave them be, Miss Letty. Perfection is boring."
She became lost in the deep wells of darkness that were his eyes. In that moment, if he had asked, she would have given him her heart wrapped with a silver bow. Even if he only meant to break it.
His hand fell from her face. He took her arm, turning her. Together they looked down the stairs to the great hall below, where Henry Tiltwell stood with his hands fisted at his sides and a look of fury on his face.
"He wasn't invited," Lady Letty said. "But he came anyway. Cheeky devil. The Trelawnys have always been cheeky devils."
She flicked open her snuffbox with a crooked finger and took a pinch of Queen Charlotte's mixture. Tonight she carried one of her favorite boxes, of silver plate with a large piece of cut glass on the lid that twinkled like a ruby.
Jessalyn waited until her grandmother had sneezed into a handkerchief. "Why not?" she asked. "Why wasn't he invited?"
"What a sad crush. We had better park ourselves," Lady Letty announced, "before all the best seats are taken."
Because of the festive occasion, Lady Letty had donned a voluminous white cap decorated with love knots and trailing lappets. In her stiff black bombazine skirts she looked like a coal scuttle under full sail. She set a direct course for one of the few chairs that lined the wall, Jessalyn following in her wake.
"Why wouldn't Mr. Tiltwell invite his own nephew to his party?" Jessalyn said as soon as her grandmother was settled.
"There was a breach between the two families, oh, years ago. But the reasons for the feud are a story too scandalous for your tender ears." Lady Letty frowned and cupped a hand to her own ear. "What's that they're playing, eh? It had better not be a waltz. I shan't let you dance one of those scandalous waltzes."
Jessalyn sighed, but she knew better than to press. For all that she loved to gossip, Gram could be as closemouthed as a clam with lockjaw when she put her mind to it. And as for dancing, well, someone had to ask her first.
Jessalyn flapped her fan in front of her face. The air smelled and felt like a hothouse in July, with so many perfumes and hundreds of beeswax candles burning in the chandeliers. Talk and laughter and the clicking of snuffboxes nearly drowned out the strains of a minuet. Vast pier glasses, set between lofty windows, reflected back the sheen of satin and silk and the sparkle of jewels. The room seemed all mirrors and silvered walls.
That Trelawny man, who hadn't been invited, leaned against a fluted pillar, a thumb hooked on his fob pocket and a sulky look about his mouth. She tried not to stare at him.
She looked for Clarence but didn't see him. Clarence's father, Mr. Henry Tiltwell, moved about the room with ponderous dignity, greeting his guests. He had thick brows that grew like hedgerows across his forehead and a jutting bottom lip. He was a short, thickset man, and in his white breeches and yellow waistcoat he reminded Jessalyn of a boiled egg. He kept casting dagger looks at his nephew, who hadn't been invited. But who had come anyway.
A woman walked by, giving them the sort of smile one presents to strangers one thinks one ought to know. The paint on her face was so thick it looked enameled. A false eyebrow, whose glue had come loose in the heat, was migrating up her forehead.
Lady Letty pointed to the woman. "That fool has a caterpillar crawling about her face. You'd think someone would tell her."
"I believe that is an eyebrow, Gram."
"All the more reason to tell her, eh? If she's losing her eyebrows." Lady Letty raised her cane, and Jessalyn had the horrible thought that her grandmother was going to hail the woman with the wayward brow, but what she did do was even worse. "You there, Trelawny! Quit skulking about and come over here, you rakeshame."
He pushed himself off the pillar and sauntered toward them. Even with his limp he moved, Jessalyn thought, like a lazy cat on a hot day.
He bowed over her grandmother's hand. "Upon my soul, it's Lady Letty. I thought at first that my eyes had alighted on a figure of royalty, at the very least a duchess, so regal did you seem, sitting over here and holding court. All you lack is a tiara and a bit of something trimmed in ermine."
Lady Letty directed a fierce scowl up at him. "Don't talk such fustian with me, boy. I don't like it." She raised her quizzing glass to her eye and looked him slowly up and down as if she were judging the horseflesh at an auction. "The last time I saw you, you were but a sapling. You've grown up. But I tell myself it is a rotted pea that comes from a rotted pod. Are you rotten, boy?"
A tight smile thinned his lips. "All the way through to my black heart."
To Jessalyn's astonishment this answer seemed to please Lady Letty, for she snorted a laugh. "Nevertheless," she said, "in spite of your wicked reputation, I shall permit you to dance with my granddaughter."
