Full Steam Ahead

  The woman kept her voice carefully neutral, but after the way she’d gone on about having company, Nicole would’ve had to be dreadfully thickheaded not to guess the correct response. “I’d be delighted to join you and your husband in the kitchen, Mrs. Wellborn. If you’ll have me. I can’t imagine anything more unappetizing than eating alone in the dining room.”

  “Splendid!” The housekeeper beamed. “I’ll set another place.” She bustled out of the room with the same energetic spirit she’d entered with earlier, leaving Nicole smiling in her wake as the door clicked closed.

  Should the eccentric Mr. Thornton ever decide to sup in the dining room, her family’s status as well as her professional position in the Oakhaven household would demand that she dine in his company, but until then, she’d gladly take her meals with the amiable Mrs. Wellborn and her taciturn husband.

  First, however, she had to find a secure place to hide her dagger. Propping her foot against the bedpost, Nicole reached beneath her burgundy skirts and unstrapped the sheath. A sigh of pleasure passed her lips at the removal of the bulky weight. Her fingertips ran over the reddened skin where the hilt had rubbed against her thigh. She winced a bit at the sting. Obviously, she wouldn’t be able to wear her own blade for a few days if she wanted the area to heal. But since transcribing logbooks was a fairly innocuous occupation, she didn’t expect to need it.

  The Jenkins threat still hung over her head, but John and Mathis would have ensured that the brothers hadn’t followed her from Galveston. Fletcher and Will might eventually track her down, but for now she was safe.

  Glancing around her room, Nicole tapped the flat of the dagger blade against her hip. The wardrobe was out. With the table linens stored there, Mrs. Wellborn would have cause to dig around inside on a regular basis. The bureau? She could wrap the dagger in a spare petticoat and stuff it in the bottom of a drawer. Nicole frowned. Better not. Should the Jenkins brothers find her, they would immediately search her belongings, and she doubted the presence of frilly unmentionables would deter them.

  The bed? Nicole knelt down to peer under the mattress. A rope frame. Nowhere to conceal a dagger there. The washstand wasn’t any better. Should she bury it outside? Nicole peered out the narrow window and examined the grounds visible from her vantage point. Beneath that oak tree or behind the shed? She glanced back at the dagger, a sick feeling turning her stomach. No. She couldn’t trust it that far out of her sight. There was no telling what could happen out there. A rainstorm could erode away the dirt from where she buried her treasure, or a dog could dig it up.

  She paced the floor, her grip on the dagger tightening. She had to find—

  A squeak from a loose floorboard severed her train of thought. Dropping her gaze to the floor, she kicked aside the new rug Mrs. Wellborn had brought in and took a few calculated steps, listening for the telltale squeak.

  She heard it again, closer to the bureau. Nicole pointed her toe, extending her foot under the bureau, and experimentally pressed on the board she suspected was the culprit. Not only did it squeak, the far edge of the floorboard rose up nearly an inch when she exerted more force on the end closest to her.

  Nicole’s lips curved in satisfaction. Perfect.

  Darius sat cross-legged on the floor of his workshop surrounded by boiler plates. They were each carefully labeled so he would know which exploded boiler they had come from. He had six and a half boilers in his collection. The half being one that had blown so violently, the scrap dealer could only identify a fraction of the parts.

  Of course, none of the plates matched. If he’d learned nothing else over the last year, he’d learned to expect inconsistencies. Still, after reading that article, he’d hoped to find some common ground. He should have known better. Some of his samples were corroded, others had fractures, and one displayed virtually no wear at all. Some were made of substandard iron, while others were of high quality and appropriate thickness. No pattern. Yet all of these boilers had exploded.

  There were simply too many variables. If all explosions were due to boiler plate quality, legislation could be passed to regulate it. But the culprit could be a faulty rivet, a damaged flue, a lack of proper water maintenance, an overtaxed release valve, a clogged pipe, even the accumulation of too much mud from the pump. There were probably a dozen causes that hadn’t even been discovered yet. That’s what made this work such a nightmare. One malfunction in any of these areas could be the catalyst for an explosion. Though more often than not, a combination of factors set the deadly cogs in motion.

