“What value will they have if just anyone can afford them?”
Eleanor blinked. “I… Uh…” That was not the point she was trying to make at all.
Lady Wharton thumped her cane thrice. When she huffed, Eleanor was surprised not to see steam rise.Thiswas thedragon the newspapers spoke of. “What are we planning to do about it, Miss Wright?”
“I plan to destroy him so fully that he cannot evenlookat a book again without feeling the failure in his bones. We compete tomorrow. He will lose, and he’ll never set foot in a printing house again.”
“Tomorrow, you say.”
“Indeed.”
“Then go home, Miss Wright. You must rest, and I have some rewriting to do. There has been some character development.”
How satisfying it was to know that that the duke’s villainy was about to be immortalized in literature. Eleanor would succeed tomorrow, and then gleefully set Agatha’s novel herself.
Chapter Thirteen
“Are you certain this is a good idea?” Mabel asked.
“It’s best to look your enemy in the eye,” Eleanor responded, marching firmly toward the building the duke had sent her directions to.
“Are we talking about Zoo Man or the Linotype?” Lillian asked.
“Both, and we have nothing to fear from either.” Eleanor sensed her two friends exchange a look as they traveled behind her. While both had agreed that the duke was, in fact, the devil and had condemned him thoroughly for not revealing his true identity earlier, neither had manifested the same level of rage toward the machine he was selling, just wariness.
He must have had his man standing by the door, because within seconds of Eleanor’s giving it a firmrat-ta-tat,it swung open.
“Miss Wright, I presume.” The man doffed his hat respectfully. He had a soft smile and kind eyes. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Andrew Gray, at your service.”
Eleanor liked him instantly, damn it. “It is certainly interesting to meet you, Mr. Gray, given the circumstances.” She held out a hand. She didn’t normally wear her best gloves onworkdays, even though her typecase was spotless. She’d bought the gloves from a traveling Romani, and she’d never find the like again. But they matched her olive green jacket bodice, which was also not her usual work attire, and the ensemble was an armor of sorts. “May I introduce my work partners, Miss Cole and Miss Thompson?”
Mr. Gray shook her hand firmly and then offered his to her friends. “I’d heard that typesetting was a solo task.”
“We do things differently,” she replied, more defensively than she would have liked.
“Which is what makes you the best, I hear.” He stepped back, gesturing widely at the warehouse behind him. “You’re most welcome. Please come in.”
There was no natural light. Gas lamps hung from the ceiling at irregular intervals, casting the room in an uneven orange hue.
Eleanor’s breath caught. She hadn’t given much thought to the actual challenge between the night she’d issued it and now. Her mind had been too preoccupied with the challengerand with the Captain. But if shehadstopped to think, she would never have anticipated a warehouse so large, filled with row upon row of the infernal machines. They were huge, easily as tall as she was, and imposing both in their size and in the danger that was only now beginning to register.
They were not some novelty. They were not some grandiose idea from an aristocrat whose head was in the clouds. They were very, very real.
“Goodness,” Mabel said, her tone echoing Eleanor’s shock. “You must be very confident about this investment to have built so many of these machines already.”
“We are. The design is flawless and all the tests we’ve doneso far suggest the Linotype will be far more efficient than traditional methods.”
Her. He was saying that it would be far more efficient thanher. She was the “traditional method.”
“How many machines are there?” She almost choked on the words. They were all neatly placed. She could’ve counted one row, and then done the multiplication, but she was feeling dizzy, and the abacus in her brain was sliding about.
“There are three hundred in this showroom,” Mr. Gray said.
“That is almost thirty percent of the newspaper compositors in London.”
“Yes, and they will do more than quadruple the work.”
Blood drained from her face, but she refused to give any other sign that his words had thoroughly rattled her. Instead, she gathered up all the courage she could muster. “Youthinkit will quadruple their work. But that’s what we’re here today to prove, are we not?” Her voice sounded hollow, and she prayed he hadn’t noticed.
