Chapter One

Society doesn’t allow young men to marry science experiments.

Tick, tick.

My heart beat loudly—too loudly. That’s the trouble with brass.

Tick, tick.

Mrs Dawes would be calling shortly with her son, and I needed to stay calm or I’d give the game away. Everyone who was anyone wore metal, but I was the only person in London to wear it on the inside of my chest.

‘You’re ticking fit to burst, Emmeline!’ said Arabella, putting my hairbrush down amongst my scent bottles, unguents, facial powders, and half a disassembled clockwork rat. ‘They’ll discover everything at this rate.’

‘Hush. I already stopped the drawing room clock. The Daweses won’t hear a tick out of place.’

She made a face at me in the mirror, scrunching up her eyes—the same blue eyes I’d also inherited from Mother—and I smiled back at her. I’d grown fond of having my baby sister set my hair instead of a maid.

One of Mother’s pastoral watercolours hung in a wooden frame on the wall. The original gold frame had kept the servants paid for two months. It had been Arabella’s idea to sell it. She possessed a natural flair for intrigue that worried me sometimes. Best to marry soon, and hope she followed suit before clever lies became too solid a habit for both of us. Or perhaps the lies would prove more useful than ever. I was hazy on the details of married life. The main thing was to get it done as quickly and profitably as possible.

‘Soon it’ll be you receiving the young men,’ I said, pleased at the thought that if this afternoon went smoothly I’d be settled soon, and she could choose whomever she liked best.

Arabella stuck out her tongue.

‘Or perhaps not,’ I said.

She sniffed. ‘Boys? I should think not.’

I stood, straightening my skirts so the discreet wheels keeping my petticoats aligned fell in a circle around my slippered feet. Arabella’s opinions on boys would change soon enough.

She stepped back and examined me with a critical air. Despite her tender years she very nearly faced me eye to eye. ‘Shall I t