  What the industry needed was a regulating body that forced manufacturers and engineers to have their machines held to certain standards and inspected on a regular basis. The 1838 Act had tried to do that by holding captain and crew liable for negligence, but it did nothing to address machinery standards. The number of explosions had actually increased since that act was passed.

  They needed a new law and improved safety equipment. An accurate steam-pressure gauge could change everything. If one were found, a crewman could make adjustments to maintain an optimal level of steam without dangerous pressure buildups. It wouldn’t be perfect, explosions could still occur with faulty equipment, but it would be a step in the right direction.

  Darius sighed. The solution was no simpler than the cause. A multi-tiered problem required a multi-tiered solution. Which led him back to the boiler plates. One tier at a time.

  A quiet rap sounded a moment before his door creaked open. Darius didn’t look up. “Just set it in the usual place.” He waved vaguely, his attention focused on a scorch spot on one of the boilers. Had there been a fire before the actual explosion? Or had the boiler plate simply been overheated in more than one location, and for some reason, this section had held together while another section of the boiler blew? He flipped it over to examine the other side. Similar discoloration, but not to the same extent. It—

  “Where, exactly, is the usual place?”

  That voice. Darius’s head jerked up. The woman holding his dinner tray was definitely not Mrs. Wellborn. Far too young. Far too pretty. And far too distracting.

  “On the stool by the hearth,” he groused, hoping she’d take the hint and scurry away. Alas, Nicole Greyson—he’d made a point to jot her name down in his notebook; he always remembered things once he’d written them down—was not a scurrier. She was a swisher.

  Ignoring his impatient barking, she brushed past him, her skirts swishing in a gentle motion as she moved. Swishing in a manner that was far too intriguing. Darius gritted his teeth and forced his attention back to his scorched boiler plate. Although, from his vantage point on the floor, her skirts were impossible to ignore, being at eye level as they were. Maybe if he squinted a bit more as he stared at the boiler plate, his area of peripheral vision would shrink and reduce the pull of—

  “You’ve quite a collection, here.”

  Drat. Squinting hadn’t helped. He could still see her skirts, and the blasted things had stopped swishing altogether. She couldn’t be leaving if her skirts weren’t swishing. And what was really annoying was that they’d changed. Oh, it wasn’t annoying that she’d replaced her fancy red dress with a navy blue calico one sporting a white ruffled apron. No, that was actually quite sensible. What was annoying was that he’d noticed, and that his noticing had stolen his attention from his boiler plates.

  “Did you explode these all yourself?” For once, someone asked that question with curiosity instead of condemnation. But it didn’t matter. He needed her gone.

  “No, Miss Greyson,” he said in his most scathing tone. “My explosions are done with models on a much smaller scale. These boilers are from actual steamboats, ones I’ve collected for my research. And I’ll thank you to not touch anything.” He raised his voice on this last instruction when his peripheral vision picked up the motion of her hand reaching for one of the internal flue tubes that stood balanced against the wall. “Everything is precisely as I wish it to be in here, and you are not to disturb it. Or me
. Now get on with you. I’ll see you in the study promptly at eight tomorrow morning. We’ll discuss your duties then. Good night.”

  The skirts swished a step or two, then stopped. “Well, you did mention that I would occasionally be assisting you here. That’s why I offered to bring out your dinner tray—to familiarize myself with the building and its setup. I’ll be sure not to disturb anything until I learn your organizational system.”

  Darius forced his attention to remain on the boiler plate draped across his lap, even though all his instincts were screaming at him to look her in the face. That would be even worse than watching her skirts. He remembered those golden brown eyes, the way they sparked one minute and went all soft the next, only to be filled with triumph when she bested him a few moments later. No, her eyes were far too dangerous.

  “Your presence here is disturbing enough in and of itself.”

