Maddie allowed herself the luxury of one more kiss—a slow savoring of lips and heated breath. “Then let’s get you set to rights.”
Back into the soft stays Sophie went, all her small scars hidden again from ravenous eyes. Maddie stood behind her to pull the laces tight and do up the brown gown, and consoled herself by dropping a kiss where the lovebird ribbon ended at the shoulder seam.
Sophie finished putting her hair back in order and glanced at Maddie over her shoulder. “You will come see me if there is anything I can do?”
“I will,” Maddie said. “Though we shouldn’t have to trouble you. We have plenty of hands available.”
“Of course.” Sophie ducked her head.
She looked so forlorn that Maddie stepped forward and embraced her, pressing comforting lips to the nape of that bowed neck. “You never did scream,” she murmured. “I have to keep that promise, don’t I?”
Sophie nestled against Maddie’s chest, fingers twining together. “If you insist,” she said, in a tone so pristine and proper that it tempted Maddie to undo all that lacing and ravish her a second time.
Maddie stole another few kisses on the way down the stairs, and again as Sophie wrapped her cloak and her muffler back around herself. She melted back into the night as quietly as she’d arrived, leaving Maddie to mount the stairs again one lonely step at a time. She undressed, wishing it were Sophie’s hands instead of hers on tapes and laces and linen, then she burrowed into the sheets in search of the ghosts of warmth and company.
The bed smelled of Sophie’s pleasure, tart and luscious.
Maddie’s hands dove between her legs. She made herself come, over and over, until her eyes drifted shut in wanton exhaustion.
From the doorway of the Weavers’ Library, Maddie declared: “Miss Slight is a genius.”
In the few short weeks since they’d begun planning their crime, the young lady had designed and built something truly terrifying: a tower of metal discs, half-corroded in a deeply alarming way and ringed by bubbling jars, linked to one another by twisting coils of wire. A branch of candles nearby sent light through the liquid to ripple on the floor in eldritch waves. The occasional spark spit out from this mess to extinguish itself on the thick fire-dampening cloth beneath.
A thick coil of wire snaked out of the tower and connected to a wooden cabinet—a tall, varnished, hulking thing with six palm-sized holes drilled front and back like the pips on a playing card. It loomed in the center of the room, looking like nothing so much as a coffin stood on its end. On the side of the cabinet where the wire went in was a large lever, painted crimson.
The whole apparatus looked like a device that could destroy the world.
“Of course it’s perfectly harmless,” Miss Slight explained, as she and Alice Bilton dropped more dye and soda ash into the jars. “Anyone who knows anything about voltaic piles can see it’s all smoke and nonsense.”
“I think we can trust Mr. Giles not to be one of those people,” Mrs. Money said, looking alarmed in contrast to the brave military cut of her gown. “But since I amalsoone of those people, I will ask again: Are you certain this is safe?”
Maddie had been to the Slights’ shop—a place Miss Slight’s hands had filled with pocket watches and children’s toys and miniature mechanical birds that piped realistic calls. It was work that took imagination, care, and a zealous attention to even the smallest details. “I’m sure,” Maddie said firmly, and smoothed down her silk skirts.
Tonight Maddie would be garbed in blue—the same blue silk they’d used as bait, but without the red and gold and green threads. It was the first time in years she would wear fabric so fine: she used to make herself things out of leftovers and the odd ends of bolts, back when she and her mother were weaving broadcloth, but since she’d moved to ribbon weaving she didn’t have scraps to play with the same way. She’d missed the weight of silk, as she held the bundled gown over her arms. She couldn’t seem to stop her hands from stroking the nap of the cloth.
She wanted Sophie’s hands on this dress, and on the body beneath. Maddie had walked by the instrument shop once or twice, but otherwise she’d been keeping her distance from the quiet and too-tempting Miss Roseingrave, who knew too many of Maddie’s secrets.When this is over,she told herself.When it’s safer.But her resolve to hold that distance was weakening day by day. The feel of silk against her skin might shred it utterly.
She wanted Sophie to peel this dress from her layer by layer, hungrily, until only Maddie remained.
But that would have to wait. First, she had to put on a little show for Mr. Giles.
He arrived precisely five minutes late—punctual enough that he couldn’t be faulted for it, but tardy enough that he didn’t have to waste any of his own time waiting for anybody else. Mrs. Money greeted him and permitted herself to be kissed and complimented.
Her smile never wavered, not even as Mr. Giles’s lying lips touched the back of her glove. Maddie wondered what it cost the onetime Jenny Hull, to bear that touch and stay so cool and aloof.
“I must ask you, sir, to never divulge the secrets I am about to reveal to you.”
“Madam,” he said, and for once Maddie could believe him sincere, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Mrs. Money waved Maddie forward; she put on her best sulk and obeyed.
“Miss Crewe will be donning our dress for this transformation,” Mrs. Money said. “We have refreshed the color specifically for tonight’s demonstration, so that you may see how completely it transforms. Horace was very careful to make it so a lady didn’t have to remove any clothing for the process to work—in fact, he found it more reliable when it was on a person than when he used a mannequin. Something about animal magnetism, I think?” She waved a hand. “It’s in his notes somewhere, I’m sure.”
“May I?” asked Mr. Giles, his eyes on the cloth. Maddie held out the gown, and let him poke and pull at the silk until he was satisfied to its quality and construction.
“If you would, Miss Crewe,” Mrs. Money said, and Maddie stepped behind a screen with Alice and Miss Slight.
“Would you like a closer look at the cabinet?” Mrs. Money asked.