After the briefest hesitation he turned slightly and bowed in Jessalyn's direction. As he straightened, his eyes fastened on to her face, and something stirred within their dark depths, like a dragon dwelling deep in a cave just coming awake. Her legs trembled, wanting to flee, but her heart and mind were drawn into that cave to discover for herself the nature of the sleeping beast.
His arm settled around her waist, and Jessalyn's every muscle tensed as she fought off a shudder. She spoke to the brass buttons on his coat. "My grandmother doesn't mean half of what she says. She likes to shock people."
"So do I," he said. His palm pressed into her back, guiding her in a dipping, sweeping circle, and that shivery, hollow feeling gripped her stomach again. "And so, I think, do you. Perhaps we ought to form a club and take subscriptions. We can call ourselves the Dishonorable Society to Alleviate Boredom and Complacency."
She had no hope of matching words with him, so she didn't even try. She was excited just to be dancing. She wondered if Lady Letty had realized the band was playing one of those scandalous waltzes. Jessalyn had often practiced the steps by dancing with a broom. But a broom didn't have legs and feet, and his kept getting in her way.
She stumbled over his boot, causing them to miss a step. "Blast it," she exclaimed beneath her breath.
"They behave better when you aren't watching them."
She couldn't imagine what he meant; then she realized he was talking about her feet. She tried not to look down. But the only other place to look, besides at him, was up. A three-tiered crystal chandelier fringed in gold hung above their heads from a ceiling rose decorated with grapevines and plump, pink-bottomed cherubs. The ceiling was festooned with so many scrolls and rosettes it reminded her of a cheese and raspberry torte. Just looking at it made her dizzy.
Her gaze fell to his face, and she blinked as the room spun around her, momentarily out of control. His expression was politely blank, but his gaze was fastened on to her face again, on her mouth, and it seemed as if he stroked her lips with the heat of his eyes. She looked away.
He was nearly half a head taller than she. Even Clarence, whom she'd always thought of as tall, did not match his height. Although he tried to hide it, she could tell his leg pained him with every step. "That is a terrible wound you bear," she said, and then felt her face grow hot as she remembered the circumstances under which she had seen it.
His arm tightened around her waist, gathering her closer. For a moment his thigh pressed between her legs and she actually felt its hardness and its heat, and then he took another step and they parted. She stumbled again. "How—how did it happen?" she asked.
"I was careless."
"Oh. But I thought it must have happened at Waterloo."
"How perceptive of you."
Another flush spread over her face. His hand burned into her back, and the room was much too hot. Her chest felt tight, as if she couldn't draw a deep enough breath. "I did not mean to pry," she finally managed. "I am sure it is an honorable wound you bear. Your cousin told me last night of how you rallied your men when they were breaking and led them on a renewed charge of the enemy. It was an excessively brave thing to do."
"It was an excessively stupid thing to do. I got them all killed and nearly killed myself while I was about it. Do let us change the subject, Miss Letty."
That wasn't what Clarence had said. Clarence had told her that his cousin's heroic stand had saved the day for his regiment at Waterloo. The king and Parliament had cited him for his bravery.
Her gaze went back to his face. The lace at his throat emphasized the masculine harshness of his features. Shadows stirred again behind the flatness of his dark eyes. She searched for a new topic of conversation. She longed to be able to dazzle him with some witty remark about the weather or the company. What she said was: "Will you be in Cornwall long, Captain Trelawny?"
"I am grateful for the promotion. However, as it is a capital crime to impersonate a superior officer, I am obliged to confess to being a mere lieutenant. Are you disappointed?"
"Devastated. But doubtless you shall be made a captain soon."
"Not unless you have sixteen hundred pounds to lend me so that I might purchase the commission."
She started to laugh, then smothered it with her lips, so that it came out more of a snort. "Don't be a silly goose," she said.
"Do I take it from that profound remark that you are refusing me a loan? Then I fear that I am doomed to remain the oldest lieutenant in His Majesty's army."
"Are you poor?"
His face broke into a dazzling smile. "Wretchedly so."
She floated, lost in the music and the feel of his arm around her waist, lost in his smile. "So am I. Poor, that is."
"What a pity. For I do believe that were you an heiress, silly goose that I am, I just might be inclined to marry you."
He was not being serious. Of course, he wasn't being serious. But even to jest about such a thing sent her heart diving and soaring like the gulls at Crookneck Cove.