  Had he actually just said that? Darius stifled a groan, praying she’d heed his grouchy demeanor more than the attraction behind it. “Be gone.” He waved dismissively in the air above his head, still keeping his gaze turned away from her. “I have more important things to do than converse with a secretary who seems determined to overstep her bounds.”

  She said nothing for a long moment, and Darius had to dig the edge of the boiler plate into his shin in order to keep from stealing a peek at her face. Was she angry? Hurt? He had been rather harsh. Or did her expression register a completely different emotion? Puzzlement, perhaps, or . . . intrigue? That last thought made his stomach tighten.

  Probably just hunger.

  He was never to know what flittered across her face, if anything, however, for her skirts finally started swishing toward the door.

  “Mrs. Wellborn asked me to remind you that the biscuits and beef are best eaten warm,” she said as the door hinges creaked, announcing her departure. “As are the greens, though they were a tad bitter to my taste. Of course, you would probably find them most palatable.”

  With that, the door clicked closed.

  Darius’s head came up at the sound, and he peered at the door as if he could see through it to the woman marching back to the house with fire in every step. A reluctant grin tugged the corners of his mouth upward. The woman possessed admirable wit. Having her around might be distracting, but it was rather invigorating, as well. Darius’s smile turned downward. All the more reason to keep his distance from her. A man could come to crave . . . invigorating.

  CHAPTER 8

  He’d left her a note? Nicole stared at the slip of paper carelessly tossed atop the logbook in the center of Darius Thornton’s desk the following morning. She’d arrived precisely at eight o’clock, ready to receive her instructions for the day, but apparently her new employer couldn’t be bothered with conversing with her in person. No. He’d left her a note.

  Miss G—

  Transcribe the remainder of this notebook.

  —D

  So terse. So cold. So . . . begrudging. Did he respect her so little, then? Even after she’d proven herself capable yesterday? Nicole scrunched the slip of paper inside her rapidly closing fist. Why did men have to be such pompous idiots when interacting with female colleagues? Dictating orders instead of sharing ideas, running roughshod over common courtesy.

  At least Mr. Thornton’s note wasn’t dripping with condescension. He seemed to expect her to be able to accomplish the task he’d set before her without supervision. She supposed that indicated some level of trust in her competency. Nicole opened her hand and smoothed out the crumpled paper against the flat surface of the desk, then took her seat in the chair. Perhaps she shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the man’s character when he wasn’t there to defend himself. It was entirely possible he simply treated his correspondence with the same negligence he treated his personal habits. No need to take it personally. She should just be thankful she had employment.

  Pulling out fresh paper and ink, Nicole set to work. She was halfway through the first page when a percussive roar rattled the desk lamp and shook the floor beneath her feet. She screeched and dropped her pen, ink splatting all over the page as she grabbed for the solid wood of the desk to brace herself.

  What on earth . . . ?

  A man’s shout echoed outside. Nicole launched out of her chair and ran for the window. Nothing.

  Had Mr. Thornton fallen victim to one of his explosions? Nicole spun away from the window and dashed out into the hall. Wellborn, the butler, stood at the base of the stairs, polishing the banister.

  “Wellborn!” she called. “What’s happened?”

  The man continued polishing, as if deaf.

  “Wellborn!” she barked again, coming up beside him.

  He finally glanced up. “Oh. Sorry, miss. I didn’t hear you.” He left the polishing rag draped over the balustrade and reached both hands up to his ears. He removed a wad of cotton from each and then smiled at her.

  “Was there something you wanted?”

  Was there something she wanted? Had he not felt the very earth quake beneath his feet a moment ago? This entire household was mad.

  “Your master might be injured. I heard him shout after that horrendous roar.” She grabbed his arm and started tugging him toward the front door. “We must hurry—”

  “Easy, miss. There’s no cause for concern.” He gently extricated his sleeve from her grasp, smoothed the fabric, and dragged to a halt. “I take it Mr. Thornton failed to inform you of his schedule?” He shook his head as if answering his own question. “He can be a bit absentminded about things like that. I apologize. I’ll take it upon myself to warn you of future experiments before they occur. You shouldn’t be caught off guard again.”

  As if that were the issue.

  Wellborn sketched a quick bow, then turned back to his work, completely unconcerned that his master could at that very moment be lying somewhere outside in a mutilated heap, breathing his last. All right, so he probably wasn’t too mutilated if he’d been able to shout, but still . . . someone should check on the man. And apparently she was the only resident of sound enough mind to volunteer for the task.

  Fine.

  With a huff, Nicole gave up on the butler and marched out the front door. She’d start with the workshop and move on from there. Crossing the yard, she swept her gaze from the barn to the workshop, searching for any sign of Mr. Thornton, mutilated or otherwise. Nothing. At least if the man had indeed blown himself up, he’d had the courtesy to do so out of sight of the house. Mrs. Wellborn and Mrs. Graham would no doubt be thankful for that favor.

  She stomped toward the workshop, arms swinging, spine stiff. He better not be dead. She needed this position. Needed the wages. How else was she supposed to get to New Orleans and scare up an heir for Renard Shipping? Was his endeavoring to stay alive too much to ask? She’d known the man was a tad eccentric and enjoyed exploding things, but couldn’t he hold off on his destructive hobby long enough to let her collect a round of wages?

  A few paces away from the workshop entrance, Nicole paused to examine the structure before storming the castle. As far as she could tell, the roof hadn’t caved in. All four walls were standing. No smoke poured from the windows. The structure appeared to be sound. Bracing herself for what she might find, she strode to the door, flung it open, and stepped inside.

  “Mr. Thornton?”

  She blinked against the dim interior, her attention drawn to the sunlight streaming around the back door that hung ajar. Tentatively, she started across the room. “Mr. Thornton?”

  A grunt echoed from the other side of the door. A low rumble that grew into a lion-esque roar.

  Good heavens. Was the man dying? “Mr. Thornton!” Nicole surged across the remaining distance and pushed the door open with such force it crashed back against the opposite wall as she stepped outside.

  “Blast it all, woman! You made me drop it. I could have lost my foot.”

  Darius Thornton, perfectly hale and hearty, straightened his posture and stepped away from a t
hick free-standing log wall that looked as if it had been cut from the side of some poor family’s cabin.

  “The thing’s as heavy as a steamer trunk full of lead.” He glared at her. “What are you doing here, anyway? You’re supposed to be in the study transcribing my notes.”

  “I heard the explosion and your shout. I thought you might have been injured.”

  Her employer shook his head at her a moment before he rolled his eyes. “God save me from interfering females,” he muttered before turning back to his log wall . . . thing.

  “I was perfectly fine,” he called out as he bent to grab the handholds that had been worked into the wood a few feet off the ground, “until you showed up.” He grunted as he strained to lift the heavy piece and began dragging it, the tendons in his neck bulging as he threw his full weight behind the motion.

  A set of grooves in the hard-packed dirt beside the workshop indicated where man and wall were heading, and the snake-like trail stretching for several yards behind them demonstrated how far they’d already come. Gracious, the man must be part ox. Unable to stand still and watch another person slave away when she was in a position to lend aid, Nicole darted around to the far side of the logs. She bent her shoulder to the end piece, dug her feet into the dirt, and pushed. The logs picked up speed as they slid over the dirt.

  Once the structure was settled where it belonged, she stood back and dusted tiny bits of bark from her sleeve.

  “Thanks for helping move the barricade,” her employer groused, little actual gratitude detectable in his voice.

  “Barricade?” For the first time, Nicole recognized what she’d helped him move. She gasped and staggered back a step.

  The barricade looked like a remnant from the Alamo. Scarred logs. Bark blasted away in more places than not. Deep gouges. But what truly haunted her were the hundreds of metal scraps embedded so deeply into the logs that no one would have been able to pry them out. The thing looked like a giant pincushion.