He did not ask her to dance again. She stood up only twice more, both times with Clarence Tiltwell. She watched him while she danced and while she drank a glass of effervescent lemon with her grandmother afterward. He spent most of the time talking with the same petite gilt-haired girl. Once he threw back his head and laughed, and Jessalyn felt an odd hollowness in her stomach, as if she'd just been told a sad story. Selina Alcott was the girl's name, and she had curves and she had money. He was not such a silly goose after all.
Lady Letty followed the direction of her granddaughter's gaze. "Good looks, an earldom in his future, and a witty tongue in his head—a thoroughly dangerous combination. I'm thinking I ought to lock you up for the summer."
"He doesn't like me. He teases."
"M'dear, when a man like him teases a gel, 'tis long before time that she should think about running in the other direction." Lady Letty reached for her cane, pushing herself to her feet. "There's got to be a faro bank going somewhere around here. I feel like taking a plunge."
The green baize card tables had been set up in a nearby room. Jessalyn stood beside her grandmother's chair and watched her lose what was left of the saddle horse money, playing a wild game of faro for ruinous stakes. She kept one eye on the open door to the drawing room, where the dancers whirled by to the muted scraping of the band. She did not see Lieutenant Trelawny again.
After a light refreshment of heart cakes and syllabubs, Jessalyn joined several of the other guests who had strolled out into the terraced gardens to watch the sun set. Chinese lanterns lit up graveled paths that meandered through clipped shrubberies and flowers arranged geometrically in beds. Weeping willows shivered in the breeze, and the larks, from which the house got its name, lightened the evening with their song. It all seemed so tidy, so perfect that Jessalyn felt a rebellious desire to sneak over one dark night and plant a gorse bush among the daffodils.
Some sort of commotion was happening on top of the hill before Wheal Charlotte, and Jessalyn walked up to see what it was. What she saw made her laugh aloud with delight.
A locomotive sat huffing and wheezing on the tramway outside the mine house. The cone-shaped boiler, bolted to a frame in the shape of a wagon bed, looked like a big yellow sugar loaf. Its wheels, too, had been gaily painted: a poppy red for the rims, a Prussian blue for the spokes. A tall black funnel, with a lid fluted like a piecrust, burped steam. There was nothing neat and tidy about it. It belched smoke and made rude noises; it had no respect for the proper conventions. Jessalyn thought it the most marvelous thing she'd ever seen.
Henry Tiltwell did not share her enthusiasm. He climbed the hill, huffing worse than the locomotive. He spotted his son standing beside the engine, and he advanced on him, his face mottled with rage. "Clarence! What nonsense is this?"
Clarence paled slightly before his father's anger. "We thought... that is, Mack and I thought..."
"To do a small demonstration, if you will." Lieutenant Trelawny emerged from behind the locomotive. He was in his shirtsleeves, and he carried an oil can in his hand. His dark, piercing gaze met everyone's eyes in turn, and when he spoke, it was not only to Henry Tiltwell but to all the men there with the power and influence and money to make a reality out of an inventor's dream. Or to kill it through skepticism and ridicule.
"To get your tin ore from the pitheads to the nearest blowing house for smelting," he said, "you mineowners are constantly transporting heavy loads. But pit ponies and mules wear out, and fodder is expensive. What you see here before you is a cheaper and more efficient method. Steam locomotion—an engine capable of generating mechanical power from thermal energy. A single locomotive like this could pull five cartloads of tin from here to Penzance in less than an hour." He had lost the sneering drawl he normally affected. Excitement and a vision shone in his voice and on his face.
Mr. Tiltwell hawked a scornful laugh. "An iron horse, eh? An iron horse!" He looked around at his guests, inviting them to share in his joke. "Didn't I hear of just such a thing up in Wales a few years back? It blew itself to pieces, so they said. Killed four men, it did. They said 'twas like soldering the lid onto a pot of boiling water. It blew so high they heard it nigh up in Chester." Again he laughed.
A muscle ticked once in Lieutenant Trelawny's jaw, but his voice remained steady. "That was an earlier version. The design has been improved since then, including the fitting of two safety valves instead of one." He paused, drawing in a deep breath, and suddenly to Jessalyn's eyes he looked young and vulnerable. He was laying himself open to ridicule and hurt, and he knew, even as he was doing so, that he was likely to get it.
Clarence cleared his throat. "Why can't you at least let him show us, Father?"
Mr. Tiltwell turned on his son. "You shut your clack! I hold you responsible for his being here in the first place." He flung a stiff finger at the locomotive. "And as for this— this belching monster, the only thing it is capable of demonstrating is a singular ability to ruin my crops and scare the livestock. You mark if there will be a cow within miles giving milk in the morning."
He aimed a venomous look at his son that promised trouble later. Clarence flushed and looked away.
As if indifferent to the storm raging around him, Lieutenant Trelawny had jumped onto the steam engine to shovel more coal into the firebox. Henry Tiltwell started forward. Then, as if remembering his own dire predictions, he took a hasty step back. "This is my land, my tramway. I forbid this spectacle. Do you hear me? I forbid it!"
He was shouted down by several of the guests. Having heard about the iron horse that had blown up in Wales, they now hoped to be witness to a similar gruesome exhibition.
Jessalyn was the only one to step up for a closer look at the invention. The frame for the boiler was made of wood strengthened by iron plates. It rested on two large wheels in front and two much smaller wheels in back. To her eyes, the engine seemed a tangled coil of metal tubes and pipes. Hitched to the locomotive, like a cart to a pony, was a tender loaded with wicker baskets of coal and a big water barrel.
The boiler began to sing as it raised more steam. It hissed and breathed as if it were alive, and steam issued from every joint like sweat. It swayed and shuddered on the tramway tracks like a great beast gathering itself to spring. Jessalyn stared at the man who had created the beast, fascinated by the way the sweat stood out on his face and the muscles of his arms and back bunched and flexed beneath his thin lawn shirt as he heaved coal into the glowing red mouth of the firebox. She could not imagine an earl's son engaging in such rough manual labor. Her grandmother, she knew, would be scandalized, yet for some reason the sight excited her.
She called up to him. "I should like to come along with you, Lieutenant Trelawny."
He turned and looked down, and their gazes met. A passionate heat blazed in his eyes, brighter than the fire he stoked. She knew his own excitement had nothing to do with her, but Jessalyn felt weightless suddenly, as if she had just stepped off a cliff and discovered that she could fly.
He slammed the damper shut with a clang and jumped down in front of her. "This is not a merry-go-round."
He had rolled up his sleeves above his elbow, and sweat glistened on the skin of his forearms. The wind pressed his shirt against his chest and ruffled the lace at his throat. She wanted to touch him, though she wasn't sure in what way. Just touch him.
"You claim that it's safe," she said. "What better way to prove it?"
"Miss Letty, young ladies do not ride on locomotives."
"Why not? Who says so? We ride on horses and drive in carriages. I drove a jingle this afternoon, even though Gram said it wasn't quite the done thing. Please, Lieutenant Trelawny. I would consider it an honor to ride on your splendid machine."
He stared down at her, his mouth hard. He drew in a sudden, sharp breath. "I ought to be kicked from here to London for doing this. You won't thank me for it later, you know." His hands fell around her waist, and he lifted her onto the footplate, coming up after her. "Don't touch the back of the firebox," he warned. "It's hot."
"Jessalyn!" Clarence came striding toward them. "What are you doing? Mack, you can't possibly allow her to—"
Henry Tiltwell slammed a heavy palm into his son's chest. "Let her go with him if she wants. This nonsense was your idea, boy. And it's her neck."
"Jessalyn, come down from there this instant," Clarence commanded, although he had stopped behind the barrier of his father's hand.
Jessalyn pretended not to hear him. The engine vibrated beneath her feet, making her belly tingle. There was life within this monster that breathed and shuddered and trembled, a life that had sprung directly from the heart and mind of the man beside her.
He was studying a pair of dials on the boiler. She leaned over his shoulder, and the wind blew his hair against her neck. "This one is not likely to explode, is it?" she asked, only half teasing.
He glanced sideways at her, bringing their faces closer together. His lips twisted into a wry smile, and she felt her mouth break into a wide grin, heard herself giggle. It was as if she were two Jessalyns: the girl who stood before this strange man, breathless, her heart fluttering with fear and excitement, and the wiser girl, watching from a distance and seeing what a fool she was making of herself, what a child he must think her to be.
"Are you getting cold feet?" he asked.
Actually her feet were becoming quite warm. The metal footplate absorbed heat from the firebox, so that it was like standing on top of a sizzling frypan.
"What you saw that day was an experiment for a steam-powered road carriage," he said. "This is different. This time I know what I'm doing."
"I am relieved to hear it. I wouldn't want to meet my end as little bits and pieces strewn along Mr. Tiltwell's tramway."
He laughed, and she felt the heat of his breath against her cheek. There was not much room on the tiny footplate. Every time one of them moved, their bodies would touch: Hip would rub against hip; her shoulder would brush his arm; his thigh would press against her bottom. She was so very aware of him. Of his smell: grease and soot and male sweat. Of the hard strength of his man's body where it touched hers. Of the fire burning in his dark eyes, revealing the brain behind the power that throbbed and pulsed around them.
She stared up into his face. She couldn't understand why, but the sight of him made her chest hurt. "How does it work?"
"Well, to put it simply—"
"Very simply, please," she said, laughing.
"Very simply then. The water in the boiler is heated until it produces steam. The steam from the boiler is admitted into the cylinders." He pointed to one of a matching pair of fat tubes bolted to the boiler. "When the steam enters the cylinder, it expands, pushing the piston—a thick bar, sort of like a hammer—which moves the rod, there"—he pointed at an iron arm that ran from the cylinder to one of the big front wheels—"which turns the driving wheel."
She lifted her smiling mouth and bright eyes up to his. "It's wonderful!"
A dark flush stained his cheekbones. She thought it odd that he would be embarrassed, but perhaps he had received little praise in his life. "The spent steam escapes through the chimney stack into the air," he finished, his gaze averted now from hers.
He reached for a metal lever, and his bare arm pressed against her breast. The monster sucked and breathed around them while Jessalyn stood motionless, unable to breathe at all.
He jerked back as if he'd just brushed against the hot metal of the firebox, and Jessalyn's own flesh burned where he had touched her.
"Perhaps it would be better if you rode in the tender," he said, his voice rough.
Before she could object, he lifted her into the car behind them. She found a place to stand between the baskets of coal and the water butt. He depressed a pedal with his right foot, while pulling on a metal pin and releasing a lever with his left hand. The smokestack huffed and puffed, blowing steam into the air. The pistons slid through the cylinders with hammerlike thuds, and the great beast came truly alive.
The locomotive lurched forward, thumping and hopping like a giant locust. Puffing and grunting and snorting, it clattered along the iron tracks toward a setting sun that cast pink shadows across ripening fields of barley and wheat. The steady thrust, thrust, thrust of the piston seemed to enter Jessalyn's blood until her heart beat along with the pulsing engine. She clutched her hat to keep it from being snatched away by the wind, and she laughed out loud. She knew she had galloped faster many times, but riding a horse had never been like this. This was the only thing man had invented that moved itself.
She saw the stone walls of Larkhaven through billows of steam. She thought she spotted her grandmother on the terrace, but they were already past it before she had time to wave. They crested a hill, then lumbered along the down-slope, picking up speed. At the base of the hill the rails cut across a small lane. Straddling the tracks, like a fat brooding hen, was a cart stacked high with hay. A farmer stood beside his balking mule, his mouth open in a perfect O of horror.
Lieutenant Trelawny bellowed at him to move his bloody arse. The farmer remained frozen a moment longer, then brought a stick down hard over the back of the mule. The mule didn't budge.
Jessalyn leaned over and shouted to be heard above the infernal clanking of the engine. "Perhaps we had better stop!"
"We can't!" he shouted back at her.
"What?"
"There aren't any brakes!"
Dear life... She covered her face with her hands. But not seeing was worse than seeing. She peeked through her fingers. The mule pricked its ears and took a step. The cart jerked forward. Very slowly. The locomotive tore along the rails, blowing smoke and roaring like a lunatic dragon.
The cart had not quite cleared the tracks when they hit it. The blunt nose of the locomotive clipped the very end of the wagonload of hay, and the world turned into a swirling, dusty yellow cloud.
The collision didn't faze the locomotive; it lurched and chugged along the rails without a pause. Jessalyn looked back over her shoulder, laughing and plucking bits of hay from her hair and eyes.
Suddenly the locomotive gave a wild lurch, bucking like an unbroken colt. A grinding screech ripped through the air. Jessalyn heard him cry "Hang on!" But the warning came too late, for she was already flying through the air.
Blue sky, green fields, and brown earth came at her in a whirl of color, reminding her of the merry-go-round.
Until she slammed hard into the ground and the world went black.